Red Curry

As much as I love to cook, often after a long day of work, the last thing I want to do is stand on my feet for hours and cook dinner.  I tend to do most of my serious baking and cooking on my days off or at the beginning of my work week when I still have energy after getting off of work.  I try to have several meals on hand that are quick and easy to make for during the work week.  One of those meals is red (or green) curry.  I learned how to make curry during my time in Philadelphia during Mission Year.  And I've been making it every since it's quick, easy and very tasty!

Red Curry
Printable Recipe Here

Ingredients:
1-2 pounds chicken
Salt and pepper
1 or 2 bell peppers, any color
1 onion
1 cup frozen peas
1 can coconut milk
2-6 teaspoons red or green curry paste
Optional:
4 leaves fresh basil

Directions:
Cut up chicken and cook in large skillet with a little oil.  While the chicken is cooking, slice bell peppers and onion.  After the chicken has cooked, add salt and pepper to taste, a little more oil and the peppers, onion and peas.  Stir occasionally and cook on medium-low until peppers and onions are mostly cooked.  Add coconut milk and cook on low until it begins to boil.  Add fresh chopped basil if using.  Begin stirring in the curry paste 1 teaspoon at a time until you reach your desired heat.  (Do not add the curry past all at once--you can always add more paste to make the curry hotter but you cannot take it away.)  Serve over rice. 

Amy's Notes:
This recipe is how I made my red curry the last time, but I rarely make it the same twice.  You can use whatever color bell peppers you want.  I usually use one green and one red, but used only green this past time.  This was the first time I used peas and I really liked them in the curry.  And if you want to make a vegetarian version, just use tofu instead of chicken.  I used lite coconut milk so the curry was a little bit healthier.  I think I like green curry more than red, but both are good.  I kind of forgot about red/green curry and I hadn't made it in months so this tasted SO GOOD!

All my veggies, coconut milk, and curry paste ready to go!

My bowl of veggies ready to be added

Cooking the chicken

The chicken and veggies all cooking

After I added the coconut milk and curry paste

All ready to eat!  Yummy!

Black Bean and Corn Salsa

The year after my freshman year of college I did a volunteer program called Mission Year.  For 11 months, I lived in West Philadelphia, spent four days a week volunteering in my community, attended the neighborhood church, invested in my neighbors, and lived intentionally with four other girls.  It was one of the most challenging years of my life.  And also the most life changing year of my life.  Most of what I learned during that year would have been much easier to ignore--things about myself, poverty and racism, to name a few.  But a nine year old talking about who in their class they want to have sex with, or a third grader who can't read words like 'cat' and 'dog', or discussions over lunch about who got shot down the street are hard to forget. 

A major part of my year involved learning to invest in my teammates.  My four teammates and I became very close during the year.  Although I don't talk to all of them very often and only see them about once a year, I still consider them to be close friends.  I experienced something with the four of them that most of the time I can't descibe to anyone else.  I think part of why we became so close over the year, besides living in a very small house and all sharing one tiny bathroom, was that we ate dinner together six days a week.  The five of us took turns cooking dinner once a week.  And it was a huge challenge for me.  I was 19 when I arrived in Philly.  I had one year of college under my belt but never had to cook for myself before.  Growing up, I usually had to cook dinner for my family once a week but that consisted of things like tuna helper, hot dogs or grilled cheese.  Unfortunately, my cooking during Mission Year was not too different. 

Thankfully, my teammates offered me a lot of grace while I stumbled through learning how to cook for five people.  And they never complained about how many times I 'cooked' hot dogs for dinner.  I learned a ton from seeing each of them cook throughout the year.  I learned that cooking can be very stressful sometimes.  That when you try new things, they don't always work out and that's just part of the learning process.  That a meal doesn't have to be picture perfect.  Much of what I know about cooking, I've learned from the people I've lived with from Mission Year and the years after. 

At the end of our year together, we decided to put together a cookbook of the recipes we made during the year.  I've used it quite a bit in the years since Mission Year.  It's a lot of fun to look through since we wrote notes about each recipe which are funny to reread.  I am very nostalgic about food.  For instance, when I eat something it reminds me about when I first ate it or who I got the recipe from.  When I make recipes from this cookbook I always think about those crazy months I spent in Philadelphia.

Below is one of the recipes from our 'Glitter Girls Cookbook'.  We called ourselves the 'Glitter Girls' because the walls of our house were covered in glitter.  The guy who did maintenance for our landlord covered the walls of the house in that horrible popcorn stuff that goes on ceilings and then threw glitter (like the silver glitter you used in elementary school for craft projects) up on the wall while the paint was drying.  It was horrible and was just one of the many quirks of our house.

I hope to include several more recipes from this cookbook on this blog as well as some of my adventures in Philadelphia.

The cover of our cookbook was a photocopy of our guest placemat.

We had our dinner guests sign and date the placemat.

The coveted hot dog recipe.

Black Bean and Corn Salsa
Source: Glitter Girls Cookbook
Printable Recipe Here
Ingredients:
1 can black beans
1 can corn
2 or 3 green, red or yellow peppers
1 small bunch green onions
1/2 white onion
2 or 3 tomatoes
1/2 bunch cilantro
1/4 cup lime juice
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon garlic
salt, to taste

Directions:
Empty beans and corn into a large bowl.  Chop up peppers, green onions, white onion, tomatoes and cilantro.  Add lime juice and spices.  Let sit in fridge for a few hours for the flavors to mingle.  Serve on chips or over lettuce as a salad. 

Amy's Notes:
I love this stuff.  I hadn't made it in almost two years so it was long overdue to make!  We ate this salsa as dinner because it was so good!  I've never done it but I would like to try adding avacado to this next time. 

All mixed together and marinate in the fridge for a few hours.

Seriously.  So good.

Yum