Good news! I am getting better at swimming. I had fewer times today when I thought I was going to drown and I was able to keep a better rhythm and better form for longer. That is clearly going to be hardest part of the tri. That feeling when you sort of snort in water but try not to flail around like a carp on a fishing line is pretty scary and embarrassing. Ah...so many opportunities for me to practice facing shame and experiencing humility. Thank you Universe, for your infiniteness.
I am hesitant to post a Thai curry recipe. I use the red paste from the little jar, A Taste of Thai brand. It's good. They don't tell you how to use it right, in my opinion though. And I add my own stuff too because it needs it. But I have NO IDEA what real, authentic Thai food should taste like. I'm skeptical of all the restaurants around here that say they are Thai. They are delicious but it seems too American-ized or something. I have no way to explaining what that means.
I'm not going to post the kale recipe I made tonight. I'll do a full kale entry another time. Suffice is to say that massaged kale salads are amazing.
Obnoxious Greens: Parsley'd and Garlicked (from Friday)
I'm pretty proud of this recipe for two reasons, not to mention that I think it is really really good.
1. I made this recipe on a Friday night when I both stayed in alone all night and chose not to drink. That might not seem like much, but I've been avoiding my own thoughts and feelings for a while now and it's time to give them space. This was the first Friday night since I moved back on November 3rd, that I did not have alcohol. This is significant. It was both harder and easier than I'd expected it to be. So this dish can celebrate that!
2. I made it up with what I had lying around. It uses at least 2 ingredients which I think are unexpected. It's super-healthy and could be jazzed up/turned into a main dish with tofu, tempeh, seitan, rice, pasta, and meat I guess.
INGREDIENTS:
- 1/2 bag (8-16 ounces) of mixed strong greens: turnip, mustard, collard, spinach (grown-up, not that pathetic whiny baby spinach)
- Olive oil (you will not need much)
- 6-8 cloves of garlic (yes...that much): minced but not pulverized
- Lots of parsley...LOTS, like 2 huge handfuls.
- 1 Pink Lady or Gala apple, cut into 8ths or 10ths and then sliced into 1" pieces, about.
- Toasted pine nuts
- As always: taste as you go, especially with the salt.
HOW TO DO IT MY WAY:
1. Heat about 2 TB of really good olive oil in a good sized pan over medium low heat. Colavita is a good brand of olive oil. DON'T scrimp on olive oil, please. Canola? Fine. NOT Olive.
2. When oil is warm put your garlic in. Don't burn the garlic! You want to lightly and gently warm/sautee/move it around. Turn heat down if you have to . You have to be patient for this dish.
3. While garlic is sauteeing, Mince up your parsley.
- Separate leaves from stems. KEEP STEMS
- Mince the leaves. Save most of it for your kale salad ( :) )
- Chop very finely the stems of the parsley.
5. Put in your obnoxious greens. These are not the kinds of greens you want to absent-mindedly pop in your mouth. Raw turnip greens are NOT fucking around. They will punch your tongue. You want to do something with them. Trust me.
6. Let it cook for while, turning and stirring it sometimes. Salt it a bit. Grind black pepper a whole bunch.
7. I was making a kale salad with raisins and wondered if raisins would be good in the greens. Nope. But the apple was fantastic!
8. Once the greens are nearly done--meaning they are bright green and soft, take up WAY less space, are less obnoxious--throw in the chopped apple. Let it soften a little bit but not get mushy.
9. Watch it carefully and pull it when the apples are a little soft. DON'T overcook the greens.
10. Throw in some more minced parsley. A bunch or not too much, whatever.
11. Serve with a generous sprinkling of the toasted pine nuts if you managed to not eat them all while they were toasting in the pan on the stove. Aren't they so good?? Creamy, snappy, a little bitey?! I love them. Too bad they are about 45 thousand dollars a pound.
This would be good with basil too, or other eye-talian oibs
Tie Curry-I can't guarantee there is much authentic about this but it is DAMN good.
I'm calling it Tie Curry instead of Thai curry cause I am loathe to misrepresent a cuisine.
The thing about this kind of recipe is that you can swap out the protein/vegetables if you want. Thai curry sauces are fantastic with squash, potatoes, carrots, celery, red peppers (i find green peppers gross in curry), eggplant, greens of ALL varieties. Tofu is my favorite protein but beans work well. I find tempeh to be kind of soggy but it is feasible as is seitan of course. Don't know what seitan is??? As long as you aren't gluten-free (cause it's basically straight gluten), then give it a whirl cause it's kind of the truffle of the vegan meat world.
INGREDIENTS
- 1 Tb Coconut Oil
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- Piece of ginger, minced: 2" x .5" x .5"....or something like that. it was maybe 2 teaspoons
- 4 green onions, chopped pretty thin, white parts separated from green parts
- 1-2 teaspoons of galangal (I got it jarred at Wegmans)
- 1 block of tofu, extra firm (press it...for a while. I pressed it for almost an hour and it was perfect and remember, I have the awesome press if you don't maybe do it longer). Cube it into about 1" squares, maybe a little bigger.
- 2 Tablespoons, maybe more, of Taste of Thai Red Curry Paste. Their green is excellent too.
- 1/2 cup diced sweet potato (I had it lying around, leftover from something else <-- this recipe is amazing)
- 2 carrots, cut on the bias, pretty chunky so they don't get mushy.
- 1/2 can of REAL FULL FAT coconut milk (DON'T screw around with LITE coconut milk. Screw that shit. If you're going to do it, do it right. Lite coconut milk manages to make you want the real thing and offer none of the richness or depth. Life is too short to not use the real deal. Lite coconut milk IS good for making rice though, if you want it a little richer or sweeter but otherwise, stay away from it). Save the other half of the can and make brown rice with it later so you have a rice pudding for breakfast! That's what I did! I love using the extra bits in clever ways!
- 1-2 teaspoons of jarred shredded Kaffir lime leaves, diced up very small (because it's stringy and woody)
- 1 Tablespoon of Cilantro Chutney/paste
- 1/2 cup of chopped cilantro
- OPTIONAL: Fish sauce, soy sauce, bragg's amino acids
As an aside: having the jarred galanga and kaffir leaves is kind of nice cause you can add them to things like dressings easily. They will last a loonnnggg time in the fridge as do most curry pastes (tamarind etc)
DO IT MY WAY:
1. Heat coconut oil in heavy bottomed sautee pan over medium heat.
2. Throw in garlic and ginger and sautee it nicely but don't burn it.
3. Put in sweet potato dice
4. **this is where I think the curry paste jar recipe is FULL OF SHIT** Put the Thai curry paste in the pan and sautee it a bit with the garlic, ginger, and sweet potato, for maybe 2 minutes. The jar says to put the milk in and then add the paste. Bullshit. they are wrong.
5. Add cubed tofu and sautee the tofu and other ingredients on medium heat for a while, being careful it doesn't burn or even brown really. You want the tofu to start soaking up some of the red curry paste flavor and get evenly covered by it. It should be covered in a sort of irregular pastey curry thing.
6. Add the Galangal and white onion parts and maybe a few of the green onions.
7. Add the Cilantro Curry paste.
8. Keep sauteeing for maybe 3-4 minutes, maybe longer, until this stuff is pretty well combined. It should maybe be sticking a little bit now. Add the diced up shreds of kaffir leaves with a little bit of their water to deglaze the pan.
- Now is when you'd add a little soy sauce, braggs, or fish sauce I'd say
10. Add carrots and bring to a light simmer but turn it down when it gets there to keep it bubbling only a little bit.
11. Keep cooking it for a while, like 10 minutes, maybe longer. You don't want carrots to get squishy. It will start to get a sort of red skin on the top, where the fat of the coconut milk is grabbing some of the spices and floating up...I think.
12. Right before serving, add green onion and cilantro.
13. Serve with rice or quinoa or millet or rice noodles.
Punky said "We haven't had this in forever! Daddy used to make this when you worked late last year."
That made me sad and indeed eating the curry reminded me very much of Pants as this was one of the things he used to make. He used just the coconut milk and paste and added more onions but it still was a lot like his.
Several times today, things reminded me of our previous life (like driving by our old house outside of town, using our vacuum cleaner and changing the bag myself which he used to do). I have been sad about this kind of thing the past few days. A kind of sad that I haven't experienced in a long time. It's like PURE sadness without depression or anxiety or anything. Just sad. It's very painful at times but also sort of precious and unique. It feels like when someone dies and you are just so sad they are gone. Nothing else. Just essential, distilled sad.
But then I read books with and played cards with Punky and got ready for my week and remembered that I can be okay and be sad, do my life the best way and still be sad. I remembered that I get to see Fett soon and talk to a lot of my friends and family and coworkers and clients. I get to listen to lots of interesting people in lots of places. I'm going to a party with more recently acquainted friends on Saturday.
I spelled saute/e wrong the whole way through this but I'm not changing it. I'm tired.
Excellent website from which I made sweet potato rice: http://www.maangchi.com/
I'm planning to make the rice cakes and some other things when I have the money for the ingredients. Shout-out to Fett for showing me her site and youtube channel.
**Shout-out to sister-in-law Sister Pants for that! :)
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