The Perfect Pantry®

Recipe for slow cooker Thai green curry chicken with broccoli and mushrooms

When I was a little girl, I smeared everything I didn't like (liver, turkey, broccoli) with ketchup to cover up the taste. In my grown-up kitchen Thai curry paste often replaces the ketchup, not for its masking qualities but because I love almost anything cooked with it. Yes, I'll even lap up broccoli when it's cooked in a curry and coconut milk sauce. This Thai green curry chicken adapts to any vegetables you have on hand: asparagus, cauliflower, butternut squash, sweet potato. I'm partial to the Maesri and Mae Ploy brands of store-bought green curry paste, because they don't contain cilantro; both are widely available in Asian markets (they come in identical 14-ounce green tubs). Fresh basil is essential in this dish. Out-of-season Genovese basil from the supermarket tastes fine here, and Thai basil from your summer garden -- or from your local Asian grocery -- would be even better.

Recipe for chicken and vegetable quinoa stir-fry

A couple of years ago, my husband Ted and Cousin Martin hiked the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. Every evening, after climbing all day and carrying tents, food and gear, their guides cooked a meal for the group of hikers. When I asked recently what those meals were like, all the guys could remember was "some sort of quinoa stir fry thing with vegetables". Not much to go on, but Kathy and I started with a recipe we found online, and we loved the dish we created, a kind of chicken and vegetable fried rice -- without the rice. I imagine that the Peruvian cooks might have included roasted cubed potatoes. We used cubes of grilled chicken breast, for a super healthy and satisfying entrée. I hope this quinoa stir-fry, even if it's not authentically Peruvian, brings back good memories for Ted and Martin. (PS: Their next climb is Mt. Kilimanjaro. Anyone know any Tanzanian dishes that use our pantry ingredients?)

Recipe for bok choy stir-fry with ginger and garlic

When I'm lucky enough to get to an Asian market (the closest is nearly 20 miles away), I steer my cart right to the produce aisles to stock up on things the grocery store in my village doesn't carry: choy sum, lemongrass, fresh bean sprouts, and my favorite baby bok choy, a miniature Chinese cabbage. You can make this stir-fry with grown-up bok choy, by trimming the head through the root into smaller wedges, but if you can find the babies, you'll love the sweeter flavor and more delicate texture. Choose heads with either white or a pale green stalks; the taste is the same, so buy whichever color coordinates with the rest of your dinner. This recipe utilizes one of my lazy-girl techniques for wok cooking: pan steaming, the same method used to make potstickers. Rather than blanching the bok choy in a separate pot, I stir-fry in the wok, then toss in a small amount of water and slap a lid on to catch the steam. The tender baby bok choy heads cook quickly this way, while absorbing the flavors of the sauce -- and I only have to wash one pan.

Recipe for spicy Asian shrimp cocktail

Yesterday, for Martin Luther King's birthday, which also happens to be my birthday, I wanted nothing more than the company of my husband Ted, a snuzzle from the cats, a few hours to read in the middle of the day, and a bowl of this spicy Asian shrimp cocktail. When I was a little girl and my family went out for dinner on special occasions like birthdays, I always felt quite grown up when I ordered shrimp cocktail in a restaurant and the waiter brought a martini glass with shrimp hanging around the rim. This dish, served with a bit less fanfare, hits all of the high points for me: spicy, salty, smoky, sweet, shrimp. No birthday cake with candles on top can do that. Not even if it's chocolate.