Oh, and one other thing...

I'm really proud of tonights dinner. Other than a few pantry ingredients and chicken from the freezer, it was all local ingredients.

I stir fried chicken with pole beans and jalapeños from the Farmers Market (we are still positively swimming in beans around here), and the Thai basil in my garden. I served it alongside steamed brown rice, which my picky Chinese husband has grudgingly agreed to eat occasionally.

Ingredients:

Chicken breast
Corn starch
Soy Sauce
Garlic
Onion
Fresh green beans/pole beans
jalapenos
Thai basil
Chicken broth

The first thing I do is cut up the chicken into smallish chunks that will cook quickly over high heat. Put em in a bowl, then toss with soy sauce and cornstarch. The cornstarch is going to coat the chicken and give it a velvet texture. If i have it on hand, I'll also add ginger and sesame oil to the mix.

While that's doing it's thing, snap the beans. Make sure you get that nasty little string off of them. Cut them into small pieces that will cook quickly. A stir fry is fast food. You want everything to cook fast. Put those aside and chop your onions and garlic.

Heat oil in your pan. When its rocket hot, put the veggies in and give them a quick cook. Keep them moving. When the beans are almost, but not quite done to your liking, pull them off the heat and pour into a bowl.

Add a little more oil to the pan and heat it up again. Add the chicken. I think I needed to drain it first, because I had issues with it sticking to pan. Oh well, it still tasted good. As with the veggies, keep it moving. Once it's mostly done, add the veggies back to the pan. Stir them around together. Add some chopped jalapeño and the Thai basil. It should smell really, really good right now.

Pour it off into a serving dish and set aside. Now, we like a good sauce to flavor the rice when we have Asian style food. If you don't, then go ahead serve now. But we like sauce. I added enough chicken broth to cover the pan, then scraped up all the tasty brown bits stuck to the pan. Let that simmer down and reduce by half, then pour over the chicken and veggies.

What you get now is a beautiful, quick dish that reminds me of very good Thai food.