I should have a picture, but I don’t this time. I will take one next time. It’s pretty colourful. It’s colourful, tasty, and pretty low fat too (I think).

• spaghetti for two (see side of package for measurments)
• one (or two) cloves of garlic
• 1 tsp oil
• 250 g (about 1 lb) of prawns
• chili pepper to taste
• four green onions, sliced
• two large tomatoes, diced into cubes
• chopped, fresh basil
• salt and pepper to taste

Boil pasta al dente (or however you like it. I like it al dente).

In another pan (I may use a wok the next time), saute garlic in oil until you think it’s cooked enough.

Add prawns and chili pepper. I like spicy, so I shake quite a lot of chili pepper over the pot. Cook until prawns have a good start–so that they are about half-cooked.

Add onions and diced tomatoes. Stir. You might want to try that  figure 8 motion. That works for me.

Don’t cook too long, or the tomatoes will get too soft.

Drain and rinse spaghetti.

Add to pan. Mix. Mix. Mix. Mix everything as much as you can.  Add the chopped, fresh basil. Mix until the basil is slightly wilted.

Spoon onto plates and serve.

Once on my plate, I added grated Parmesan cheese and salt and pepper to taste.  Apparently, with fish pasta, you aren’t supposed to add cheese, but I like it. To hell with what you aren’t supposed to do. Do what you like.

Today, as I was eating some leftovers, I thought the next time I make it, I might add some chopped sun-dried tomatoes for an extra bit of palatable zing.

Here is something I tried today. It’s been raining all week and I wanted something comforting and warm. I also had a can of chickpeas (garbanzo beans) in my cupboard that I wanted to use. I looked through some recipes until I came up with one I could work with. Here is the result. It was relatively quick and delicious.

• Half an onion
• 1 clove garlic
• 1-2 tablespoons (25-30 ml) of curry powder (mine was mild), I probably could have added more
• 1 chili pepper (if you like spicy, you might add two)
• 2 tablespoons (30 ml) oil
• 4 medium to large tomatoes, diced into centimeter cubes
• 1 can (250 g) chickpeas, drained and rinced
• 1 cup (250 ml) stock
• fresh cilantro
• juice of one lemon

Use whatever appliance you have to grind up the onion, garlic, curry powder, and chili pepper. Add water a bit of water to make a paste.  I used my slap chop to chop them into tiny bits, then I added a bit of water and used the upright mixer.

Heat the oil in large pot or wok and cook the paste between seven and ten minutes, until it browns (how do you tell if a brown paste browns? I had the same question, but I soon found out.)

Add the tomatoes, chickpeas, and stock. Bring to a boil. Then simmer uncovered until you are ready to eat it. Minimum 20 minutes. I think the longer you cook it, the better it’s going to taste.

(If you had a slow cooker, you could probably add the cooked paste, the tomatoes, chickpeas, and stock into a slow cooker and turn it on low to cook for the day. I’m going to try that as soon as I get a slow cooker.)

Stir in the lemon juice and cilantro just before serving.

Serve over brown rice or couscous.

PS: I had some leftovers so I went out and bought some lean ground meat. I’m going to cook the meat and add it to the rest of the curry to make another meal.

My sister Skyped me this recipe today. She’d made it the other day and said it was easy and delicious.

• 2 fish fillets (red snapper, salmon, tilapia etc)
• 1 tbsp of red curry paste
• 1 cup of light coconut milk
• 1 cup of sliced mushrooms
• 1 small head of bok choy
• 1/2 tbsp brown sugar( i used stevia),
• juice of 1 lime and
• 1 tsp of olive oil ( I used flax seed oil).

In a small saucepan, combine the curry paste, milk and sugar, cook over low heat until the mixture thickens slightly, then add half the lime juice and set aside.

Chop the bok choy into bite size pieces and boil until they are tender but still firm. Drain.

In a saute pan, heat the oil on medium heat. Season the fillets and place them skin side down. Cook until the skin is cripsy and golden. Flip and cook until the fish flakes when proded gently w/ a fork.

Remove the fillets and immediatley add the mushrooms, bok choy, and remaining lime juice. Cook for 3 minutes. Divide the veggies onto two plates, place a fillet on top and drizzle the curry sauce around the fish.

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I had curry paste in the refridgerator–that Thai Kitchen kind you find in a jar in the ethnic section of the grocery store. I had some peppers (of all colours) I wanted to use up. And I had a box (like a juice box) of coconut milk I’d been meaning to use on something. Today was the day!

I bought fish and what I thought was bok choy at the Migros downstairs. I brought it back up to the apartment and started chopping. I chopped up my peppers into slices (about a half of each red, orange, yellow, and green). I also had fresh garlic and a large fresh onion. I sliced the bok choy into bite-sized pieces. (My bok choy turned out to be Swiss chard, but it was leafy and green, so it did the job).

Other than the substituted ingredients, I followed the above recipe (oh–one more thing, I used three tablespoons of curry sauce. I just added until I felt it was palatabley spicy enough. Three tablespoons did NOT make it an inferno, nor sweat-breaking. Three tablespoons made it just palatabley spicy–enough to make my tastebuds zing.)

I made this jambalaya last night. I was looking for something low-cal and healthy. I found this recipe in an old cookbook I had (from when I was a vegetarian): Vegetarian Dinner in Minutes by Linda Gassenheimer. It was the first time I, personally, had cooked with cayenne pepper. It was just the right kind of spicy.

• 2 tablespoons (30 ml) oil
• 1/2 cup (125 ml) medium yellow onion, sliced
• 1/3 cup (80 ml)  flour
• 2 or 3 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 1 zucchini, sliced into medallions, then halved (the original recipe called for okra. I couldn’t find that in my local Migros. I’ll have a look in the market the next time I go.)
• 4 medium celery stalks, sliced
• 1 medium pepper, diced
• 1 cup (250 ml) uncooked long grain rice
• 1/2 teaspoon (2.5 ml) cayenne pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon (2.5 ml) freshly ground pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon (2.5 ml) dried thyme
• 3 cups (750 ml) vegetable broth
• 1/2 pound (250 g??) of prawns (The original recipe didn’t call for prawns (being vegetarian and all. I didn’t add the prawns last night, but I will when I make the recipe again).
• 2 ripe tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons (30 ml) red wine vinegar
• hot pepper sauce

Heat the oil in a large nonstick frying pan on medium heat. Add onions and saute for 30 seconds. Lower heat and stir in flour. Continue to saute 10 minutes, letting flour turn a light tan colour (do not let it turn black).

Add garlic, zucchini, celery, and diced pepper. Saute 5 minutes, until vegetables are starting to be soft. Stir in rice, cayenne pepper, black pepper, and thyme.

Add broth and stir well. Cover and simmer 15 minutes.

Stir in prawns and cook until the prawns turn pink.

Fold in tomatoes and vinegar.

Spoon onto plates, serve, and pass the hot sauce!

The book also gave some tips:

1. Start onions and flour. While they cook, prepare the other vegetables.
2. When the flour is ready, complete the jambalaya.
3. While jambalaya is cooking, make the romaine and orange salad.

~~~~~~~~~~
4 servings
461 calories per serving
27 percent calories from fat

I made jambalaya last night. I was supposed to make this salad, but it was just too late. I was tired. Here is the recipe anyway. It looks yummy!

• 1 head of romaine lettuce
• 1 medium orange

Dressing

• 2 teaspoons (10 ml) of vegetable broth
• 2 teaspoons (10 ml) of fresh orange juice
• 2 teaspoons (10 ml) of Dijon mustard
• 2 teaspoons(10 ml) olive or canola oil
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Wash lettuce and tear into bite-size pieces.

Over a small bowl, remove orange peel, and cut into segments reserving as much juice as possible.

Cut segments in half and set aside. Whisk broth, 2 tablespoons of orangejuice, and the mustard together in a salad bowl. Whisk in oil. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Add lettuce and orange segments.

Toss.

Enjoy with the jambalaya–or whatever.

**Recipe directly from: Vegetarian Dinner in Minutes, by Linda Gassenheimer.

When I looked at that meatballs in spicy peanut sauce recipe, it reminded me of a stir fry I used to make: Indonesian stir fry.  My original recipe for that particular dish included lots of garlic and two tablespoons of peanut butter. I searched the web for something to refresh my memory, but no luck. So my recipe on Tuesday went something like this.

• 4 Scallions (large green onions)
• 1 Red pepper
• 1 Yellow pepper
• 1 Orange pepper
• Handful of green beans. If you cup your hands together to make an “O”–about that many.
• About an egg-size piece of ginger (peeled)
• 2 or 3 cloves of garlic
• Sesame oil
• Soya sauce
• Turkey breast
• Peanut butter
• Chili pepper (I bought a small bottle of chili pepper sauce because I couldn’t find the chili peppers.)
• 250 ml of warm chicken broth. I use Knorr cubes. (I have a story about Knorr I’ll have to write.) Add a teaspoon of soya sauce, a teaspoon of chili pepper sauce, and about two  tbsps of peanut butter. Mix it all up.

Slice the turkey breast into stir-fry strips.  Put in a bowl and season with a round or two of sesame oil and soya sauce. When I say a round or two, I mean once around the bowl. Or twice. However much you think you need.

Add a spoonful or so of chili pepper sauce. To taste. Not too much, but enough so the turkey breast is marinating in something palatably spicy.

Set the marinating turkey strips aside.

Slice the scallions into about 3 cm lengths. Then quarter the lengths.

Slice the peppers in the same fashion-about 3 cm lengths by 1 cm or less.

Same with the green beans.

I chopped up the ginger and the garlic with my chopper. Like the slap chop. Except it’s not a slap chop. It’s just a regular chopper. It might have a Swiss accent, but it essentially works the same.

Heat up a wok and go once around with some oil–just enough to coat the bottom. Toss in the turkey strips.  Stir-fry until the strips are lightly browned. Remove from the pan. If you have help in the kitchen, make sure they have a glass of wine in one hand and discuss, in general, what you think the desired outcome should be. Just so everybody is on the same page. Discuss the general order of cooking. And listen to the person who suggests a figure-eight stirring motion — I think it was the key to our success.

Add another round of oil. Add the veges including the garlic and ginger. Stir for a minute or two to cook. Add the 250 ml of the chicken broth mixture.

Stir. Cook. Stir. Cook.

Add the turkey back into the wok.

Stir. Cook. Stir. Cook.

Pay attention and don’t over cook the veges. It’s nice when they are just the right amount of crunchy.

We opened a bottle of Ludo’s Chateau Neuf de Papes and sat down to eat this concoction over a wild rice mixture. I think it turned out really good. So good, that I didn’t even get a picture–and I should have. I would won a lot of points for colour.

Last night, a friend came to dinner. I thought I’d try to make something simple. I’d seen a recipe in the Fine Cooking magazine last week that I wanted to try out: Meatballs in spicy curry peanut sauce.

This spicy meatball recipe called for ground beef. I couldn’t find ground beef in my grocery store. I usually shop at the small(ish) MIGROS in the bottom of the building. The meat department  full of individually-packaged cuts of meat–so I bought some turkey breasts instead. I cut them into one-inch cubes. I think they worked fine.  Here is the recipe (modified by me).

• kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• two or three deboned turkey breasts cut into one-inch cubes
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 tbsp of oil, more if needed. The original recipe called for vegetable oil. I used olive oil. I don’t know the difference. Olive oil worked for me.
• 4 cloves of garlic, coarsely chopped (Redd, I used my chopper ).
• 1 tbsp red curry paste, more to taste. (I used more).
• 1 cup canned coconut milk (refridgerate the can, don’t shake it. Use the cream from the top). I just used the whole thing.
• 2 tbsp chunky peanut butter. I used some peanut butter that I found at the MIGROS. However, I am now on a mission to find a brand of peanut butter here in Switzerland with just peanuts. Just peanuts in my peanut butter please. And maybe some salt. But that’s all. When it comes to peanut butter, less is definitely more.
• Some freshly-chopped basil for garnish.

Salt and pepper the cubed turkey breast.

Toss lightly in flour. Enough to lightly coat the cubes.

Heat some oil in a wok or fry pan. Just coat the bottom of the pan.

Fry the garlic for about one minute–until it is lightly brown. I used the stopwatch on my iPhone. I seem to use my iPhone for everything. It worked just fine. It got a bit gucky from the kitchen, but I just cleaned it later.  Remove the browned garlic from the pan and set aside.

Fry the coated, cubed turkey breast for about 5 minutes until they are lightly browned and just nicely done- that is, the meat isn’t dry.  I fried my cubes in two batches. When the first batch was done, I removed them to drain on a paper towel. Then repeated everything with the second batch.

When you’ve finished with the turkey cubes, if there is no oil left in the pan, add a wee bit more. Add the curry paste and cook that for a bit in the pan. Stir it to prevent sticking.

Add the garlic that you’d set aside earlier. Keep stirring.

Add the coconut milk. Stir.

Add the peanut butter. Stir some more.

Keep stirring and cooking until you the sauce is uniformly consistent.

Add more curry paste to taste. Stir it in.

Return the cooked, cubed turkey breast to the pan and simmer over low heat until everything is warmed up.

Transfer everything to a serving dish and garnish with the chopped, fresh basil.

WARNING: Don’t let things simmer too long. The sauce will curdle. SO PAY ATTENTION. When the sauce is smooth and consistent and uniform, TAKE IT OFF the burner and put it in a serving dish.

We opened a bottle of Ermitage from Caprice du Temps (shameless plug) and ate this dish as an appetizer.

I made ratatouille last night. I’d been thinking about making it for over a month. But yesterday, I found a recipe in one of my Mum’s Prevention magazines. It looked quite easy. So I made it.

Here are the ingredients:

3 tbsp olive oil
1 med yellow onion, peeled and chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 green bell peppers, sliced in 1/2″ strips
2 med zucchini, sliced in 1/2″ rounds
2 sm eggplant, sliced in 1/2″ rounds (about 1 lb)
4 lg tomatoes, peeled and chopped, or 1 can (28 oz) tomatoes, drained
2 tsp dried thyme
1 1/2 tsp salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp chopped parsley

Yesterday, when I was in Whitehorse, I bought a zucchini (courgette for my European readers) and a chinese eggplant (aubergine). It is lighter in colour than a regular eggplant and it seemed like it would be less bitter. Anyway, here is my version:

I chopped up half a yellow onion into chunky pieces. I also sliced up a leek (the recipe didn’t call for leeks–I just like them). I sliced the leek lengthwise, then I sliced up the halves horizontally into cross-sectional strips. I chopped the pepper, the zucchini, and the eggplant into half-inch widths (I guess that’s approximately one centimetre). I made them all approximately the same size so they would cook evenly.

This recipe also asked for three cloves of garlic. My parents have this huge jar of minced garlic preserved in olive oil. I used about a teaspoon and a half.

I heated a fry pan and a scootch of oil on medium-high heat until the oil reached temperature. Then, I added the onions and the leek for about five minutes, stirring so they didn’t stick or brown too much. I added my teaspoon and a half of minced garlic for about a minute–until it was aromatic. 

Then, I reduced the heat to medium and added the vegetables until they began to soften. Oh. I’d forgotten to cut up the tomatoes when I cut up the other vegetables, so I rummaged in the fridge and found four tomatoes in the bottom drawer. I cut them up into the half-inch chunks and added them too. 

In terms of seasoning, I added rosemary, thyme, parsley, and salt and pepper. I might have added Italian seasoning if we’d had it, but my Mum grows and dries her own herbs and seasonings. We didn’t have it-per sae, just the rosemary, thyme, and parsley. After I tasted it, I think I could have added a touch of cumin–but I was keeping with the Italian theme. 

For protein, I grilled three Italian sausages. I left the ratatouille cook for about half an hour, then I turned it into a casserole dish and topped it off with grilled, cut-up Italian sausage. 

I wish I had taken a picture. It was yummy.

I made this appetizer for a neighbourhood deck party last night. It is simple, but effective.

• cherry or grape tomatoes
• marinated mozzarella balls
• fresh basil
• lime juice
• cracked pepper

As usual, I left it to the last minute to make. I should have got my tomatoes from Dan, the tomato man last Tuesday at the Healdsburg Farmer’s Market. But I didn’t. I wasn’t thinking this far ahead last Tuesday. I just bought both the tomatoes and the mozzarella balls from Trader Joe’s half an hour before I needed to leave.

I did however, harvest fresh basil from my friend Carol’s garden. Then, I cut the mozzarella balls in half, added a basil leaf and a grape tomato and skewered them onto a toothpick.

I guess it is something like my tomato, mozzarella ball salad, but this summer, when my nephew Jorden made that salad, he’d added lime juice and cracked pepper. And something that he won’t tell me. But it definitely added a palatable zing.

So, as a finishing touch on these appetizer sticks, I decorated the plate with the extra basil leaves, squirted lime juice over the plate, and cracked some pepper.  Jorden, what did you add that gave the salad that zing???

Easy. Tasty. Fast.

We headed over to the party.

A few years ago, one of our neighbours organized to install a secure mailbox to help address the problem of mail that was getting stolen.  A few of us pitched in for the cost and in return, have a secure mailbox up here on Fitch Mountain.

Having mail that didn’t get stolen has more benefits than you might imagine. One of my favourite benefits is a few times a year, we get together and have a mailbox party. Sometimes, it’s a galloping dinner between neighbours. Sometimes, like last night, it was a simple deck party (and it was a good night for it too!).

Last night was a special night. The original organizer of the secure mailboxes had recently passed away. We honoured him with a plaque which will be installed beside the mailboxes. It says: Dedicated to Mike Barbie. Our neighbourhood advocate.”

Thank you Mike. For making our neighbourhood a safer place.

I can’t tell you how exhausted I am.  As most of you know, I’ve been traveling–since May 15. Hard to move around all the time. Fun though. Family. Friends. Fun. Now I am back in Healdsburg at the moment. Collecting myself as I get ready for the next chapter of my life and I thought I might write a post about peanut butter.

I like peanut butter. I like the just peanuts kind. In fact, I like the just peanuts, crunchy kind. Except, EXCEPT, the crunchy in the butter has to definitely be crunched peanuts. You can’t have peanut butter with whole peanuts in it. This summer at my parent’s, I went looking at the Superstore for the just peanuts kind and all I found was something that said it was just peanuts. When I got it home, it was smooth goo with whole peanuts in it!

What kind of peanut butter is that?

Anyway, if I had my own cafe or something, I would have a peanut butter menu. Here are a few things I’d start with:

• Peanut butter on toast with slices of cucumber
• Peanut butter on toast with slices of apple or maybe even pear (I haven’t tried the pear combination yet).
• Peanut butter on celery sticks
• Peanut butter on slices of apple
• And for those who like sweet instead of savory, peanut butter and jam sandwich

That’s a good start. Anybody have any other suggestions?