Red Curry packed with chicken and vegetables.

I have developed a small obsession with this curry since we had it so often in Australia and it was so heavenly! I knew it wouldn't be long before I started a trend of making it on a regular basis for ourselves.  If you are lucky enough to have access to a well stocked shop you will be able to find red curry paste which will make you job very easy. For those who aren't in such a position you can make it yourself if you can get your hands on the ingredients, a Google search will tell you what goes into it. 

It really is quite simple, just prepare the vegetables that you want to use and the meat and then get to it. You want to cut the veg fine so that it cooks quickly. I finely sliced 2 carrots on the diagonal, tailed a handful of snow peas then halved them, cut up half a box of brown mushrooms, 1/4 of a cabbage maybe less, finely chopped 4 or 5 cloves of garlic and an inch cube of ginger. You could grate these if you like. 

To make the sauce fry some paste in a little oil, I used about 3 heaped spoons but use it according to how strong you like it, I like it full of flavour. I added the garlic and ginger to this and let it fry then poured over a can of coconut milk and stirred it. Into this went the juice of half a lime, a small spoon of dark sugar, 2 chillies (whole so that they could be removed afterwards) and a few shakes of fish sauce. Avoid the sugar if you don't like it sweet and the chillies if you don't want it hot, or less paste will help on the heat front. Experiment by adding a little of them and adjusting it if you think it needs tweaking.

Once the sauce is to your liking add the chicken, in cubes, and let it gently poach in the sauce, this will keep it really moist. Keep checking on the meat if you don't know how long it will take, it doesn't take long. Add the carrots part way through and then the rest of the veg according to how long they take to cook. At the end add the bean sprouts because you don't want them to overcook and dress with fresh coriander. 

We had some brown rice to go with this but I was just as happy having it on it's own, like a flavour packed soup teaming with vegetable goodness! Yay for Red Curry, and a tasty new trend.

Steak and Stir Fry.

We are lucky enough at the moment to be close enough to the St. Lawrence Market to shop there regularly should we so wish. It is very hard to go there and not want to buy all kinds of things so you have to have a list or a meal idea and stick to it. I already had lots of vegetables in the house so we went there just to find a nice piece of meat to go with. AAA NewYork Sirloin was on sale, so that is what we got, one large steak!

It was the first time we have chosen to cook a steak in a pan over the bbq and that was purely because in this building you have to rent a time slot on the bbq up on the roof and we just couldn't be bothered to do that and run up and down the stairs! (We are planning another meal that we can bbq with side dishes that are cold that we can take up there and just stay up there to eat).

So, I cut up lots of veg - onions, carrots, snow peas, mushrooms and broccoli along with some finely chopped garlic and ginger. And seasoned the steak in olive oil, salt and pepper. We got a pan smoking hot on the highest heat then cooked the steak the same we would have on the bbq, flipping it once. It was a large steak so I think it was 5minutes one side then 4minutes the other and it had over 10minutes to rest while I cooked the stir fry. In the same pan that the steak had been in I started doing the stir fry, olive oil, then the garlic and ginger, then all the rest of the vegetables. I seasoned it with some soya sauce, salt and pepper and some balsamic vinegar which gave it a slightly sweet taste once it had reduced. 

We filled our plates with stir fried vegetables and topped it with some sliced steak and a little soya sauce, perfect! When you have enough variety of tasty vegetables you don't even notice that you are missing rice or noodles or whatever other carb, it was a meal that didn't leave us over full, I was very pleased with it. It was also just one pan and plates to wash up which is always nice too!

Coconut water and Caesars on Canada Day!

Today is Canada Day! It feels good to be here and part of it and actually belong here this time round. We went out to enjoy some of the festivities and among the tasty things we found along the way was a young coconut. The lovely man hacked it open for us and told us to come back when we had drunk it and he would open it up so we could eat the inside.

It is hard to describe the flavour of coconut water, it isn't overly sweet I can tell you that much. It is very refreshing. My husband drinks it with rum at home and loves it. Apparently it is really good for you being full of electrolytes.We did get it cut open after we had drunk it all and the 'flesh' was still in a very thin jelly form on the shell edge, almost translucent, though slightly thicker and firmer at the base where it would have been settling and the development is faster. Eventually the water would turn into sweet flesh with the smallest amount of cream and liquid remaining, what an amazing ripening process! We scraped the jelly out with a wedge of the shell to eat. The same lovely old man warned my husband that it was an aphrodisiac and to be careful! All said with a glint in his eye and a big chuckle! The coconut was definitely being sold by this man as he had previously told us it was good for the kidneys and eyesight. 

Once we were home it was time to have a real Canadian drink and a Caesar it was! I had mine without vodka and it is just as nice as with (in my opinion!). 

The basis of the drink is Clamato which is described as a tomato/clam cocktail. It is pretty much seasoned tomato juice with powdered clam broth in it. It is thinner than regular tomato juice. To start you rub the rim of your glass with a lime wedge then dunk it into some Caesar Rimmer (which is a salty/spicy powder with pepper, onion and celery salt in it). Add some ice cubes to the glass, some lime juice (from 1 or 2 wedges, however much you like), a few shakes of Worcester sauce, some hot sauce (if you want, of whatever variety you like, Tabasco etc), some salt and pepper and then a shot of vodka if you are having any (we bought a cheap variety for this occasion because you can't really taste it through all the rest of the stuff anyway). Fill the glass up with Clamato and garnish with whatever you want; celery is traditional but you find all kinds of things in them from prawns on a stick, to pickled beans, lemons, pickled onions, pickles to name a few. You can also make all kinds of versions of the Caesar itself using different alcohol and different flavours i.e pickle juice and horseradish!

The Caesar is also a very refreshing drink, and so packed with flavour. Your mouth is alive and lips tingling from the rimmer and heat and acid. It really is the perfect union of salts and spices. This makes the Bloody Mary pale in comparison.