Zucchini Sauté With Spicy Peanut Butter Sauce

This is a strange combination of flavors which somehow works out, particularly if you love the flavor of peanuts AND sesame oil. The secret is cooking the zucchini VERY fast to retain the crunch. It's a side dish good for impressing those "well-traveled eaters" we all know.

• Ready In: 25 mins
• Serves: 6

Ingredients

• Sauce

• 3  tablespoons tahini
• 3  tablespoons  sunflower oil
• 3  tablespoons hot water
• 2  teaspoons sugar (I use Splenda)
• 2 1⁄2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 1⁄2 teaspoons rice vinegar
• 1⁄4 cup chunky peanut butter

• Saute

• 2  tablespoons  sunflower oil
• 2  tablespoons  dark sesame oil
• 1⁄4 cup  dry roasted salted peanut (not in shells)
• 2  tablespoons chili powder
• 5  garlic cloves, minced
• 4  medium zucchini, unpeeled
• 3  tablespoons  good sherry wine (not the cooking kind)
• 2 -3  chopped green onions, including green part

Directions

1. To make sauce: Stir tahini in container thoroughly before measuring. Then blend 3 T. with hot water. Add remaining ingredients one at a time, whisking after each. Set aside.
2. To make sauté:
3. Cut zucchini in half width-wise, then cut each half into 3 spears length-wise.
4. Heat sunflower oil in skillet until smoking hot.
5. Carefully add sesame oil.
6. Quickly add peanuts and stir. Cook them until they begin to brown.
7. Add in chili powder and garlic, stir. Cook until garlic begins emitting fragrance.
8. Add zucchini and sauté 1-2 minutes.
9. Add sherry. Cook until sherry is reduced (around 1-2 minutes).
10. Add sauce. Immediately lower heat to medium.
11. Cook 2 minutes.
12. Remove from heat.
13. Garnish with sliced green onions before serving.