Indonesian Coconut Rice with Chicken and Zucchini

This week our Gutsy Cook Club assignment for our month of rice was "all in one dish."

We went with the Indonesian Coconut Rice with Chicken and Zucchini choice. (recipe linked to this Food & Wine recipe on their website.)

We went with this for a multitude of reasons on this Friday night; I love a good chicken & rice dish, throw in some ethnic flavors like coconut, cumin and coriander even better, and most importantly it was Friday night after long week that included a full moon and an "all in one" dish fit the bill. (If you work in a school you believe in the power of a full moon...let me tell ya.My school has a lot of full moon stories.)

This was a pretty simple to put together kind of meal and having all of the ingredients readily on hand made it even more doable on the night of the week we are definitely more prone to order a pizza or hit a local happy hour rather than cook.

I browned the chicken thighs first, prepping the other vegetables during this step. G was taking advantage of one of few dry days this week to do the most likely one final lawn mowing for the season and bring in the rest of the patio furniture. (ah...it's always just  a little sad when we do this because of how much we love to lounge on the patio.)

 After I set the chicken aside next went in the onions & garlic.

Followed by the spices and rice into the dutch oven.

Finally the coconut milk & chicken go back into the pot for about 20 minutes before adding the zucchini.

I opened a bottle of Columbia Valley Six Prong Chardonnay to go with this chicken & rice dish.

G was very excited by the wonderful aromas in the kitchen that he came in from his chores to enjoy. We both love these flavors and aromas. 

I was good flavor. The rice came about just a bit gummier than I would of liked really but overall it was good. G isn't the biggest chicken & rice dish fan...he always says "It needs more sauce or something." I think that's because he's more of a pasta  & sauce kind of guy.

One of the quandaries I noticed with this dish was that the chicken lost it's nice crisp browning while cooking back in the coconut and rice. Cooking fully in the flavors definitely infused the flavor into the chicken but it would of been nice texturally to have the crisped skin too (think it would of made for a better photo too.)

So not fully sure how to remedy that one or that it really needs to be remedied. More just a personal thing I suppose.