About Melanie

A fitness enthusiast and a foodie, I have learned that you can be healthy and enjoy life to its fullest. Let me teach you!

Chicken-Kale Curry

This recipe is one of my creations. Often I just start cooking, and make it up as I go and then forget what I did. Bummer! Not this time though, my husband was sitting by taking notes.
This was very tasty and even better as leftovers. We ate it as is, but it would be great over couscous, rice, or even better spaghetti squash!

A few notes about this recipe:

  • I have a Le Creuset cast iron Karahi which is perfect for this, the lid of my 5 quart Dutch oven fits perfectly on it. Any pot that retains heat very well and has a tight fitting lid will do.
  • The amount of spices might be a little intimidating, it’s not all that overwhelming, still adjust to your taste obviously.

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Chicken-Kale Curry
4 servings

Ingredients
1 TBSP oil
4 med, skinless, bone in chicken thighs
1 red onion, quartered, sliced
1 serrano chile, sort of seeded, minced
2 tsp minced garlic (or 2 frozen cubes)
2 carrots, sliced
1/4 cup broccoli, chopped
1 can diced, fire roasted tomatoes
3 cups kale chopped
Spices: 1 TBSP garam masala, 1 tsp curry powder (madras), 1 generous pinch cayenne pepper, 1 generous pinch clove
Sal pepper to taste
1/2 cup chicken broth (to be used as needed)

Heat up oil in a Karahi over medium-high flame (it’s like a wok with a flat bottom). Sprinkle both sides of the chicken pieces generously with the spice mix (I used about 1/3 of the mix). Brown chicken on each side, take out set aside.

Sauteed the onions in the hot karahi until lightly brown (5-8 minutes). Add the Serrano pepper and garlic and cook until fragrant (30-60 seconds), add carrots and broccoli and sauteed about a minute or two until just tender. Add about 2/3 of the spices left, salt and pepper to taste, and sauteed stirring until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the tomatoes, 1/4 cup of chicken broth and stir, scrapping the bottom.

Lower the flame to medium-low and dump the kale on top of the mixture (do not stir yet!), sprinkle with more spices and cover. Let the kale steam for about 3 minutes. Uncover and stir to coat the steamed kale with the sauce.

Move the veggies around to make a little “nest” for the chicken thighs put them in and cover them with the mixture. Cover and cook, over medium-low flame for about 20-25 minutes. Stir every once in a while, and add some broth if it gets too dry in there. You want it saucy (not soupy) but you don’t want it to stick either! I cooked it about 1 minute uncovered over high flame at the end to let it thicken up a little more.

Nutritional information*: Calories 176.7; Fat 6.9g; Carbs 13.6g; Fibers 4.0g; Proteins 16.8g.
Source: My brain!

*Nutritional information is calculated using various online calculators and given for informational purpose only. I cannot guarantee 100% accuracy.

Welcome to Babalance!

This is only the beginning of a great adventure!  Stay tuned as this blogs continues to grow and develop to its full potential (kinda like we do while we learn a new, healthier lifestyle right?). Lets get started with a bit about me and about what my plans are for Babalance:

My name is Melanie Bourgeois, and I have been working to help people find a way to live a healthy lifestyle without giving up on enjoying life for almost 10 years now. Of course I had to learn myself first.

In the fall of 2002, I found myself sitting in front of a doctor who told me in unmistakable terms that I was headed to disaster. I was almost 80 lbs overweight, smoking, and my diet was probably the worst I could have come up with. I was not really unhappy but I was not happy either. On the bright side, I was newly married to a wonderful man, but I was also living in a new country, speaking a new language, and struggling to adapt to the “American way of life”. More than that though, I could not understand what was happening to my body.

Summer 2002 on my honeymoon

You see, I wasn’t overweight for very long, I have always enjoyed sports and had a pretty athletic built. After an injury, college and all that it implies, I gained weight very fast and couldn’t seem to shake it off. My first step was to join the YMCA. Having been an athlete, I knew that being physically active was essential not only to lose weight, but to keep it off without having to starve myself. I found myself getting fit pretty quickly, but I was not getting smaller.

After my doctor visit, ego kicked in and I decided to stop playing around and to take my health seriously. I stopped smoking right away and decided to “eat right”. A week later I was 10 lbs heavier and had to admit this one simple fact: I know nothing about eating right. That’s when I joined Weight Watchers. 9 months later I had lost 70 lbs and was finally where I wanted to be. I was working out regularly, I was eating low calorie meals, and I was finally able to move freely and be at ease in my own body. I could be ME again! Loving my new life, I started helping others do the same as a leader for Weight Watchers.

In the 8 or more years that followed, I continued to learn and discover new things, new ideas about how and what to eat so that not only my meals were healthy, but also tasty and satisfying. I also learned about how to move better rather than moving more so that I can have fun being active rather than always feeling like I’m never doing enough. This voyage of discovery has taken me so far from the girl who thought eating carrots for every meal and snack was the way to go, and yet so close to who I really am.

Babalance is the culmination of that journey. My goal is to help my readers to discover, as I have, how they can live a healthy, active and more importantly enjoyable lifestyle. Living in a healthy way is not punishing ourselves for having overindulged, quite the contrary it’s opening the door to truly enjoying every day with more energy, less pain, and the confidence that no matter what happen, we can make it work.

The Babalance name comes from several things:

  • The first “B-A” Stands for Bay Area, since I live and work in the beautiful San Francisco area.
  • Balance comes from the idea that long term success is a matter of balance: balancing food and activity, balancing the obligations of every day life with our fitness goals and the work that comes with them, balancing the need for tasty enjoyable foods with the need to cut unnecessary calories
  • Balance also is the French word for a scale! The metal monster which can either be our best friend or at least our most honest one.
  • Finally, I like the sound of “Babalance”. It’s bouncy, joyful, just saying it out loud makes me smile, because really, if we’re not having fun we are wasting our time!

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So there you have it in a nutshell. Babalance is to be the place where you can come and find information, ideas, and inspiration on how to keep moving, how to eat right (and tasty), and how to find balance in all aspects of your life.
Please bear with me as I build this new site, and never be afraid to comment! This site is for YOU!

Melanie Bourgeois