This past week the unspeakable happened…my oven broke. Given that I do not have a microwave in my apartment, I was in a serious bind. This left me resorting to take-out food and cereal for dinner. While my oven was M.I.A., my good friend Jamie offered me her old slow cooker to compensate my misfortune. This isn’t just any slow cooker, this is Jamie’s magical slow cooker. She has whipped up tons upon tons of fabulous dinners with this crowd pleasing crockpot. In hopes of it bringing me the same good luck, I, of course, decided to take her up on that offer.

When asking around what I should cook this weekend, I received a unanimous  response: “something with meat.”

Hmmm… Beginning to get the impression that my friends are fairly tired of my current dessert phase. I will be the first to admit I have an obsession with carbs and don’t venture to the meat section too often. For the sake of their waistlines (and mine), I decided to whip up something a little different this week and make coconut curry soup…via slow cooker.

I started by throwing in:

diced chicken breast

2 cans of lite coconut milk

3/4 can of chicken broth

2 tablespoons of ginger powder

3-4 whopping tablespoons of mild curry powder

2 teaspoons of chile powder

2 tablespoons of soy sauce

1 table spoon of brown sugar

minced garlic

and

small handful of chopped leeks

I let this mixture cook about 4 hours on a high setting. The scent was wonderful! Once the chicken was cooked, I threw in a package of udon noodles. It is important to only throw in the udon noodles right before you are serving your soup. These noodles take about 8-10 minutes to cook. If you let the noodles sit in the slow cooker they will get mushy and slimy.

It appears Jamie’s slow cooker has brought me the same luck. This dish turned out FABULOUS and got great reviews. It was perfect for my rainy day Sunday. With recipes such as this one, you do not need to be exact on the measurements. In the end, you should make your dishes to satisfy you and your guests’ tastebuds. So lose the measuring cups and teaspoons and start tasting!