A craving for Peanut Sauce

I was at work on Thursday morning thinking about what I was going to make for dinner. Thursday dinner is always a bit interesting, because we have Bible study at 6pm and I get home around 3:45-4pm. When it was warmer I used to bring a picnic lunch and meet Denver after he got done with work (4:45pm). So, basically Thursday dinners need to be quick. Because of the need for speed we usually have leftovers and I try to plan ahead on Tuesday and Wednesday to have something extra by Thursday.

But back to this week: we didn't have anything made in the fridge...and I was really wanting peanut sauce. So I looked up quick recipes during my prep period and found Thai Peanut Noodles. Over lunch I ran to the grocery store and picked up the few things we didn't have in our kitchen. I was SO excited for dinner!

I'll be the first to admit that normally it takes me about DOUBLE the time estimated on a recipe to actually finish baking or cooking what I set out to make. I was hopeful that this would be different. The recipes (I was going off of two) both have estimated time of 15-30 minutes. It took me just under an hour, but I added meat to the dish. :) My chicken was frozen, which easily added 20 minutes to the cooking time. I bet this could be a 30 min meal when perfected!

Here's the recipe I came up with, combining the two:

Sauce:
1/2 C. Coconut milk (I kept adding to thin out the sauce and used the whole can) 1/4 c. in the chicken
1/2 C. Creamy Peanut Butter
2 T. Ginger minced + 1 t. in the chicken
2 T. (or to taste) reduced sodium Soy Sauce  1 T. in chicken
1-2 T. Hot Chili Sauce

Chicken:
2 Chicken Breasts Sliced (or smaller would be ok)
olive oil for the pan when cooking the chicken
Listed above: Soy sauce, coconut milk, ginger

When chicken is cooked add vegetables: Broccoli in small pieces, sweet peppers sliced, carrots, sugar peas, (asparagus - the recipe listed, I'm curious how this would taste).

We used Linguine noodles and layered all three on our plate: Noodles, Chicken/Veggies, Peanut Sauce, topped with some chopped peanuts.  It was delicious! Denver commented many times how fun it was and tasty too!

We both thought it could used a little bit more salt (non was added and it was reduced soy sauce). If you have regular soy sauce it will probably taste fine, or you could add chicken broth to the peanut sauce and the chicken. Another fun addition would be sesame oil to cook the chicken.  Enjoy!