Yellow Chicken Curry for Beginners

I've been reading about the health benefits of curry in India. They have relatively no instances of Alzheimers there. They eat curry on everything. I figured I could help that curve a bit in our own lives by bringing it into our kitchen. So I thought I would start with the simple, Trader Joe's Yellow Curry Sauce version. I still used organic chicken, carrots, potatoes and cilantro. But the sauce came from a jar. It turned out to be a good idea to see if Mister would want me to attempt to make it from scratch.
Using a recipe in the Williams-Sonoma Asian Food Made Fast cookbook, I modified it for use with the ready-made sauce and added a few twists of my own.

1 tbsp canola or vegetable oil
1 teaspoon kosher salt
4 chicken thighs
1 bottle (11 oz.) Trader Joe's Yellow Curry Sauce
1-14 oz. can of diced tomatoes
three small potatoes
four carrots
small bunch of fresh cilantro
Steamed white rice

Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees. In a medium frying pan with a lid, brown the chicken pieces on medium-high heat in the oil for 5 minutes on each side. Remove chicken from pan and pour out excess oil. Add the bottle of Yellow Curry Sauce and half the can of diced tomatoes to the pan. Heat to a simmer and return the chicken to the pan. Put on a tightly fitting lid and put in the oven for 30 minutes. While the chicken is baking, peel the potatoes and carrots, and chop into large dice. Stir the carrots and potatoes into the pan. Return lid, and put back in the over for an additional 30 minutes. Have steamed white rice available about the same time. Serve rice covered by a piece of chicken, vegetables and sauce. Sprinkle with fresh chopped cilantro.

We ate ours with Trader Joe's Whole Wheat Tandoori Naan and their cilantro & chive dip made out of yogurt. It was tasty, if not a tad too sweet for me. But I thoroughly enjoyed it. Husband did as well and I will be attempting to make it from scratch next time. I found organic yellow curry powder at OB People's Coop today. I'm officially a member now!

I hope to share my scratch recipe soon, for those of you who would like to forgo the bottled sauce. It's a great time-saver for dinner parties though. I bet the whole shootin' match would work great in a slow cooker as well.

Sorry there are no pictures. Yellow just isn't a good color on me!