Beef Curry

Yes, I know it's cliche to take pictures of the sky all the time. But if you only knew how many times I sat in the backseat of my parents' car, wishing I could somehow make a dress those colors. I'm in awe of anyone who can convincingly paint light. And since my particular art skills will always fall under the crafty, not classical, I forgive myself. Lately my mind set has been vacillating between unthinking bland zombie dark insideness, and unthinking zombie happy outside lightness.

In case you didn't get the memo from one of your friends*, on Wednesday Popeye's Chicken had a special. 8 pieces for 4.99. Here is the resulting chaos. It was certainly an interesting way to celebrate Earth Day; chicken slaughtering and car idling. Speaking of zombies....

Those cars are not parked. That's the drive thru line.


Last night I went over Jays for Thai night, which has increasingly become a monthly thing. Instead of just me and Jay, we ended up with me and Jay and Kelly and Debra and Andrew and Lori and her son. You know, 7. Lucky for me, curry is the ultimate family style dinner. Saying curry and family in the same sentence is redundant.


I was not a big fan of the green curry dish I made a while ago, so I was a little scared about how this would turn out. Jay made coconut fried rice, which was SO good, it was practically dessert. And I'm pretty happy about how this turned out. I think I might make it a bit spicier if I was certain of my diners. But I'm getting the picture that anytime you combine coconut milk, sugar, garlic and fish sauce, it's going to be pretty fantastic. It kinda makes me feel like a kindergartner since most of Asia has known this since they were 2. But it's a happy kind of ignorance.

After dinner, we played Apples to Apples, and I got way too competitive with a very precocious 13 yr old. Wine and word games make me in it to win it people. Also, if anybody is ever interested in putting some money down....

Oh, and it's official, my phone is more ghetto than Kelly's. My monochrome screen put me over the top.

Beef Curry

note: I'm giving you the exact proportions I used, and you can see how much that made. So feel free to cut this in half. If you don't have a friend that rocks at making rice, serve it with jasmine rice. Buy yourself a rice maker. You know, half the world has one of those.

- 2 lbs lean beef cut into either chunks or strips

- 2 red bell peppers, chopped

- 1 pd sliced mushrooms

- 1/2 cup chopped basil

- 1 can coconut milk

- 2 tbsp fish sauce

- 2 tbsp red curry paste

- 2 tbsp brown sugar

- 2 tbsp minced garlic

- vegetable oil

In a wok, brown the beef in batches (fun!) using the vegetable oil and garlic, on high heat. Once cooked, but not overcooked, remove from heat.

Throw in the peppers and mushrooms. I sprinkled them with chili oil. Cook until softened.

Add the milk, sugar, paste, fish sauce, and basil. Stir to mix. Stir again just to be sure those chunks of curry paste don't end up in someones mouthful.

Then add the beef again and allow the dish to get warmed up before serving. Voila.

*No one who is your real friend would ever tell you about this.

How to include your vegan friends...

That is my friend Tara. Tara is a wonderful vegan. Meaning she doesn't preach about, hardly talks about, doesn't frown when I eat meat in front of her, and volunteers at a farm animal rescue. So you know she's not being trendy.

I love eating with Tara, because it means I have to eat something healthy, and I have to be creative. And she always makes something so good you wonder if maybe someday you'll be debating the merits of fake sour cream someday.

So Tara came over to Jay's for Thai night last week, and it gave me and Jay a reason to eat some of that not very well known, secret hidden Asian ingredient called tofu. Have you ever heard of it? Supposed to be flavorless, texture-less, and uniformly disliked by carnivores everywhere?

I like tofu fried, and that's about it. But man, do I love fried tofu. I remember in high school, this friend's mom made this awesome fried tofu patty with eggs and scallions. It was crispy, but light and fluffy, and I couldn't stop thinking about it. I still haven't figured out how to make it the way she did, but I also thought ramen only came in 50 cent plastic packages covered in salt.


So Tara brought these marinated tofu steaks she pan fried for us, and then covered in homemade bread crumbs. She marinated them first in Italian seasonings, then covered with barbecue sauce. And it looked and smelled just like meat. It did, however, taste like tofu. But good tofu.

And I made this green curry rice. I have to admit, I wasn't too much of a fan of this rice. It was definitely edible, and I'm posting this because Tara asked for the recipe. But I think it overdid it on the basil, and maybe next time I will leave out the fresh basil, and rely solely on the green curry paste.

Oh, and then we watched Fairy Tale Theater, because I just got the DVD set and I'm making everyone watch it. We watched The Princess and the Pea with Liza Minnelli that night, but Saturday I watched Aladdin, and I think James Earl Jones deserves an Emmy for his portrayal as the crazy psychopathic strangely seductive and likable genie.

Green Curry Rice

Ingredients:
-2-3 cups rice (we used white, but maybe wild would be good with this)
-1 can coconut milk
- 2-3 red bell peppers
-1/2 red onion
-2 tbsp fresh basil (if you REALLY like basil, or, like I'm going to, substitute cilantro)
- 2 tbsp green curry paste
-1-2 tbsp lime juice
- 1 jalapeno diced
- salt and pepper to taste

Cook the rice. Figure this out on your own, Jay has a rice cooker.

Saute the peppers and onions until soft. When done, add the coconut milk, green curry paste, lime, broth, basil, salt, and pepper. Simmer until warm.

Then pour over the cooked rice and mix.

The end. But really, you can do whatever here. Add more jalapeno, cilantro, maybe some mango. Your vegan friend will be happy to have something she can eat, and you'll be well on your way to realizing you don't need butter and eggs for everything.

For dessert, I was lazy and just brought some fruit. I mixed up some chili and sugar for dipping, which was awesome with the pineapple. I tried to do that with sugar and ginger too, but I used dried ginger, and it was lackluster. But the chili sugar is now a staple in my kitchen. I made a big bowl of it just to use whenever I feel like running to Dunkin Donuts.