After looking at some pictures on my computer, I was really craving Chinese food. But since I’m trying to spend less money on food, I decided to try to make something.

Going back to the all-or-nothing thing, I think sometimes I have a hard time with cooking because of the all-or-nothing mentality. I want to either cook some amazing blog-worthy meal or not cook at all. A simple protein + vegetable + grain meal bores me—even though it’s easy.

But tonight! Tonight was different. I looked at the plan that Nutritionista developed for me, and one of the meal suggestions was: 

Any meat (chicken, beef, pork, or shrimp), bell peppers, and onion sautéed in coconut milk and curry paste for a Thai-flavored dish.

I’d bought coconut milk and I knew I had curry paste from a yummy Thai spiced tofu recipe, so I thought I’d give it a try. After the other night’s cooking fail, I knew I needed a recipe. After a little time with Google, I found this recipe for coconut curry Thai chicken.

I didn’t have half the ingredients in the recipe, so I improvised. I just used half a can of coconut milk, the curry paste and cayenne pepper and some lime juice for the sauce. I combined these ingredients in a pan and added the chicken, bell peppers and some kale. In a separate pot, I made some whole-wheat linguine. This recipe was so easy even I couldn’t ruin it.

The end product:

Because of the fat from the coconut milk, this was ridiculously satisfying, and I didn’t need to eat much to be full. Yay fat!