white girl butter chicken.

I love, love, love Indian food.  One cold night I decided to attempt to make one of my favourites, lightened up.  The results were actually more delicious than I had ever imagined. Take that, take-out!!

ingredients 

• 3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized portions.
• 1 medium sized onion, chopped.
• 1 tbsp. fresh grated ginger.
• 4 cloves of garlic, minced.  (Normal people would use 2.  I love garlic.)
• 1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped.
• 1 tbsp. olive oil.
• 2 tsp. garam masala.
• 1 tsp. chili powder.
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon.
• 1 tsp. cardamom.
• 1/2 tsp. coriander.
• 1/4 tsp. ground cloves.
• 1/2 tsp. salt.
• 1/2 tsp. pepper.
• 1 6 oz. can of tomato paste.
• 1 15 oz. can diced tomatoes, no sodium added.
• 1 1/2 cups of chicken broth, low sodium.
• 3/4 cup fat free half & half cream.
• 3 tbsp butter, creamed.

directions

• Heat oil over medium heat in a large skillet until it is hot.  Add your onion, garlic, ginger, jalapeno.  Cook for about 4-5 minutes--until the onions are sweating and softening.  Stir in all of your spices (But not the salt and pepper.  Save those for later.  I usually pre-mix therest of my spices together in a small mug.  They smell DELICIOUS together and your kitchen will too.)  and cook for another minute or so.
• Bust out your food processor and add stock, tomato paste, diced tomatoes.  Add everything from the skillet and mix until you have a smooth sauce texture.
• Pour your sauce back into the skillet and add cream.  Bring to a simmer.    Add chicken, salt and pepper and keep the mixture at a simmer for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.     
• Add your creamed butter to your sauce and mix well. 
• Serve with naan bread or rice.  I also serve a small portion of non-fat plain yogurt.  

 what i would do differently next time

• Well, the first time I made this dish I skipped the food processor step and so my sauce was chunky.  Apparently I am the only person in the world who appreciates chewing garlic slices.  Yep, I didn't mince them.
• Less diced tomatoes.  For the post I have reduced the amount of diced tomatoes.  The second time I made it I didn't use as much chicken and used the same amount of tomatoes.  Lots of sauce, not enough chicken.  So I would try to balance it out a bit more.  Although, I made some rice and just had the sauce on it for lunch leftovers and it was divine.  
• Don't break my food processor.  So, when I made this recipe a second time I added the processor step.  And somehow burnt out the motor of my brand new food processor after ONE use.  Thankfully my mother has the receipt and we are exchanging it.
• Take a photo of the finished product before devouring it.