Pacific Rim

I've told you guys before how easy it is for me to get burned out on chicken.  But, when you think about it, if you're a meat-eating person, it's hard to exist without chicken. Not only because it's so versatile, but because it's a very lean protein, which we all know is better for us than, oh let's say, fatty mutton from Kazakhstan. As a funny aside, I met a girl once who was performing an internship in Kazakstan...and she was a vegetarian.  It was a very long year in her life.

Back to chicken.  As much as I love it and appreciate it, I can become bored with it very easily.  This is one reason that I have a library of cookbooks to see me through these chick-a-bore times. Today, I hit one of those moments when I thought about dinner, pictured chicken and then nothing but static on the monitor. I went to the fridge and took inventory and came up with a stir-fry idea based on a recipe I've read about 401 times over the years. "Pacific Rim."

Topped off with some almonds and peanuts

 This was a lovely stir-fry consisting of carrots, red bell pepper, broccoli and chicken flavored with a sauce of soy sauce, basil, a little curry powder, corn starch, and chicken broth. I served it over rice stick noodles and a side of pea pods (snow peas). I altered the printed recipe a bit, based on what I had on hand. The result was quite nice.  I particularly liked the subtle combination of the basil with the curry and soy.  I also included a smidge of crushed red pepper (only a smidge because of the wunderkind).  It still may have been a bit on the spicy side for her tastes, but she ate her dinner without complaint.  Well, that's not completely true; she wasn't crazy about the rice sticks.  Those of you with kids know that if all they reject is noodles, you're doing something right!