Dinnertime - It's not easy being green

Sometimes I worry about my food. Okay, I always worry about the meals I share with you, my faithful reader. I decided that as I look across all the pictures, my meals are surprisingly monochromatic. Yes, many delicious foods are reddish-brown (bacon, for example) but I wanted to think outside the little reddish-brown box. It's important to me, too, that I create meals that you can recreate with minimal effort. I love long, complicated recipes that I can use to challenge myself, but if all I wrote down were those, you'd never believe me when I tell you that anyone can cook.

As such, I bring you Crab in Green Thai Curry. In your blender or food processor, combine:

2 tbsp galangal
1/2 cup basil
1/4 cup flat-leaf parsley
1/2 cup cilantro
1 tbsp coriander seed
1 tbsp green curry paste
1 cup chopped white onion
2 cloves garlic, peeled
1 serrano pepper
1 large tomatillo
1 tbsp fish sauce

Blend until smooth. You may need to add a small amount of water to the blender to get things started.

In a large skillet, add another cup of onion, 1 serrano pepper and another tomatillo, chopped to one tablespoon of vegetable oil. Once soft, break up and add a stalk of lemon grass, and add 1 pound canned crab (four cans). You can certainly splurge and buy the beautiful lump crab, I'm trying to stay on a budget and four ounces of lump crab costs as much as a full pound of the canned, fine flaky crab. I'll save the expensive stuff for crab cakes.

Add the curry sauce, salt and pepper to the skillet and simmer for 10 minutes. Add 8 ounces of coconut milk and the zest and juice of one lime to the pan, and simmer for another five. Remove the lemon grass before serving over steamed jasmine rice, and top with steamed fresh spinach, garnish with green onions.

Makes four servings, I also had the leftovers in an egg-white omelette this morning. Very nice.