The chayote in the fridge should have been used a couple weeks ago, but there’s no time like the present. A Thai curry using curry paste is easy and quick to throw together, so I like to keep the ingredients around–at a minimum: coconut milk, curry paste, fish sauce, and limes. Luckily I still had some cilantro and mint garnish from the nam Kao I picked up at Chai Thai Noodles after my home inspection.
Just cook the curry paste in a bit of oil (I use coconut), add a couple tablespoons of the coconut cream floating on top of the coconut milk, and cook until the oils separate. I’ve found it is too difficult to get the coconut milk to crack with most commercial coconut milks (and all coconut creams I’ve picked up in the US contain stabilizers) so the oil plus coconut solids plus curry paste is a decent substitute. After the mixture appears oily, add any long-cooking vegetables or meats, in this case the chayote. Cook for a couple minutes, then add remainder of coconut milk, fish sauce, lime juice (I was lucky enough to have some makruts in the bottom of the drawer, so I added zest and juice.) and a pinch of sugar. Cook until vegetables are nearly done, taste and adjust salt (fish sauce), acidity, and sweet (I’m a sweet hater, and my end result never approaches sweet, but I do find it is always better and more rounded with a bit of sugar (or palm sugar or agave syrup). Add quick cooking vegetables, like carrot slices and cook until done. I ended up not adding the tofu, though it was open and would work, as I’m rationing it for a time I’m even hungrier, after all, this has appetite-suppressing coconut milk.
Served over jasmine rich, of which I have a couple servings under 10 pounds and will certainly prevent me from going hungry during this experiment.
My usual quick breakfast of toast and almond butter hampered by my current breadless, almond-butterless state required a few substitutions, but resulted in a bit tastier, though less healthy than the original.
I just microwaved the hard, separated peanut butter in the chili-garlic sauce for 20 seconds so I could combine and spread, and toasted the split sesame bread.
Well, it has been a while, but I might as well get back on the internet, since I have a lot of work and responsibilities to avoid. I just came back from visiting my family over the Xmas holiday with an offer pending on a cute California bungalow in Oakland and a big, messy, lived in apartment. Thoughts of handing nearly all my money over as a downpayment and having to pack all my stuff up to move have forced me to do something I should have done a long time ago–rely solely on the food items I’ve hoarded until they run out or a month, whichever is longer (I’m betting on the month). I’ll save money and space for the next month making for an easier move physically and financially. I don’t think it will be too much of a sacrifice for the first week, but I am considering allowing a $2/week vegetable budget since I started fairly deep in the hole on fresh vegetables, as I just returned after 10 day away. Maybe I’ll just allow foraging (which does include my winter garden). And I will be allowed meals out for social reasons, but not convenience.
And so, in print, is my plan to turn my life into a Chopped + Hoarders show.