Running Meal Planning and The Making of a Recipe

Since my refrigerator isn't large enough to meal prep for one person for a whole week, never mind three, and my freezer isn't large enough to freeze leftover meals or make-ahead crock-pot meals, I do something I can only call Running Meal Planning.  My partner and I take turns making meals in the evening, with what we call Intentional Leftovers.  This gives us lunch for the next day, and sometimes additional meals for later days.

We thawed a value pack of chicken breasts yesterday, 3 pounds!  So today my challenge was to choose two meals, two different cuisines to keep meals interesting enough if we're going to have several meals of each.

I remembered I'd previously made the marinade for Chicken Burrito Bowl with Cilantro Lime Rice, so half of the meat went into a storage bag with that.

We also have 2 pounds of fresh snow peas, so I considered a stir fry.  I grew up on Szechuan cuisine but I don't remember mom making something with chicken and snow peas.  A few searches of "chicken" and "snow peas" with alternately "black bean sauce" (because I remembered a pork and black bean dish I adore), "brine," "spicy," and finally "Thai" led me to the idea of a Thai green curry chicken dish with snow peas. 

Into another labeled zipper bag went the other half of the chicken with a brine based on this one from TheKitchn.

1.5 lbs. chicken breast
1 quart water
1/4 c. sea salt
small handful of black peppercorns
large handful of freeze-dried lemongrass I have but it's too bland, so I need to use it up
three large garlic cloves, peeled, smashed, and thinly sliced
3/4" knob of ginger, peeled and thinly sliced
1/4 t. or more powdered lemon peel

The recipe I found is from a site I haven't heard of, but I've developed a fairly good sense of how to read a recipe and interpret whether I'd like it, and I happen to have all but one ingredient -- http://www.panningtheglobe.com/2016/01/19/thai-green-curry-chicken-snow-peas/


I don't have green curry paste, and I can't eat most prepared products, so off I went in search of a green curry paste recipe.  I found two that sound tasty, so I'll likely make something somewhere in between:

https://www.thespruce.com/thai-green-curry-paste-3217305
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/greencurrypaste_67789

For this I will need to acquire:
Fresh chilies
Lemongrass
Shrimp paste, maybe