My plans to go back to being vegetarian were rudely disrupted by my physician telling me that I have to eat lean meats because they’re more difficult to eat and have less fat than, say, tofu. I love tofu. :(  

And I must confess that the lean meats do tend to fill me up and keep me unhungry for longer than the other stuff, so I’m trying to obey the doctor.

Yesterday Sarah-bear brought me leftover roast beef with onions, carrots, and potato for lunch. I ate mostly roast, with several carrots, a hunk of onion, and a small piece of potato.  And it was good. I offered to bring lunch today since she was so kind as to provide my Tuesday lunch.

So what to cook? That was, after all, the question. I had some round steaks, but knew they wouldn’t be thawed yet, and I didn’t want to eat beef two days in a row. So I decided on curried chicken. Here’s the approximate recipe:

  • Mix together 1 tablespoon curry powder with 1/4 teaspoon each of salt and pepper.
  • 1/4 cup dried currants
  • 2 medium onions, sliced in long strips.
  • 2 medium green bell peppers, sliced thin
  • some olive oil
  • 1 cup chicken broth
  • 1 can ro-tel tomatoes
  • some fresh thyme, if you have it, or some dried thyme if you don’t (I had neither, so I used dried Italian herb blend)
  • Minced garlic, as much as you want but at least 2 cloves
  • 1/4 cup sliced almonds, toasted (don’t zone out when you’re toasting them, or you’ll end up with a nasty crusty mess of burned blackened almonds and your house will stink until you get the curry going)
  • 1.5 to 2 pounds of boneless, skinless, chicken breast, cut into 1/2″ chunks
  • mango chutney
  • cooked rice
  1. Sprinkle the curry mixture over the chicken, and toss well so that it’s nicely coated. You might need more curry powder. Don’t be shy. Curry is your friend.
  2. Heat the olive oil in a large non-stick wok or big skillet thingie. When the oil is nice and hot, dump in the chicken. Cook it, stirring and tossing occasionally, for about 7 minutes.
  3. Add the onions, garlic, and bell peppers, and cook for another 3-5 minutes.
  4. Add the tomatoes, currants, thyme, and broth. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until it’s time for you to serve dinner.
  5. Place some rice on a plate/bowl, spoon some curry on the top (be sure to get plenty of the juices), sprinkle some almonds on top, and then add some mango chutney. If you happen to have fresh thyme, sprinkle a little of that on top of everything, but if you don’t, don’t worry about it.

If you wanted to make it vegetarian, I’d substitute vegetable broth for the chicken broth, and seitan for the chicken. It would still taste really, really good.

And if, like I, you toss the chicken and curry powder mixture with your hands, know that your hands will still smell like curry powder the next day, no matter how many times you wash your hands. Unless you know some secret as to how to get the curry smell off, in which case please tell me, because I’ve been hungry all morning because every time my hands go past my nose, I smell curry.

Tonight’s dinner will be swiss steak. Then fish on Thursday night.

I’m really not comfortable with eating this much meat. :(   I’m going to make a batch of seitan, and see if it will help with the satiety (did I spell that right) as much as the lean meats do. Then I can add seitan into the blend, and feel a little better.

And the tofu in my fridge? Chocolate mousse.  (Melt some chocolate chips with a small spoon of vegetable oil; then blend it together with the silken tofu in your blender. Add a smidgen of vanilla extract, then put it into a bowl and put it into the refrigerator, and smirk when you serve it to your tofu-hating friends.)

 

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