Thai Chicken

           My brother-in-law Jim married Pegju, a beautiful woman from Thailand.  When I first heard the news, I was excited that our family would be eating new and exotic foods.  The first time they had us over to his home for dinner, Pegju and Jim had a secret contest going about the two different types of chicken cooked for the evening.  One type was cooked by Jim and the other Pegju.  Quickly Jim’s pride was assaulted when the family started raving about Pegju’s chicken.  She smiled a big smile and said to Jim, “See I told you mine was better!” 

            My new sister-in-law’s cooking gave me an idea to venture into Thai cuisine.  Today was my first chicken dish prepared with a Thai BBQ sauce.  This sauce from A Taste of Thai, (No, Pegju, not home-made…yet!) contains coconut, sugar, peanuts, curry paste and a handful of other seasonings.  The taste was smooth and peanutty curry, something I have never tasted before.  It was totally amazing!  In addition to the Thai chicken, I cooked zucchini, carrots, red onions, garlic, with salt and pepper in sesame oil.  Adding another American touch to the meal, I rubbed potatoes with olive oil and sprinkled sea salt on them, placing them in the over for about an hour in a half. The skins on these potatoes were crunchy and delicious, perfectly complementing to the chicken and vegetables.

1.         Cook chicken breasts in sesame oil. When they are almost finished, cut them into strips.

2.         Add A Taste of Thai Peanut Satay Sauce to the chicken breasts before slicing them into strips.  I started with some on one side and then flipped and added more.  Eat.  Enjoy.       

Fruit and Veggie Curry

      Years ago I traveled to jolly old England to visit my friends Sue, Anthony and Debbie.  While I stayed at Anthony and Sue’s home they introduced me to fish and chips, and what they call a chip sandwich.  Of course we Americans understand deep fried pieces of cod with malt vinegar, but the chip sandwich was something far beyond my expectation.  Basically is a carbohydrate nightmare consisting of two slices of white bread, ketchup and French fries.  I think this meal lacked protein.  I laughed when the waiter brought Anthony his sandwich and wondered who first invented such a thing?  I guess one would not think to order a side of fries with that meal.    After staying at my Anthony and Sue’s home I moved over to Debbie’s place for a couple of days.  Here I learned the art of making curries.  Debbie created the most wonderful chicken curry I had ever tasted.  When I got back to Germany, our friends Kevin and Rachel invited us over for an unbelievable chicken curry dinner.  These Brits really got me hooked; now we literally crave curry when too many days go by without it.

     Today’s offering consisted of a fruit and vegetable curry with diced, a nice sliced browned brat from the butcher on top. (Let’s call it Kalkaska for those who are not able to buy brats.) This meal was not a spicy hot curry, more to the sweet and sassy side.  It momentarily crossed my mind, but I can’t see myself serving a chip sandwich.  Here is the recipe for the curry:

3 Plums diced

2 white peaches

2 stalks of celery

1 red onion

7 mini red, yellow and orange peppers

2 cloves of garlic

Fry all ingredients in a pan until tender. Add:

1 can coconut milk

2 heaping tablespoons Patak’s Original Tikka Masala Curry Paste

Salt and pepper to taste

      Put the curried fruit and vegetable sauce over basmati rice.  Then brown the sausage and place the pieces on the top.  This curry is quick to make and tasty, not spicy.  C’mon, admit it!  You can have fun without going out.

Lazy Day BBQ

My dog Luna had two seizures last night, leaving me with less than five hours of sleep!  If you know me, you will already understand how my day was destined to come out.  It never got going the way I wanted it to.  Way too tired and no motivation to do anything.  Yet, still one body function must be dealt with, tired or not:  eating.  Even if I decided not to eat, Brian would eventually come rummaging around the kitchen like a bear at Yosemite.  I personally consider grilling to be a fast way out.  It only takes a few minutes to throw on the coals and the food needs relatively little tending.  This is the BBQ meal I prepared:
Two steaks and some pieces of goat stew meat.  Cube them small and marinade in home-made teriyaki sauce, wrap them in tin foil and place on the grill.  Chop summer vegetables: summer squash, red onions, carrots, yellow pepper, and shallots.  Place on tinfoil, pour olive oil, sea salt and mixed pepper on top, close the tin foil tightly on the ends so when it is put on the grill it will not leak.  Basmati rice, fried in olive oil and butter, onion, garlic, salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce and soy sauce, browned lightly.

Home-made teriyaki sauce: quater cup soy sauce, quarted cup olive oil, two tablespoons Worcestershire, eighth cup balsamic vinegar, two chopped garlic cloves, half a small onion, tablespoon of ground ginger.  Mix.

Crunchy taco salad

I love to eat taco salad in the summer.  I remember one of the first times I ever ate this Americanized Mexican salad I was at a church meeting for Sunday school teachers.  One of the moms in the group introduced this new type of salad to me.  It had a distinct mixture of pleasing flavors, but the chips were not crispy.  I thought that there must be a better way to preserve the integrity of the tortilla chip.  Read on:

1.  Brown the burger in a frying pan.

2.   Add one can of kidney beans and a can of corn.

3.   Add taco seasoning to the pan.  To save money I use the large container, not the packets.

4.  Cut up all the fresh vegetable you have in the house.  The pieces should be salad size; put them into individual bowls.

5.  Shred any kind of lettuce you like.  Iceberg is not real lettuce.

6.  Chop a can of black olives.

7.  Sauce mixture:  Thousand Island dressing and Taco seasoning to taste.

This taco salad is not to be mixed into a bowl!  Let the family create their own salad on their own plate, then they can add crunched chips, sauce and grated cheddar cheese.  I promise that if the Taco Salad is made this way, it will taste fresh every time, without the mushy chips.

Grilling

When I was a kid my father gave me the job of lighting the grill.  Believe it or not, there is a right way and a wrong way to start the charcoal.  The first leaves your food tasting yummy.  The second like lighter fluid.

            1.  Fill the grill with charcoal.

            2   Cover all of them with lighter fluid.

            3.  Stack all the bricks into a pyramid, not just a pile, and light them.

4.  Let the briquettes burn for about fifteen minutes. 

5.  Spread the charcoal around in the bottom of the grill.

6.  Cover grate and place on grill

7.  Time to cook.

Today I cooked burgers and chicken on the grill.  In addition we had red peppers grilled in olive oil, peaches grilled in butter, and eggplant grilled in olive oil.  (I prefer the eggplant cooked in the oven)  I really enjoyed the peaches and the peppers.  All the peaches lacked was a small amount of ice cream and they would have been perfect.