Having spent the majority of my day snacking on ice water and Wasa crackers, which, in my opinion taste very similar to drywall, I came home wanting something to give my tastebuds a little jolt. In my fridge I found the fixins' for a little recipe I found in Self Dishes, a magazine I had discovered at my local grogery store boasting "light and easy" recipes as well as brightly colored photos, many of which make me want to lick the pages they're on. Tonight's menu consisted of steamed spinach and Spicy Thai Shrimp with Mint Raita over brown rice.
Protein from shrimp and calcium from yogurt? Score!
makes 4 servings, 3 points a serving
Raita
1 c. nonfat plain yogurt
1/4 c. peeled, seeded and diced cucumber
1/4 c. thinly sliced green onions
1/4 c. mint leaves, minced
2 tsp. lemon zest
Shrimp
2 tsp. olive oil
2 tsp. sesame oil
2 tsp. minced fresh ginger
1 tsp. garlic
24 fresh, large shrimp, peeled and deveined
1/4 c. Thai red chili paste
Juice of two lemons
2 tbsp. snipped fresh chives
I chopped, mixed, sauteed and garnished as the directions told me to...and 20 minutes later, dinner was ready.
I salivated over my steaming plate of six shrimp, rice, raita and spinach. I grabbed a forkful of shrimp and topped it with the mint raita, impatiently shoving it in my mouth...and that's when it happened...I nearly seared my tastebuds right off!
Thai chili is hot, um, yes. I learned that tonight. No amount of creamy raita or forkfuls of brown rice helped soothe the radiating heat coming off my poor tongue. It left me completely unable to savor or evaluate my opinion of the garlic and ginger that had coated my shrimp. To top it off, I found that the more raita I ate, the more I disliked it. To me, mint is for mojitos being sipped in the sunshine outside of my favorite restaurant, famed for their Latin fare, not to be paired with green onions and stirred into yogurt. It left me underwhelmed.
Perhaps less chili would have enticed me a little more than this dish did but in the end, I'd still give it an "eh" on the 'ol KC scale.
The remainder of my dinner wound up in my garbage disposal, to say the least. Eight of my points down the drain. Literally.
