Shrimp and Pineapple Curry with Coconut Rice

Josh and I have been thinking about Thai food for a while. Neither of us have ever eaten at a Thai restaurant - even though we are more or less surrounded by them. Even though I've gotten numerous recommendations for numerous restaurants. Even though one of the best in town is literally around the corner from our office. The truth is, I've been a little scared.

I assumed that Thai = too spicy. Don't get me wrong - I'm a Texas girl and I can get down with some spicy. Nevertheless, I've been more than hesitant to go out and spend money on a meal I may not enjoy.

Anyway, last night I initiated our typical dinner debate, which tends to go something like this:

Me: What's for dinner?
Josh: I don't know.
Me: Well, what are you in the mood for?
Josh: I don't know.
Me: What about (insert any number of dishes in my repertoire, ranging from ribs to salad, grilled salmon to chili, ham to buffalo wings)
Josh: Any of that would be fine.

Then I get frustrated and start flipping through cookbooks for inspiration. From a roommate somewhere along the way I inherited a great book called The Cook's Companion (Lorraine Turner), which I don't utilize as much as should, considering that last night's dinner was outstanding.
It was also the perfect starter/introductory Thai dish, which means I'm now very excited to try that little place around the corner from our office.

I served the coconut curried shrimp and pineapple over a bed of coconut-vanilla rice, remembering mid-preparation a post I read on How Sweet It Is. I did not follow Jessica's recipe exactly; I used salt, omitted the red pepper and used less coconut flakes, but I must say: wow. I thought I had lost Josh on the rice when he wandered into the kitchen and after he expressed surprise at finding me cooking rice (I never do), I told him we were having coconut-vanilla rice. As always, he kindly acknowledged my strange creation, but I could smell his uncertainty from a mile away. Of course he was a good sport, loading it up on his plate before taking a taste, but found that he did enjoy it quite a bit.

A note about Thai fish sauce - I had to search the Asian Market (I love living in a melting pot) to find it. It smells funny and when I opened the bottle it hissed, steamed and fizzed like a bottle of soda before it exploded all over my hands and kitchen counter. Not pleasant. What gives? Anybody have experience with the stuff?

For the shimp and pineapple curry, you will need (from The Cook's Companion):

2 cups coconut milk
Half of one fresh pineapple, skinned, cored and chopped (I found that this was too much for my taste - next time I'll reduce it to a quarter)
1 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined
2 tbs red curry paste
2 tbs Thai fish sauce
2 tsp sugar
1 clove garlic, minced
Handful cilantro, chopped finely
Salt and pepper to taste

Add coconut milk, pineapple, curry paste, fish sauce and sugar to a pan. Heat over medium heat until almost boiling. Add cilantro and shrimp and cook over low heat until shrimp is cooked, about 4 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Serve over coconut rice (recipe follows).

For the coconut rice, you will need (adapted slightly from How Sweet It Is:

1 cup white rice (jasmine would work well also)
1/2 cup coconut milk
1/2 - 1 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Contents of 1/2 a vanilla bean + pod for simmering
1/4 cup finely shredded coconut
Salt to taste

Combine water, milk, vanilla extract, coconut, vanilla "caviar" and vanilla bean pod in a saucepan and add rice. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer until rice has absorbed liquid, about 15-20 minutes. Remove vanilla bean pods and salt to taste.

White Sangria

I like a good red wine, but I enjoy it more in the winter. Summer calls for light, refreshing, cold, fruity cocktails, perfect for bringing to the backyard porch swing and rocking gently while your boyfriend absentmindedly strums his guitar.

At least that's what I had in mind for this sangria. The aforementioned scenario never actually happened, but I'm hopeful that it still could. In any event - man, this was easy.

You will need:

Medium-dry white wine (I used a blend of Pinot Grigio and Chablis)

Dry or brut sparkling wine/Champagne

12 ounces white grape or white grape-peach juice

2 whole peaches, sliced into wedges

2 whole limes, sliced into rounds

Handful green grapes to your liking, sliced in half lengthwise

Handful sliced frozen strawberries

Fresh mint leaves (optional)

In a pitcher or beverage server, pour equal parts wine and grape juice, filling the pitcher 3/4 full.

Add all fruit aside from strawberries and stir. Allow the mixture to refrigerate for at least an hour, but up to 4. When ready to serve, add strawberries and mint if using to pitcher, and top pitcher with champagne. Stir gently.

Serve without ice, making sure all glasses are served with some of the cold fruit from the pitcher!

Pork Francese for One

Today's guest post comes from my dad. As is the case with the rest of my family, he has an appreciation for good food, and while I haven't tried it myself, I'm sure this variation of the classic Chicken Francese is as delicious as he claims.

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Just because you have no choice but to eat solo is no reason not to eat like Un Re (A King). Like many of you, your significant other may not be able to join you for every meal. My sweetheart Marjorie works 3 nights a week, but you'll never catch this paesano eating out of a can.


This is simple, fast and delizioso!
7 - 8 ounces thin boneless pork chop or pork cutlet
salt and freshly ground pepper
1 egg
1/4 cup flour (or just enough to coat both sides)
1/4 cup of chicken broth (if you don't have canned broth, you can substitute a chicken bouillon cube or powder, just reduce the amount of salt on the meat and egg)
4 - 5 ounces dry white wine
2 tablespoons lemon juice (preferably fresh, though bottled could substitute)
1-1/2 tablespoons olive oil
1-1/2 tablespoons butter
1/2 tablespoon parsley (dried will substitute just fine)
Lemon slices

If meat is not 1/4-inch thick, use a pounder. Sprinkle with salt and pepper (see note of caution regarding salt above).

Break egg into a shallow bowl, season with salt and pepper (again see note of caution regarding salt above) and beat until well blended. Spread flour on waxed paper. Mix together the broth, wine, and lemon juice in a measuring cup.

Heat the oil and butter in a skillet over medium heat until sizzling. Dip the pork in the flour, then the egg, and add to the pan in a single layer. If you have excess egg, add that to the hot oil and butter, creating a mini fried egg. Cook 3 minutes per side, until golden brown. Adjust the heat so the butter doesn't burn. Transfer the pork (and cooked egg) to a plate and put aside. Add the broth mixture (broth, wine, lemon juice) to the pan, raise the heat, and heat until slightly thickened (a minute or two). Stir in the parsley. Return the pork to the pan and turn once or twice in the sauce. Serve with lemon slices on top.

Alyssa's 8th Birthday

I've been itching to entertain. Since Josh and I had yet to throw a party at our place, when conversations about Alyssa's birthday started coming up, my mind started racing. We quickly decided that we would go all-out, to simultaneously satisfy my entertaining itch, and to give her an 8th birthday to remember. Or hopefully remember. Try as I might, I can remember my 7th and 10th birthdays, but 8 and 9 are for some reason lost forever. Good thing we're in the age of the digital camera!

Alyssa made up her mind while I decorated Andrea's birthday cake back in April that she wanted a heart-shaped, pink strawberry cake for her birthday, much like the one we made for her last year...

...which was monstrous. Rich, crazy decadent, and tipping the scales at 10 pounds of sweet birthday evil. Or goodness, depending on the circumference of your waist.

So we designed the whole party around the cake. I did my best to channel my inner Amy Atlas, found leftover Valentine's decorations at various dollar stores (I was surprised but giddy to find them in June), created a dessert table, and did the place up in pink, red and white.

I'm pretty proud to say I did this all myself...cooking, baking, decorating. It's nice to remind myself from time to time that my degree in Event Management didn't go completely to waste. Josh told me "I don't want you to stress about this." So I started everything on Tuesday, and listed out what to do and when to do it throughout the rest of the week.

I'm a chronic list maker. They make me feel in-control.

The heart/pink/red theme was also carried over into some of the food:

 533 pink and white marshmallows, counted by hand...the winner took them all home (thank God)

Pink Party Punch (Simply Raspberry lemonade, Sprite and frozen raspberries)

                                                         Muddy Buddies with red M&Ms

Candied pecans

Strawberry Whoppers

Chocolate covered strawberries

 White sangria...for the grownups only, of course

 Cookies, dyed with red food coloring and decorated with royal icing

Maui onion dip

 And of course, the birthday cake!

The turnout was great. We came up with some great games, Josh surprised me with a hidden talent:

And everyone enjoyed themselves - especially the birthday girl!

Happy birthday, Alyssa! I hope it was everything you wanted and more than you expected.

Homemade BBQ Sauce

 My dad managed to weasel this recipe out of a woman he was doing business with in Johnson City, Tennessee, long before Tennessee was on my radar. He took to making it in giant batches, bottling it up in Mason jars to keep for an entire summer. Summers full of magical spare ribs and grilled chicken followed, all treated to a good Texas-sized dousing of the sweet, tangy sauce. I crave it by the spoonful (but I refrain).

For some reason it had long intimidated me, so I never gave it a shot. In fact, though I had begged my dad for the recipe, it sat in my email inbox for almost 2 years before I decided to just go for it. On what better occasion than Memorial Day, when I had 8 hungry people to feed?

Here's the original recipe, scanned (thanks Dad!), plus some possible substitutions. 

If you don't have: Kitchen Bouquet

Substitute: Additional Worcestershire sauce or  equal amount of Liquid Smoke

If you don't have: Molasses

Substitute: 1/3 cup honey plus 1/3 cup brown sugar

The "vinegar" is pretty generic. My dad uses red wine vinegar, I used apple cider.

Then, just as it says, mix and refrigerate. Go ahead...dump it all in a bowl.

Taste and adjust to your liking. I know for a fact that I splashed in extra Worcestershire, garlic powder and honey, so make it your own!

Store as you see fit. As I said, my dad cans his in Mason jars, but I just repurposed the empty ketchup bottle.

Lowcountry Seafood Boil

My brother/guest blogger Craig hosted a crawfish boil not too long ago. This is something I've never considered, let alone executed, so I've taken a few tips for myself. Thanks Craig!

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This is time-consuming, expensive, and totally friggin' worth it. One day someone at work suggested we do a traditional crawfish boil but we took it a step further by adding shrimp and crab, turning it into a seafood boil. This is a bayou-southern-gulf kinda meal, a meal that takes an entire day to prepare, a few minutes to cook, and a long time to eat. It's really fun and not too high on costs if people throw in money or donate some things. There is a lot involved but again, totally worth it.

You will need:


A 32-60 quart cooking pot – usually from a turkey fryer. Make sure it has a strainer with it.
The turkey fryer cooking stand
A propane tank, full
At least two big picnic tables or similar
Butcher or freezer paper
Tape
A radio
A 4-5 quart cooking pot
A large large spoon or small shovel (no joke, a clean one)
Wire-mesh strainer
Cheesecloth
Towels, lots and lots of small hand towels
Workers gloves
A large group of people
Large cooler with drain
Platters for different foods, at least 4 or 5
A knife, sharp

About 7 lemons, cut three in half and the rest in small slices
One head of garlic
One onion
6 pounds of sausage, andouille if spelled right or available, chopped into 3-inch pieces
Ten ears of corn, cut into thirds
Three to four pounds new potatoes
7 pounds live feisty crawfish
9 pounds crab legs
12 pounds raw shrimp, can be headless but preferably not alive
Two or three medium sized packages of shrimp boil seasoning
Beer
Salt for purging the crawfish (more on that later)
Cocktail sauce (recipe below)
2 pounds stick butter
White vinegar
Baguette bread, 4 loaves more or less

Okay, what a list. I'll break it down for easy ingestion.

The night before, make the cocktail sauce, or buy it. Whatever. If you make it, get some chili sauce (it's right next to the ketchup), a couple cloves of garlic, horseradish, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and some salt, pepper and garlic powder. Don't buy horseradish sauce, it's nowhere near the same. Mix it up until it tastes right, with the horseradish going in as your danger ingredient. Too much will put all but the most dedicated off, too little and folk will think you're a pansy.

Set up the pot and the burner, do not ignite just yet.

Go to the store and buy or ask people for the things you don't have. At the store, go to the seafood area and find out when your store gets fresh shipments in, that's the best time to do one of these. Ours comes in every Friday so we lucked out on that. The crawfish are the highest-maintenance of all the foods, so make sure you bring a cooler with an ice pack and a wet towel in it to the store. Try to pick that stuff up last, even if you have to reserve the critters first and wander/shop. Once home, pour the crawfish out of the bag into the cooler and fill up the cooler and cooking pot with cool water. You'll notice it gets really nasty really fast.

You need to change out the water every 15-20 minutes until its clear. Heating up the water to a boil will take about 40 minutes, so start purging the crawfish an hour or so before you turn on the heat. Purging the crawfish is what gets rid of all the mud and poo in their system, and on the last purge when the water is ready, add a bunch of salt to make them puke out the leftovers. The cool thing is when they meet their demise they'll suck in some of the flavored boiling water, making the insides even tastier. But don't add them yet.

Prepare the lemons, sausage, corn and hose down the potatoes. Cut the onion in half and peel all the paper off the garlic and lightly crush. You can put all but the potatoes and corn on one platter.

Start to clarify the butter. If you don't know how, it's easy. Put all the butter in a big pot and let it sit on medium low for about thirty minutes. Strain with the strainer and the cheesecloth into another bowl. You may need to do that a couple times, so be ready to sacrifice a few sheets of cheesecloths. If you know someone who works at a hospital ask them to get some laprascopic sponges for you, they're great for cleaning or cooking with. Do not throw away the fat free butter like someone at our party did.

Once the waters' a boilin' you can add a few tablespoons of the vinegar and one package of the seasoning mix along with the potatoes, garlic, onion and corn. After a couple minutes of boiling, add the crawfish. This can also be considered batch number one if your pot isn't big enough. Allow the water to return to a boil before adding anything else. After a few more minutes, add the ¾ of the second package of the seasoning mix, sausage, crab and shrimp. The crab is most likely precooked as that's how its usually done so they're just getting reheated. That can also be batch two for those lacking in pot stature.

Set up your eating table. There are no individual plates needed, people should be content with standing around the table with bowls of cocktail sauce, vinegar and salt, and butter at both ends of the table.

After a few minutes of cooking at a boil, you have a couple options; you can kill the heat and let it sit to allow the seasoning continue to make the food spicier or you can pull it off and strain. Shake it around to get rid of as much water as you can. Cover the table in the butcher/freezer paper and tape it to the underside of the table. Pour out the cooked sea animals onto the table and sprinkle on the leftover seasoning mix and don't be shy about it. Consume. Drink beer. Enjoy. Hire someone to clean up.

Ranch Chicken

I start out a lot of posts with "I never liked (insert food here) in the past, but..."

Aside from the fact that it's the God-honest truth, it's also an easy way for me to convey the promise of the dish itself - not to tout that my palate is more refined now than it ever has been in the past. That a dish could turn me from a hater to a convert speaks pretty highly of it, in my opinion.

That said, without ever trying it, I had a severe prejudice against honey mustard up until Sunday. A few years back, when I lived in Virginia, I had a friend that requested a side of honey mustard to accompany every one of his orders of chicken tenders or french fries, and the sight of the gloppy flourescent yellow liquid always turned my stomach. It just sounded and looked awful, but clearly I had no idea why I thought that...it really is a perfect compliment for grilled or broiled chicken!

This chicken, courtesy Ree at The Pioneer Woman, could be the simplest of country foods: pan-fried chicken covered in bacon and yellow cheese. However, the marinade in grainy mustard, honey and paprika changes the whole scope of the chicken from simple to sassy.
You will need (adapted slightly from The Pioneer Woman Cooks):

½ cup grainy mustard or dijon mustard
½ cup honey
1 whole lemon, juice only
½ teaspoon paprika
½ teaspoon salt
Crushed red pepper (optional; to taste)
4 whole boneless, skinless chicken breasts
8 slices thick cut (preferably peppered) bacon, cooked
Shredded colby or cheddar cheese, to taste

To begin, make the marinade. In a large bowl mix together ½ cup dijon or country/grainy mustard with ½ cup honey, juice of 1 lemon, ½ teaspoon paprika, and ½ teaspoon salt and whisk until smooth. Sprinkle in some crushed red pepper flakes or cayenne if desired. Set aside.

Next, rinse the chicken breasts, place between two sheets of waxed paper and pound to around ½ to ¾ inch thick with a mallet. Next, add the chicken to the bowl with the marinade, cover with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for 1 to 3 hours (1 hour was sufficient).

Grill the chicken on an outdoor grill over medium flame until cooked through.

Remove chicken to a large baking sheet. Lay a few pieces of bacon over each chicken breast. Sprinkle shredded sharp cheddar cheese over the top of the chicken as generously as you like. Set pan under your oven's broiler set to low for an additional five minutes until cheese is melted and bacon is sizzling. Serve immediately.