Butter Chicken Cook Off!!!!

Falling into a pattern, I again went light in the morning to save room for dinner. 

On the way back to my parents' house, I came across a truck carrying my dumbbells to my house for me.

Once I got to my parents' house, I had another brotein bar for lunch.

My mom and I were then about to leave to play tennis, so I carbed up with some white cheddar bunnies.

I made it a little interesting by adding in some Boursin-esque garlic and herb cheese.

This was delicious, and the perfect fuel for some good ole' fashioned tennising.

When we got home, we quickly started on our Butter Chicken cook off. After our last attempt at Butter Chicken, I wasn't satisfied with the results. I vowed to try a different recipe, so I found one. In the meantime, my mom had also been searching for a recipe. We both wanted to try our respective recipes, so the Butter Chicken cook off was born! Her's was a faster version, involving making the sauce and then cooking the chicken with the sauce. Mine was a little more involved in that it included marinating the chicken in yogurt (which I did for a few hours), cooking it in the oven and under the broiler, and then making the sauce. When we were both about finished, this is what it looked like.

My mom's, on the left, looked like what I always expect Butter Chicken to look like. It was a beautiful orange color and looked and smelled downright amazing.

Mine, on the other hand, was much darker. It didn't look to my eyes anything like Butter Chicken. It also smelled really heavy of ginger, and I was then worried that it would taste too gingery, which is the same problem our previous attempt suffered from.

But I forged on, and we cooked some rice and heated some naan to go with our Butter Chicken.

My first plate was a sampler of both recipes. My mom's is the one that looks obviously like Butter Chicken. I also grabbed some rice and naan.

Here's a closer up view of the Butter Chicken. Which one looks better? You be the judge.

So, I proceeded to try them individually with no rice or naan. After I sampled one recipe, I cleared my palette with a little naan, then I tried the other. To my extreme happiness, they were both outstanding! The recipes had a slightly different taste from one another, but they were both so good. My parents and I tried for a while to determine which one was better, but just when you started leaning one way, tasting the other brought it back to even. We concluded that they were equally good, although different. In the end, we decided that the next time we make Butter Chicken, we'll prepare the chicken according to my recipe (marinated in yogurt then baked and broiled) and the sauce according to my mom's. But I can honestly say that both of these Butter Chickens would be perfectly at home on good Indian restaurant's buffet or menu. These really were that good. They were so good, in fact, that they are making me reconsider what my favorite homemade meal is. Is it the lasagna that Sidney and I made? Or is it the Butter Chicken that my mom and I made? Again, it's too close to call, and I concluded that I liked them both equally and appreciated their differences as uniquely amazing. I would gladly make either again in a heartbeat!

Of course, when eating good Butter Chicken and good naan, you simply must experience the Dream Bite:

It was so good that any thoughts of portion size control were lost. I had more.

It turned out that this didn't matter too much, because after dinner we had some cake and ice cream!

What a wonderful way to cap a wonderful dinner. Mission accomplished.