Grilled Thai Chicken Un-Satays

One thing about lesbians is that so many of them are vegetarians! In fact, when I became a vegetarian at the age of thirteen, it should have been my parents' first warning that someday I'd ruin all their hopes and plans for my wedding a nice young man and popping out darling little grandchildren in the most conventional of ways. But, as you know, I've quite lapsed in my vegetarian ways, having found great support for the eating of meat both within and outside of the gay community. In fact, last weekend, on my way up to NH with the (gay and lesbian running team) Front Runners for the Reach the Beach relay, I was applauded by my van-mate Peter for having order a medium-rare bacon cheddar cheeseburger at the diner where we stopped to eat. He said to me, "I didn't know people actually ate like that anymore!" Alas, once we were sorted into our vans for actually completing the race, I was with the women's team, and 10 out of 12 of them were vegetarians. The one other omnivore and I shared a bag of beef jerky. It was delicious.

After the running of the relay and enduring the sleep deprivation that entailed, I came home and slept for two days. Having finally closed my sleep deficit, I made dinner last night for the first time in a long time. I eased back into cooking with a simple Thai Chicken Satay recipe. I didn't have bamboo skewers, though, so it was more like grilled chicken than satay.

Marinate your chicken pieces (I used boneless, skinless leg parts) in this for about two hours:

1/3 C. Soy Sauce
2 T. lime juice (I advocate fresh-squeezed)
grated ginger root--depends on how much you like
red pepper flakes--also depends on how much you like, I used a bunch because you-know-who likes things a little spicy

I grilled my chicken parts on the George Foreman grill, and dinner was ready lickety-split! You can make Thai peanut sauce, but I just bought some at the store. Now that I'm warmed up again I might try making my own sometime because the Thai Kitchen brand sauce was a little unexciting.

With this I served 5-minute couscous--rice would have been better, but there wasn't time to cook it due to an impending Jill Sobule concert in Central Park--and the old vegetable stand-by, stir-fried "whatever veggies we have rolling around in the refrigerator" with oil, garlic, soy sauce, and pepper.