Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Back to Blogging – with Curry!

I’m back from a much needed blogging break, and I’m sharing a delicious meal that Andy and I made a week or so ago. We didn’t follow a recipe, so if you’d like to recreate, just follow the steps – it’s really easy!! This is a red Thai curry and was easily the best thing we’ve ever made together. It was so tasty and a lot more fun than just ordering it at a restaurant. It took us a while to make it, but I’m sure it will go faster the second time we try to make it. Also, my stove is in a very awkward position, so only one person can use it at a time.

First, we chopped everything we needed: yellow bell pepper, green bell pepper, a hot pepper, eggplant, tofu for me, chicken for Andy, and we got out a whole lot of spices!

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I pressed the tofu and sprinkled them lightly with flour. I sautéed them with olive oil until they were nice and crispy. Andy chopped up a chicken breast and cooked the pieces until they were fully cooked as well.

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We set the tofu and chicken aside and sautéed the veggies until they were cooked, but the peppers were still crispy.

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Next up was the curry sauce. Things got a little crazy with my wok, so I don’t have many pictures. I sautéed some store-bought red curry paste with olive oil until it deepened in color. This cooked very quickly, so I recommend starting on low heat. I slowly added 1 1/2 cans of light coconut milk (plus some water – it was pretty thick) to the paste. This tasted good, but store-bought red curry paste definitely needs some help, and it isn’t spicy at all. We added red pepper flakes, lots of lime juice, sriracha sauce, fish sauce, soy sauce, and a couple drops of sesame oil. After it simmered for a few minutes, it was getting seriously delicous!!

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After we meticulously adjusted the sauce to taste, in went the veggies!

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It was pretty hard at this point not to stick my head in the wok and eat everything inside.

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Just to be extra indulgent, we popped frozen Trader Joe’s garlic naan in the oven. Perfect for sauce dipping!

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The finished product!! Somewhere deep down there is a small mound of brown basmati rice, topped with the curry, tofu, basil leaves, and crushed peanuts.

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This was sooo amazing! Pretty involved, but totally worth every minute…and even though it takes a while, it’s still really easy! Definitely keep another lime on hand to add more lime juice – it tasted so good. The basil and peanuts were wonderful too…the toppings definitely brought it up to restaurant quality curry…yum!!

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Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Sadness

 For the time being, I won’t be updating.

Our friends lost their sweet baby girl Abbey. She brought everyone so much happiness.167509_520719422824_88300078_30715652_5983643_n

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

The Perfect Tofu

 So the past few days I’ve been kind of anti-internet. It’s been pretty nice actually! Aside from a few clicks of the stumble-upon button before bed, I’ve been doing other exciting things such as checking out a new brewery in the area and making the perfect tofu! I made this tofu yesterday without any plan. I was starving and without much of a variety of groceries…which I have to force myself to go buy today. You know how tofu dishes in restaurants have super crispy tofu that seem to have a crust on them? I wanted that! Usually the tofu I make is browned, but without that great variety of texture. Anyway, I started out by cubing the tofu and getting as much water as possible out. (I really need to invest in a tofu press!) Next, I sprinkled the tofu with a light dusting of flour. I don’t know where I’ve been, but this is definitely genius! So that’s it…flour. All these years I’ve been sautéing flourlessly, when I could have been experiencing delicious crispy cubes of tofu!

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Ahh look at that beautiful golden crust! I sautéed the cubes in a bit of olive oil and sesame oil on medium until all sides were golden. It was pretty hard not to eat them all out of the pan at this point.

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 I went with a red curry sauce at this point, but really any direction is possible. Simply dip them in hot sauce or peanut sauce? Yeah! I made the sauce by cooking a couple tablespoons of red curry paste and adding a little bit of light coconut milk (don’t worry Andy there’s lots for Wednesday!). Red curry paste isn’t very exciting by itself (or at least the brand that I buy) so I added srirachi sauce, a few splashes of fish sauce and soy sauce, black pepper, and garlic powder. I would have added red pepper flakes if I remembered.

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I added the tofu back in the pan, stirred around until hot, and done! Spectacular! Definitely restaurant-worthy. The outside crust held up very well to the sauce. No sogginess! Next time I’m thinking a light and summery lemongrass-basil sauce would be great.

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If you’re a normal person, you might eat the tofu with a vegetable and serve it over rice. If you’re like me, you’ll eat an entire block of tofu with a glass of milk and call it a meal. Delicious.