jaeleslie

Saturday night after a long disappointing day at the mall, and fighting through the football traffic which had just gotten out, M and C came over for dinner. I sat them down with the first bottle of wine in the dining room to keep me company while I heated up some curry, and peeled and prepped a bunch of vegetables and rice. We have been getting different colored cauliflowers from the organic farm (white, green and purple) and unusual colors of potatoes (red and blue right through, which turn out kind of pastel) and had a fresh bag of salad mix. The turkey curry was my first attempt at a Thai recipe, but the procedure is quite a bit like Indian curries. Earlier in the week I had made half a recipe for six for me & the two guys which somehow left still enough to feed us all again Saturday, just by heating it up.

Well, okay, the recipe says it is Cambodian, but the curry paste and coconut milk I got say Thai on the labels. M says I have to tell exactly what substitutions I made.

2 large stalks lemongrass

(We get this from Harmony Valley too.)Discard the outer layers and trim off root. The lower six inches is tender in the middle. Thinly slice about a quarter cup, and then put in the food processor (I have a small size processor) with

2 large cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
2-inch bit of dried red chili, seeds removed, crumbled (as it turns out this is really too much chili for Norwegians)
2 tsp turmeric (sez here: but with none on hand I had to use Madras curry powder which is turmeric-yellow)
2 Tbsp water, to make a paste

Hmm. This is where I really went astray. No star anise (3) to brown in the pan, so at some point I put in

1 tsp five-spice powder (which has lots of star anise in)(actually it was four-spice because of something else I was missing when I ground it up last week, fennel seed I think, but that means there was an equal part by weight of cinnamon too, with less of cloves and black pepper) (You could use aniseed instead)

1 (14-oz) can lite coconut milk (or regular)

Put this in a big pot and bring to boil over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, and reduce a bit (5-10 minutes). Add if you have them

1/4 cup roasted unsalted peanuts (but M had eaten them all before I got to them)

Anyhow, reduce the heat and stir in the lemongrass paste from above, and

1 tsp red curry paste

If your poultry is uncooked, now is the time to add that and cook it, stirring frequently, 10 minutes or so, but I had leftover roast turkey so I'll mention that later where I actually put it in. Add

2 tsp creamy peanut butter
1 cup chopped onion
2 cups chopped green, yellow, and red bell peppers
1 cup peeled potato chopped in 1-inch pieces

Cook these, covered, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes. (Also other vegetables that are uncooked can be added, butternut squash and carrot, chopped, but I had them already steamed as leftovers and added them just at the end so they wouldn't get too mushy.) Then I added

1 pound more or less leftover turkey (or chicken) cut in 2-inch pieces
1/8 cup fish sauce
2 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt

Bring this to a simmer, for 8 minutes or so, and liquid is getting low. Add

1 cup of water
1 cup butternut squash, chopped in 1-inch pieces, previously cooked
1 cup of carrots, chopped, previously cooked

Here the recipe calls for

1 cup trimmed green beans

which I didn't have, but you should cook those for 6-8 minutes so they are just tender or to your taste. Anyhow, bring all this to a simmer, stirring occasionally, make sure all the vegetables are done, and then serve with white rice.

Now that I look it over carefully, I halved all the spices from the measures that were given me (and half the water)but put in the whole can of coconut milk, which made enough sauce for quite a lot of vegetables. And still a bit too hot for the guys at our house. You could increase the spices if you like. So eat it with a lot of rice. Curries are delicious disguises for root vegetables that no one will otherwise eat.

The Australian Chardonnays seemed suitable.

I haven't been keeping up here at all, because last weekend I was at the shopping mall with the art fair most of the time with my calligraphy group. We have a booth together and have been doing this fair since 1989, spring and fall. It is much easier in the mall than the Art Fair on the Square which is outdoors in the middle of the summer. (We have been showing our work there since 1985.) You'd think I would have figured out by now how to make properly salable stuff, but I seem to be a slow learner. We are always learning stuff from each other. It is always fun. We keep the booth completely overstaffed all weekend so we can talk to each other, and sometimes to the customers.

Then afterwards I do all the bookkeeping for the group. This is considerably more complicated than it would be for an individual artist with a booth all to herself, because we not only have to divide the sales properly according to exactly which pieces sold, but we have to collect sales taxes and divide those up and report that (individually) to the state. Fortunately I don't have to do the spreadsheet by hand anymore. And fortunately I seem to have gotten a helpful degree in the subject of bookkeeping somewhere along the line, before I became a professional artist, so I have some confidence that I know how to do it properly.

I am a professional! do not try this at home!