Sexy Food

Quick, light, easy to fix, very strong flavors? pad thai, coconut rice, tea.

Lynn Siprelle, Editor

We call these Rochell's Fajitas, because the girl who gave me the recipe was named, Rochelle! You can give them a love name. My directions are a little haphazard because I make the whole thing to taste, but you are a good enough cook, I'm sure you have fajita and pico de gallo cooking basics down.

Fajitas
Chicken cut into strips
Red, yellow and orange bell peppers, cut into strips
Onions, sliced thin
Jalapeno, to taste (we like spicy!)
fresh limes
salt and pepper to taste

brown the chicken, add the peppers and onions, keep cooking until meat is done and vegetables are tender, squirt lime juice periodically to make it jucier and yummier.

Pico de Gallo
Fresh tomatos (red and yellow are pretty together)
cilantro, chopped
peach, pear or apple, diced
mango, diced
lime juice to taste

stir it all up to resemble a chunky salsa, drown in lime juice,(once again, to taste!)

Green Sauce
a whole bunch of cilantro leaves (1-2 cups at least)
1 pint fat free sour cream
fresh onion
galric to taste
salt
1 tsp cumin
1-2 Tbl sugar
1/2-3/4 cup raw peanuts per pint sour cream
(This makes a ton of sauce, I'd 1/2 it for only 2 people, but we love this sauce poured over everything!)

liquefy everything in the food processor, keep adding above flavors until it suits your taste. (I prefer mine with a less onion flavor, more cilantro and more sugar

Top tortilla with meat, vegetables, Pico de gallo and green sauce.

Oops, I just remembered you eat mostly vegetarian. You probably have a lot of tricks for chicken substitutions.

For the spicy peppers, garlic, and coconut flavors, I recomment Gulai. Got this recipe from a lady who is, in fact, from Indonesia--she married an American, one of my DH's co-workers. It's very tasty and you can cut up a lot of the ingredients beforehand for quick cooking. I love the flavor of lemon grass in curry. (I substitute serrano chiles for the thai ones when I cannot get them.)

*****
Mrs. McEntire's Gulai (Indonesian Curry) Recipe

1/3 c Oil
2 Onion
3 Thai chile
2 Garlic clove
2 lb Chicken, beef, or pork, cut up
Ginger, fresh; 3/4" knob
Lemon grass root, 1/2" knob
1 Lemon grass, stem
2 med/lg tomatoes
8 Macadamia nut
1/2 ts Cardamom, ground
1/2 ts Cumin powder
1/2 ts Turmeric
1/4 ts Fennel powder
1 Cinnamon stick; 2"
4 Cloves, whole
Salt; to taste
Pepper, black; to taste
4 c Coconut milk

Chop the onions, chiles, ginger, lemon root and lemon grass. Crush the garlic and grind the macadamia nuts. Skin the tomatoes and cut the flesh into small dice.
Heat the oil in a large pan, add the onion, chiles and garlic and saute until the onion becomes translucent. Then add the meat, ginger, lemon root, lemon grass and tomato and cook for another three minutes, stirring frequently.
Add the spice powders, cinnamon stick and cloves and season to taste with salt and pepper. Pour in the coconut milk and bring to the boil, stirring constantly, then lower heat and allow to simmer until the meat is very tender.
*****

For the tamarind, coconut, spicy peppers, etc., I recommend Panang Curry, it's our favorite curry to get at Thai restaurants, we're totally addicted to it. When I make it at home I just kinda fake it as I go, generally combining the recipe on the back of the red curry paste bottle and the on the back of the bag of frozen thai stir fry veggies. (yes, I know you're only supposed to go "fresh" with Thai, but sometimes speed is of the essence to the time-managemnt impared, aka, me)

Another suggestion:
Having a condiment tray with some flatbread or hors d'oeuvres kind-of-bread could make the meal a little extra special--something to nibble on (and feed each other) as you're waiting for the meal to finish simmering or whatever.

For a pure cilantro fix, I make up the cilantro chutney in my Indian curries cookbook It's my secret weapon for my outrageously good chili (throw it in at the last minute into the pot). It's fantastic on poppadums, nan, or any other kind of flatbread. An Indian-style condiment tray usually has cilantro chuntey, mango chutney, and a chile sauce of some kind. Or, you could use different kinds of salsas with flatbread or corn chips. I love salsa verde made with tomatillos. The chutneys or salsas could be made a day or two ahead of time.

Let us know how it goes!

Anhata
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