Thai Green Curry with Chicken

I don’t know if it’s a case of the winter blah’s, me being tired of routine meals (dad’s been stuck in a rut lately and has been cycling through the same 5 meals back to back) or my new ‘nesting’ instinct from being pregnant but I was really craving something different for dinner.  Dad was ecstatic for two reasons. Firstly, it was something “we” don’t eat at home (he always refuses to eat Thai when we’re out though the hubster and I offer to bring it home for him). Secondly, this one simple fact: he didn’t have to cook it nor clean up after it.

This dish was very easy to throw together and cook. I was done in under 30 minutes granted I did use a prepared sauce from a jar (yes, I totally cheated and feel no guilt about it) and prepped both the veggies  and chicken beforehand so when it came time to cook, it literally was a ‘throw it together in one pot and let it do its thing’ type affair. Who doesn’t like easy peasy?

Saute 1lb thinly sliced chicken for about 5 minutes – does not need to be fully cooked.
(You can use dark or white meat. I used what we had on hand – chicken breasts)

Start the rice!
(Have I told you how much I love this lil thing?)

Add the sliced veggies to the pan with the partially cooked chicken, stir well and let partially saute/get soft. At this point, I slapped the lid on and left the two of them to get their freak on for about 5 minutes. Unsupervised of course. 😉

  
While waiting, I opened the sauce and took a taste. WOW. Hello concentrated flavours!  At this point, knowing that dad isn’t a fan of strong flavours I immediately decided that I’d need to water down the sauce just a tad for him.  Figured I’d rinse out the jar with a bit of water vs scraping it to death with a spatula trying to get my entire $3 of sauce worth outta it.

Next, I added the sauce (including the shaken out sauce remainders from the jar) then mixed well.
Let it sit, mingle and get their ‘party on’. Again, without supervision under cover of course.  Probably another 10 minutes.

Once the rice was done and the curry was ready, I plated it up.
Its totally Ok. You can admit it looks tasty 😉

Dad was served the first plate.  He eagerly snatched up his spoon and dove in.   He took 3 good long bites, carefully trying to taste everything and his only comments were ‘Its good. But no salt?’ Um…the salt I’m pretty sure is in the sauce there dad. I didn’t add any extra, that’s for sure. (We’ve been omitting extra salt in our cooking due to dad having had his TIA. I figured the jar had enough already in it) He then added that he did like it but worried we wouldn’t have liked it due to lack of salt.   He’s cute, no?  BTW in case you were wondering, it was plenty flavourful for both the hubster and I. Even without the extra salt.

Bonus – this was a very frugal meal for 4 generous sized portions cooked at home. The cost of ingredients used to make this was about the cost of 1-2 portions out at a Thai restaurant.

What’s your favourite easy peasy/one pot meal?

Pedicures & Thai Food

Speaking of taking time to re-charge…I treated myself to a pedicure last week at the beauty school.  Usually they do a great job.   I guess I’ve always lucked out with a great student.   For some reason, I always seem to get the newb. And this one was beyond young (I’m guessing not even 20 yrs old here) and very inexperienced.  Trusting in the school, I let her work on my feet knowing full well that if I had any concerns that I should stop her immediately and ask for the instructor.

Poor girl…she knew what had to be done.   It became clear that she had the textbook smarts but not enough practical time. Hey, thats why she was there, right?  When it came time for the instructor to check her work, she politely stepped in and um…repainted my ALL my toes. You see, the newb – bless her heart – was trying so hard that some toes got only 2 coats (as is the norm) while other toes got 6-7 coats.  Even the instructor had that smile on her face. Poor newb.

This week I got a  ‘do over’.  (Honestly, tell me you’d turn down a free pedicure – NOT)  My girlfriend decided to join me though she wasn’t getting any services performed and after an excellently successful pedicure – FOR FREE – we decided to do lunch.

I decided to intro her to a local thai place (Bua Thai) that I had frequented in previous years while I was working.  Its a quaint little place, great fast & friendly service with very reasonable prices and tasty food.

Appetizer:  spring rolls & tofu soup

Entree: chicken pad thai

(Visit their website: http://www.buathai.ca/)