Chicken Stir-Fry with Green Beans and Peppers

We sliced and diced a whole bunch of stuff to get this stir-fry going. But first we started a pot of brown rice (a couple of garlic cloves minced and melted with a chunk of butter and a little olive oil, 3 cups of water brought to a boil, salt, 1.5 cups of rice, turned down to the lowest setting and forgotten about till dinner time).

There was a small handful of onion sliced, 3 garlic cloves minced, a knob of fresh ginger chopped, 2 handful of green beans halved, half a head of cabbage thinly sliced, 1 red pepper cut (minus a few slices that mysteriously vanished in Lily's vicinity), 3 scallions sliced, and a handful of cilantro leaves chopped. We also juiced 2 limes.

Then we started by frying up 1 lb of ground chicken meat (free range, no hormones, no antibiotics) in a little olive oil until it started to brown. We removed it for later.

Back in the pan we glazed the onion in more olive oil for a minute or two.

Then we added the garlic and ginger for just a minute, which instantly gave off some wonderful aroma.

Then came the beans, cabbage, and red pepper for about 5 minutes.

Before the cabbage started to turn too soft we added the meat, lime juice, and a good bit of soy sauce till we were happy. Lily said, "It just needs the sauce to be good." At last we added the cilantro and scallions, leaving a few for looks on top.

We ate right away. Delicious. The ground chicken meat added a great texture. And Lily did not stop dipping everything she ate in the sauce first.

A Mild Chicken Tikka Masala with Raita and Rice

Apologies to our Indian cooks if this is far from an authentic Indian dish. Chicken Tikka Masala has made it into the fast food business in some places, but here we gave it due consideration. It was absolutely delicious one way or another, even as we kept it on the mild side.

To get the show on the road, we plugged the leaves of a bushel of cilantro and chopped up the stems. We also finely chopped a knob of ginger and a few cloves of garlic.

Everything but the leaves went into a bit of olive oil for a few minutes till the garlic was browned

In the meantime we chopped up a big onion,

added it into the pot, turned down the heat, and softened it for about ten minutes.

That gave us plenty of time to cut up a pound of boneless chicken thighs.

They got added to the veggies with a jar, about 300g, of Tikka sauce. We turned the heat back up to brown the meat a little.

We chopped up two tomatoes and opened a big can, 800g, of chopped tomatoes, which were

added to the mix. We gently got the goodness to a simmer with the lid on and let it go for 45 minutes. About ten minutes before the end we removed the lid to thicken the sauce a bit.

Now that we had a little time to our hands we got the rice going. To do so we warmed a couple of chopped cloves of garlic in some olive oil, added 3 cups of water, a little salt, and brought it to a boil.

Then we added a cup and a half of brown rice, waited for it to boil again, turned it to the lowest level with the lid on, and forgot about it till dinner time.

We also prepared the Raita by mixing a good bit of plain yogurt, a small bushel of fresh mint, and the juice of one lemon. Then we deseeded half a cucumber and shredded it into the yogurt mix.

Before dinner, we added half of the cilantro leaves to the rice and the other half to the chicken with another cup or so of yogurt and the juice of another lemon.

The cold yogurt was a wonderful touch to the hot chicken dish. Everybody loved it. It was hard to put the fork down.