Does it work? 12: Sweet potato chicken curry

I've slowly been allowing coconut into my diet. Which is good, because then I end up with wins like this curry!

The recipe is Denise of Sweet Peas and Saffron's Slow Cooker Sweet Potato Chicken Curry. Fair warning, I got a little bit creative with this one, but I don't think it's radically far from her recipe. I'll do my best to guide you through my process.

Substituted (3 of 19): 
- Chicken breasts for thighs (They're lower fat, which is good for my high cholesterol; also, did I weigh them? Nah.)
- Water + chicken bullion for stock (I'm lazy.)
- Lemon juice for lime juice (One acid is much like another, unless you're literally making limeade.)

Left out (1 of 19): 
- Spinach (I forgot! It happens when I'm faced with really long ingredient lists.)

Got creative/lazy with: 
- Thai Red Curry Paste

Real talk: Sometimes I get tired of buying random oils/spices/blends/pastes/etc. Even if I think I'll use them again, it's annoying to go hunt them down at the grocery store, annoying to have yet another tiny bottle of something-or-other [1], annoying to spend money I don't want to spend. This Thai curry paste was one of those times. I thought, "We have a lot of Asian cooking ingredients. I'ma wing it." [2]

Luckily, though, the internet exists so I didn't have to totally wing it: I used this recipe as a guide. I didn't measure anything, because the curry paste recipe makes 1 cup, and I only needed a tablespoon. Didn't have lemongrass, red chiles, white pepper, shrimp paste - but when there's a list of 15+ ingredients, I figure a loss of four won't make a huge difference. Of the spices and oils I had, I just added a bit of each spice to my flavor base and called it good.

I think the main thing this "winging it" affected was the heat - my curry came out very mild.

Other notes: 
- Remember: you never have to peel anything.
- I didn't have quite enough garam masala; it was fine.
- I did the unthinkable and used a separate pan to make the "flavor base". Being that I am opposed to slow cooker meals that take more than the crock-pot itself to make, this was a big step for me. I'm not sure how much it affected things, so if I ever make it without pre-flavor-basing, I'll let you know.
- I left mine in for 3.5 hours, and it was probably ready to eat at the 3-hour mark.

Did it work? Definitely! It was warm and filling on a cold and bleary day.

xo,
Devo

[1] I'm vaguely on a minimal-izing journey, so ymmv regarding lots of tiny bottles.

[2] Ten points to Gryffindor if you get my Finder reference.