With the arrival of spring, I’ve been jazzing it up in the kitchen with some exotic spices. To wit, the Moroccan Swordfish and now a savory Chicken Curry with a Mango Twist.  The secret is in the sauce and this one is made easy with two ingredients that I purchased at one of my still-favorite stores, Trader Joe’s. Your palate will delight in the complementary flavors of the sweet chutney, creamy coconut milk, and robust curry.

Chicken Curry with a Mango Twist

1 ½ pounds skinless, boneless chicken breast or thighs, cut into 1-inch pieces

2 tablespoons olive oil

red pepper flakes

½ onion, chopped

1 med. red pepper, chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 tablespoons fresh grated ginger

1 tablespoon curry powder

½ teaspoon cumin

1 c. light coconut milk*

3 tablespoons mango chutney*

salt and pepper

cilantro for garnish (optional)

Serves 4

Heat one tablespoon olive oil in a large skillet over med-high heat. Sprinkle with red pepper flakes. Cook the chicken until lightly browned, stirring to cook evenly.

Remove chicken and set aside.

Add 1 tablespoon olive oil to pan. Add the onion and red pepper, sauté for 2 minutes. Add the garlic, cook for another 2 minutes, stirring. Add the curry and cumin, stir into the vegetables. Add the coconut milk and mango chutney, stirring to blend all ingredients. Bring to a simmer, lower heat, and cook for 5 minutes.

Serve immediately over brown or white basmati or jasmine rice.

Enjoy And, leave a comment – I’d love to hear from  you !

* I buy these two items at Trader Joe’s, but they may be available at some supermarkets.

The secret is in the sauce....

Sausage and peppers is a classic comfort food and it’s so easy to make. Sometimes I add chopped tomatoes to have more juice that soaks into the roll, mmmm. This time I added tiny portabella mushrooms because I had them in the fridge and they add a “meatier” taste – you know, cuz I’m trying to go meatless.  All the ingredients are from Trader Joe’s – they need to hire me – don’t you think?  I’m one of their best customers and promoters, yet Sprouts is opening in Huntington Beach on January 29th, so I might defect – hear that Trader Joes?

Sassy Sausage & Peppers (Vegan style)

1 pkg. Trader Joe’s Sausage-less Italian Sausage*, sliced on the diagonal

1 red pepper, cored and sliced

1 green pepper, cored and sliced

1 red onion, peeled and sliced

1 pkg. mini portabella mushrooms, sliced

2 T. olive oil, divided

1 t. butter

red pepper flakes

4 Panne Rustique Rolls (it’s all about the roll, folks)

Serves 4. * Of course, you may use real Italian sausage if you’re not vegan. I’ve had it both ways and its delicious either way!

Preheat toaster oven to 400 degrees. Cover toaster oven tray with aluminum foil and spray with oil so sausages don’t stick. Brown sausages in toaster oven turning once. Slice on the diagonal and set aside.

Heat 1 t. olive oil in large skillet, sprinkle with red pepper flakes. Add the peppers and onions and sauté, stirring every few minutes to evenly brown. Add more olive oil as needed to prevent vegetables from sticking.

Meanwhile, in a smaller skillet heat 1 T. olive oil plus 1 t. butter over med-high heat and sauté mushrooms, stirring to brown evenly, about 5 minutes or until the juices have cooked off.  (I do this in a separate pan because the juices from the mushrooms can make the pepper mixture mushy.) Add mushrooms and sausages to pepper mixture.

Warm the rolls in the toaster oven, slice in half and fill with sausage and pepper mixture.

Wow, I feel so healthy!  This week I dined at Au Lac in Fountain Valley, a restaurant that specializes in what they call Humanese cuisine with an extensive menu of raw and vegan Asian dishes with a few Italian and American staples such as spaghetti, pizza, and burgers. Au Lac has been serving healthy vegan food for 15 years and has a loyal following – they were quite busy for a Tuesday night and some of the diners were regular customers.

With a newfound interest in vegan fare, I began experimenting with the Nori Wrap recipe from Chef Priscilla Willis’ healthy cooking demonstration at the Hyatt Regency, Huntington Beach.  Nori wraps may not be something you want to spring on your kids but it is definitely a delicious way to add veggies to a dinner of purchased sushi and some children, depending on what they’re used to eating, may actually like it wrapped in a tortilla (see below).  Plus, during the holidays, eating lean and healthy during the week is an excellent way to try to avoid (or keep to a minimum) the average weight gain of 3-7 pounds.

First, I bought Nori Sheets and tofu at Ebisu Supermarket, a Japanese market in Fountain Valley. The rest of the ingredients I purchased at Trader Joe’s – I added enoki mushrooms because they’re cute and add texture and crunch and, instead of regular cucumbers, I tried Persian cucumbers which are smaller and sweeter with a thin skin. You can buy tofu at Trader Joes, but when I was at Ebisu I picked up some broiled tofu which, to me,  has a more appealing appearance because of the browning on top. I had miso paste in my fridge, but that is another ingredient you would probably have to get at a health foods store or Asian market.

Nori Wraps

1 pkg. Firm Tofu, sliced into ½” strips

1 pkg. shredded carrots

2 cucumbers, peeled and thinly sliced

2 avocado, sliced

1 pkg. sliced mango

1 pkg. enoki mushrooms (optional)

1 pkgs. Nori Wrapper (roasted)

1 head Bibb (butter)  lettuce

Miso Peanut  Sauce:

1 T. Low-sodium White Miso

½ c. water

2 T. rice wine vinegar

1 ½ t. Splenda

3 T. creamy peanut butter

1 T. light soy sauce

Whisk all ingredients in a small saucepan, taste test, cook over med-low heat until warmed and slightly thickened. The Nori wraps are wonderful as an appetizer, which is how they were presented at the cooking demo.

OPTIONS:  More kid-friendly and more filling – make it a wrap with tortillas (I used Sonoma low carb, high fiber tortillas – from Trader Joe’s) and add a scoop of brown rice to the filling.

Not into vegan? Add grilled chicken or salmon.  Be creative, own it! : )

The tight two-lane, winding road that is Hwy. 17 to Santa Cruz is at once exhilarating if you’re channeling  Danica Patrick  yet intimidating if you’re accustomed to the parallel grid that epitomizes the multi-lane construction of most of the roads in So Cal.  When we arrived at the Hampton Inn, just as you enter town and the highway becomes Ocean St., I was ready to check in and start chilling the bottle of 2007 St. Clement Sauvignon Blanc that I had purchased at Cellar 360 in Ghirardelli Square specifically with a welcome-to-Santa Cruz afternoon aperitif in mind . But first I had to see just how far down Ocean St. was the ocean and show Chloe the famous Beach Boardwalk amusement park area; we were a few miles away but nature was calling and a comfy bed was beckoning my teen so sightseeing would have to wait.


I opted for Hampton Inn because I could use Hilton points and I (we) have done many one-nighters when all is required is a clean room, comfy bed, and breakfast the next morning at a reasonable price. We checked in and my teen crawled into bed and was snoozing in minutes (the curvy road had prevented any earlier zzz’s).  I promptly located the ice machine, began chilling the vino,  and decided to explore the town and locate a market for some munchies.  Just so happened that there was a Trader Joe’s – my fave – and I bought some pretzel thins, seeded flatbread, gouda cheese, and a sharp cheddar with stilton.  After checking out the local color – headed back to the hotel for happy hour.


Since this trip has been stretched out like a studio, summer blockbuster series (or maybe you’re a new reader ), allow me to refresh your memory as to its purpose;  college tours: 1. University of San Francisco and 2. University of Santa Cruz.  Based on what we had seen online and read in the ONE college guide that we purchased, Fiske Guide to Colleges, UCSC was my teen’s preliminary top choice due to the fact that it has a strong Linguistics department and, as of this summer, that is what she had decided she was interested in – specifically Language Studies which combines Linguistics and concentration in a language, in her case, French.


Roused my teen out of bed at 8:30 the next morning so we could head out to the UC Santa Cruz campus and possibly get on the 10:00 bus tour as a standby (all tours for August were already booked when I checked online in mid July).  No luck getting on the tour – everyone showed up!  All the folks that didn’t get on were given an upbeat, informative presentation by a student working in the visitor center and among the materials was a map designed for self-tours.  

We ended up spending nearly four hours on the campus and I’m sure a more thorough look at the campus then if we had gone on the bus tour because we actually parked the car and walked around several of the ten individual colleges, the sports complex and fitness center, the Baskin School of Engineering, the outdoor Festival Glen theatre where Shakespeare Santa Cruz was performing that evening, and visited Linguistics department where we had a 1:00 appointment with a department advisor.  We also stopped at the bookstore to buy a tee shirt with the banana slug mascot and meandered into areas like the back parking lot of Lick Observatory as a result of wrong turns.  

In the final analysis, UC Santa Cruz is definitely my daughter’s top choice now.  The campus is situated in a spectacular setting between the Pacific Ocean and redwood forests.  As with UC Santa Barbara, the joke is that this may be the only time in your life where you’ll have an ocean view, but my teen fell in love with the residence hall set into the redwood forest.
















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