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Flowers

My husband is the best!

These were waiting for me when I got to Arlington last night:

How To Make Curry

Many of my friends have been surprised by how open to eating new things/making "ethnic" foods I am. Therefore, I decided to **OCCASIONALLY** post "ethnic" recipes for the benefit of those that want to branch out!

This time I'm posting on how to make Massaman Curry. This curry is a Thai curry that is generally mild in spice (good for curry beginners).

* I get my Jasmine rice cooking when I first start this recipe *

First of all, I see no problem with using mixes, ESPECIALLY for curry. I use this kind, which can be obtained at most Asian/Oriental markets:


Once opened, it has to be refrigerated. The blue lettering says, "Massaman Curry Paste".

Mix about half a cup of the paste with one can of coconut milk (I use the kind in the picture, but only because it's inexpensive. Just make sure to not get coconut cream or coconut water) and whisk together.

Bring the mix to a boil and simmer until you have the following ingredients chopped, or 10 minutes.

2 medium white or yellow onions (I use whatever I have, but prefer white because of the stronger flavor).

Dice, um.... I don't know how many carrots that was, but probably like 5? And 2 or 3 large potatoes. This recipe is obviously not exact.

I didn't take a picture of the skinless chicken thighs I used because raw poultry looks NASTY. You can use any cut of chicken, but should probably have about 3 lbs. for the same size recipe.

Use broth or stock of any sort to cover the ingredients, like so:

Bring this all to a boil, then cover and simmer for as long as you have time for, or up to 8 hours. It can be eaten immediately after the chicken is cooked through and vegetables are softened, but the flavor will deepen the longer it simmers.

Add salt to taste. It'll probably take more salt than you expect.

Finally, mix about a tablespoon of cornstarch into half a cup of water.

This part is sort of an art. You want to add your cornstarch mix slowly, until the curry thickens and starts to look glossy, like so:

Serve this over Jasmine Rice, sprinkled with Peanuts or Cashews. I also like to sprinkle fresh green onion on it, but I don't think that's traditional.

Thai food has taught me that flavor is a balance of sweet, salty, and spicy. Adjust these as you wish with ground chilies, soy sauce, honey, salt, white or brown sugar, and pretty much anything else you'd think would fit!
To make spicier curries, you can just use a different mix with the rest of this recipe.
You can change out the meat or vegetables as you like. I also love bamboo shoots and pineapple in my curries.

*STRANGE TIP OF THE DAY*: If you make your curry too spicy (other mixes can be quite piquant), you can add applesauce to the mix. This is something I discovered when I made what was perhaps the SPICIEST CURRY EVER, and didn't have any other ideas on how to save it.

We're Way Cute

These are pics that have been taken of me and JJ lately. I don't know why I never posted them...

Here we are getting ready to go out... somewhere... probably to eat. I'm not sure. But it's in Arlington.

This is in Vegas--Aug '09.
This is also Vegas '09--My birthday! We ate at Le Cirque. It was so fun!

This is us taking a nap after Shady Maple and before leaving for Florida at Christmas.

So yeah, we're cute.

Thanksgiving

Boring, boring post ahead. I know. Because I read this blog, believe it or not. But this is as close as I get to writing a journal, so I might as well write what we did in case we forget.

For Thanksgiving, JJ came out and we stayed at the Roby's. We had the traditional dinner, and it was delicious. Nothing amazing happened, just sitting around and having fun. Jared and Jaime came, as did Grandma. No surprises there!

There ya go. That was our Thanksgiving.

Geno's

JJ and I one time did a comparison of Pat's and Geno's Cheesesteaks when we were in Philly.

As much as I hate to admit it, JJ and I like Geno's more than we like Pat's. Don't hate us. I know that they're obnoxiously flashy...

& ethnocentric.....

but I can't help how retardedly excited I get when I'm there.
I actually DO look kinda retarded in that picture. IT WAS DANG COLD, mmmk?

In case you're unaware, Geno's was not featured in the Rocky movies, and Pat's was. Maybe we're just not celebrity enough to go there.

This was the first time we got our "steaks" to go. So I did a drive-by on the way out.

They use some crappy cut of meat that makes the sandwich taste deliciously meaty (some people like to say umami, but, come on now... it's a cheesesteak. Don't get all hoity-toity on me!). JJ and I usually order 3 whiz-wits (That's a "steak" with Cheese Whiz and onions). This time, I only ate one, as opposed to my usual 1.5, but I promised someone that I wouldn't tell who ate the other 2 (I'll give you 3 guesses!). The cheese is so gluey, which is awesome, and the onions are usually not quite cooked through. The roll has this delicious texture (that hoity-toities would say is "unctious"), it's chewier than you'd expect, but not crunchy. All in all, it makes for a great sammich!

We also got the cheese fries, and all I can say is GET THEM. If you go to Geno's, that is.

Christmastime

So, I've been playing hookie for, like, a long time. Therefore, I'm going to have to write a LOT to get caught up. Prepare for stimulation overload.

I just decided to go backwards, chronologically, so... there's a good chance you're reading this after you've viewed that there are about a million posts. Oh well.

I was supposed to go to DC for pretty much all of winter break, but the "blizzard" in DC totally ruined my plans. I ended up getting there 2 days late, but that's still better than nothing, I guess. JJ and I ran up to his parent's house to meet up with the rest of the family because....

This year for Christmas, JJ's parents took us all to Disney World in Orlando, FL!

I have a feeling I'm going to be a woman of few words on this post, because long-winded explanations of the rides and things we did are NEVER fun to read.

One of my favorite parks has always been Epcot. JJ's family didn't really agree, but I was glad that we got to go.

I think everyone else liked the Magic Kingdom, which is also fun.

JJ and I were just happy to be together!

I just couldn't get enough of Epcot....even though everyone else looked/seemed bored.


One of the lowlights was when we got turned away from Test Track after waiting for like 40 minutes... dang you, technical difficulties! I was obviously NOT pleased.

One of the highlights, however, was when we took hot tea on the new ride at Animal Kingdom. We had to try to hold it upright and not get it all over ourselves while riding.

PS You probably wonder why we had hot tea in Florida. It was only like 50 degrees, which is cold when you don't bring more than a sweater!

The family vacation was a success! It was good for me to get to know JJ's brother, Jordan, who returned from his mission recently. We also had a lot of good food, and I tried German food for the first time. I liked it! We're so grateful to his parents for taking us.

After Disney, we went back to JJ's parent's house. Of course, that involved a day at the outlets (no sales tax, beat that!). After shopping, we had fun bringing in the New Year at Brad & Amanda's house. They're always so nice to host get-togethers when we're there, even if "Rika" lets Addy eat too much candy.