Sunday night - Chicken and green bean red Thai curry

I love green beans with red curry a.k.a. pad prik khing, so it seemed to make sense to combine them with chicken and coconut milk for a full blown Thai coconut curry.

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into chunks
2 T vegetable oil (I use canola)
1/2 large onion, slice
1/2 inch of ginger, minced
1 heaping T red curry paste
1 can coconut milk (I used the 'lite' version this time, but I prefer the regular)
12 oz. frozen whole green beans, thawed (of course you could use fresh)
1 t salt
2 t sugar

Heat the oil in a wok till hot, add the chicken and stir fry until done. Remove from pan, leaving the oil. Add the onion and ginger and saute for a few minutes until the onion starts to soften. Add the curry paste and cook for a few minutes. Pour in the coconut milk and stir till the paste is incorporated into the liquid, then add the chicken back into the pan. Add the salt and sugar, then cook over a medium heat for 15 minutes or so until the beans and onions are tender. Serve over rice (I used brown).

1 heaping T red thai curry paste

Thrift on the East Side

Today seemed like a perfect day to head to Belleville to check out some of their many thrift stores. I was home from work early, the Boy was off, and the weather wasn't too hideous. Results were pretty good, overall. Suffice it to say the Boy got a pile of books not pictured here.

First up, a older, but still functional salad spinner. Since a conversation on FB, salad spinners have seemed even more precious. And this one cost 12.5 cents.

I've always wanted a little hot water pot, but have never gotten around to buying one. For $1.50 this prettily colored one became mind.

One of the more practical things I've been looking for during thrifting is a springform pan. I haven't come across one in weeks and weeks and now today I find two - one big, one small! Cheesecake is back on the menu!

This little dish has a chip, but the blue and red color scheme was so pretty, I don't care about that dang old chip.

 My quest for wooden items continues and today was a banner day. First, this shallow (and quite large) salad bowl with matching wooden salad fork and spoon. I can't wait to make a big salad in this. It seems perfect for a Caesar.

And then, from Haiti, this cool serving dish. I don't know that this one is vintage, but it's lovely.

Five skeins of what is labeled as "rug yarn." It's 75/25 rayon/cotton though it feels a little itchier than that to the hand.

I think I'm going to experiment with putting a plant of some kind under this cheese keeper glass.

 I'm not sure what the intended purpose of this dish is. It is oven proof and has a lovely mod floral bird motif. I love the bright colors.

This teeny (about 2 inches) spaniel figurine might be used for a snowglobe. Allison?

These two scotties are just kind of weird. Sort of the Easter island heads of dog statuary.

And finally, a prettily embroidered linen table runner.

Eggs Florentine Pie

I saw the recipe for this eggs florentine puff pastry pie on the BBC Good Food website a few weeks ago. With the temperatures in the upper 90s at dinner time, there was no way I was going to turn the over on to make it, but I kept thinking about it. With a much more temperate day facing us, I began to think I could risk turning on the oven and proceeded.

It's a simple recipe, but even though I added garlic and chopped onion, it was still a little bland (a common problem with Brit recipes, I find), but still a nice change of pace. It's just a sheet of puff pastry, pre-baked for 10 minutes or so, then topped with spinach sauteed in olive oil with garlic and onion, then mixed with ricotta cheese, salt, pepper and nutmeg.  Back in the oven for about 15 minutes and it's done. To serve, I chopped up a tomato and some green onion to scatter on top.

While at the grocery store, I found a package of 8 or 9 very ripe bananas for 69 cents. Sold! Banana bread. At this point, I was giddy with the idea that it wasn't 98F and I was making bakng plans with abandon. I found a good looking recipe (I added walnuts) on Allrecipes.com  and knocked out a loaf.

While I had the oven on, and since, annoyingly, the two sheets of puff pastry in a box come in the same wrapper (so dumb!), I had to use them both up. Then it must be palmiers, the absolute easiest cookie in the world. Roll out a sheet of puff pastry atop 1/3 cup or so of sugar, sprinkle the top side with more sugar, roll up each long side till they meet in the middle, then slice approximately 3/8 inch pieces and place them cut side down on a baking sheet. Bake until the sugar is caramelized and the cookie is slightly browned. So simple and so very delicious.

The Boy Gets a Thrift Store Feeling

In an unprecedented move today, the Boy announced that he had a Thrift Store Feeling about St. Vincent de Paul. Thrift Store Feelings must always be obeyed so into the car we hopped. His instincts are good.

I'm slowly building a collection of wooden pieces, both mid-century and otherwise. Leaf motifs are very common, but this specimen is special because it's BIG. It's 22 inches long! I'm thinking it will be very good for a holiday cookie tray, perhaps a chip and dip sort of thing too. 

My love of gold and black glassware is well documented here, so of course I could not pass up these teeny round VIP glasses. They're only about 2 inches high.

Two 6 inch Aztec melmac bowls in gorgeous colors.

This little darling was abandoned up at the cash register and I snagged it before anyone else could grab it. How many vintage choppers do I have now?

I don't know why I'm crazy for vintage utensils, but I am and I use them all happily. For some reason, the composition of this photo reminded me of Grant Wood's American Gothic.

I almost walked right past this platter/bowl, as the colors are rather dark and I didn't notice right away that it was glazed pottery. That would have been a serious loss as this wonderful thing is marked '1959' and is 18 inches long. I can't wait to serve something in it!

The Boy's thrift store goals are nearly always books and he did all right. I didn't photograph most of his, but here's some of the loot. These editions were just too good to pass up.

And these! The decorating book is from 1965 and the children's sewing book from '66. If Allison Walker Rabbitt is reading this, that sewing book is for her!

I adore decorating books from the '50s and '60s. I'm not sure I could live with these designs, but I certainly love looking at them. Some favorites from the pages:

I particularly love the green and blue room, above. Because I married a giant, my dream of long low mid-century furniture will remain a dream. It's just not scaled to his size. But I can enjoy photos.

A few weeks ago I neglected to document a couple of thrifting finds. I love this tiered platter. It's plastic "crystal" and the top tier lifts off, revealing an extra little section for special treats.

I seem to be amassing a collection of funny little planters.

Now, to make some banana bread. Yes, the weather has finally broken.

EDIT: Catching up with some other thrift purchases...another set of black and gold glasses (and in three again; what's up with that?).

A couple of silk scarves, in an orange theme...

A pair of grey vintage sandals. I figure since roughly 1/3 of my wardrobe is grey, I should be able to make some use of these.

Four meals, including Meatless Monday

One day recently it must not have been suffocatingly hot in our house because I came home with a package of smoked chicken thighs and somehow zeroed in on chili as the thing to do with them. Yeah, I don't get it either, and I did it. I was searching around the web for recipes using smoked chicken and I happened upon someone mentioning chili and it seemed like a good idea. So, straight to the kitchen to put a pound of dried red beans in the pressure cooker, of course.

To start the chili, I sauteed an onion, a couple of little hot chile peppers I snagged off a plant at work, half of a green pepper I had in the refrigerator, and a zucchini (because it's my chili and if I want to put a zucchini in it, I will!). Once that stuff was all nice and softened, I added a large can of crushed tomatoes, a little bit of tomato juice, a heaping tablespoon (or more) of cumin and an equal amount of chili powder. Once the beans were done, I dumped them in the pot and left the whole mess to cook for a couple hours.

It was way too hot for chili, really, but it kind of worked.

Monday was hot. (Yes, I'm a broken record - I HATE this weather and I can't wait for it to pass.) I couldn't think of anything except a salad to have for Meatless Monday, but the idea for a taco salad didn't pop into my head until late in the day. Luckily, I had most everything on hand though I had to get the Boy to pick up some corn chips. A very easy, tasty and filling salad. I used romaine lettuce, a big ripe tomato (finally able to buy some decent ones!), a handful of frozen corn (it was thawed well before serving time), a can of black beans (drained and rinsed), some crispy fried onions, a few bite-sized chunks of pepperjack cheese, corn chips for crunch and Catalina dressing (or whatever the red stuff is called).

I found my favorite little boneless beef shortribs on sale again (almost a pound and half for around $3 - I love grocery store bargains!) and I wanted to make them very simply, seasoned and grilled. It was too hot for the outdoor grill, so I fired up the electric gizmo, threw some of my favorite steak seasoning on the little fellows and cooked them up to a nice medium rare (with a half pound or so left over for another meal, as you will see). In the meantime, I steamed some potatoes (in the fabulous Pasta Boat!) and put together another salad.

To use up the leftover beef (and to completely avoid any sort of heated cooking) I made another salad, this time with spinach, carrots, another big ripe tomato, slices of the beef, a little shaved asiago cheese, croutons and honey mustard dressing. I love a steak salad so much.

Carne asada calabacitas

On Thursday it didn't seem quite as miserably hot as usual so the idea of putting something to cook in the slow cooker seemed like a good idea. I found some stew meat at the grocery store and I started thinking of some sort of Mexican inspired carne asada, with vegetables; a thick stew with vegetables and served with tortillas.

I didn't want to do any real prep work, so I pretty much threw everything into the cooker, turned it on high and waited. I started with the beef, a can of tomatoes with green chilis, about a cup of tomato juice, a few tablespoons of cumin, another couple of chili powder, a yellow squash, a zucchini, about half of a large sweet onion, two cloves of garlic and salt and pepper. After about four hours it was smelling awfully good, but even the slow cooker was putting out a heat I could feel from across the room. Ugh. I pointed a fan at it, turned it to low, and kept my ass out of the kitchen, for the most part.

It turned out well, though if it hadn't been so hot outside, I would have baked this dish in order to reduce and thicken the sauce. It was delicious scooped into flour tortillas, but a little messy. With a thicker sauce, that wouldn't have been an issue. Alongside I simply added some corn kernels to a drained and rinsed can of black beans and tossed them with a bit of vinaigrette.

Did you carry out those threats I heard /Or were you only playing macho?/And the stains on her Versace scarf/Were they really just gazpacho? - Meatless Monday's gazpacho and cheese panini

It's too hot for nearly, well, anything, but Sunday night's cool down did bring the temperature down in the house a bit, making it almost comfortable all day Monday. Comfortable enough that I was willing to chop and stir for gazpacho, and even added cheesy paninis to the Meatless Monday menu. Unlike my usual litany of ingredients and methods, I will actually detail the recipe like a normal person (and will my blog every get famous if I don't recount the recipes with exact ingredients and measurements?).

Let me state right now that I have no garden and no current access to fresh tomatoes so there are none in this recipe (which is sacrilege to 'real' gazpacho, I know), but this was a very good batch, so take that for what it is. I looked at a few recipes and took the parts I liked and came up with this one.

Gazpacho

2 stalks celery, thinly chopped
1/2 large (or 1 whole small) green pepper, chopped
1 large cucumber, peeled, seeded and chopped
1/3 large sweet onion, finely chopped
1 large fatty clove of garlic (I used a press for mine)
About a quarter cup of fresh parsley, finely chopped
1 12oz can fire roasted tomatoes, with juice
4-6 cups tomato juice
Salt and pepper to taste (you probably won't need much salt due to the tomatoes and tomato juice)
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
Several dashes of hot sauce (I used Extra Hot Valentina)
2 tsp. sugar

Stir all ingredients together and refrigerate for several hours or overnight.

For the paninis I had a lovely flat-ish sesame seed loaf which I cut in half lengthwise and spread each side with a teeny bit of mayo. I had grated cheeses so I used half sharp cheddar and half of a pizza blend. I only had a teeny amount of those delicious sweet salad peppers left (how have I lived so long without Mt. Olive's Sweet Salad Peppers???), but I stuck them on too. Ten minutes or so in the panini press and they were crispy and gooey and a perfect accompaniment to the chilled soup.

It all also seemed to work as an aphrodisiac, an added bonus, since nothing else has worked in this weather!

Dinner via assemblage

Today, the culmination of several days of 96+ temperatures, was too hot to even contemplate chopping vegetables for salad. The most I could fathom doing was putting things on a platter and maybe slicing some bread. So, at the grocery store today I bought things that required no preparation, no heat, no fuss. Thus it was a platter of meats, cheeses, bread and some other bits and bobs like sundried tomatoes, olives, sugar snap peas, and sweet/hot banana peppers. I forgot to take a photo before we started eating, so here's one mid-way through.