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Wednesday, June 9

Co Co's cooking!

I woke up pretty early today (not as early as I usually have to for work) and I decided I wanted to make something delicious for supper. Unfortunately, my kitchen was pretty bare and lacking in anything promising besides the staples, so I had to go to the grocery store. While at the grocery store, I came across some interesting ingredients in the ethnic food aisle: coconut milk, curry paste and basmati rice, vindaloo sauce. The wheels started turning in my head and I knew right away that I was craving beef vindaloo. Now, I'm not partial to buying pre-made sauces in jars for ethnic dishes, I would much rather try to create the dish from scratch. I bought the things I went to the grocery store for, and also picked up: thinly sliced steak, a vidalia onion, red and green peppers, basmati rice, coconut milk, mild curry paste, cilantro, and naan bread. When I got home I put all my ingredients on the top of my counter and began to get to work. The final product was amazing. Here's the recipe and some photos of the process. Yum yum!

All the ingredients:


The recipe:

You will need the following:

* 1 tbsp (or to taste) Patak's Hot Curry Paste (or similar other brand. My fiance is a bit of a spice wimp so I used Mild paste)
* 1 medium onion
* 1/2 (each) green pepper and red pepper
* Coconut milk
* 1 tbsp minced garlic
* 1 tbsp minced ginger
* 1-2 tbsp EVOO
* Thinly sliced beef steak
* Cream
* Yogurt
* Naan bread (I like the garlic naan from Zhers/PC)
* Butter
* Curry Powder
* Cooked basmati rice

Recipe

1. Pre-cook beef. Thinly slice all the veggies (onion/peppers) and set aside.
2. In a frying pan or wok, heat the oil and add the garlic and ginger. Cook on med-medium/low heat. Drizzle coconut milk on top.
3. Add beef to the pan, allow to heat through.
4. Add the veggies you cut and put in a bowl earlier. Stir-fry with the meat for about 2 minutes.
5. Take curry paste and add it to the pan. Stir to coat the meat and vegetables.
6. Slowly add creamer or more coconut milk to the pan until a sauce forms. This really is a matter of preference. If you add too much cream, don't worry - it will thicken.
7. Spoon mixture over basmati rice and drizzle yogurt or more coconut milk over the rice. Helps to tone down the spice.

If desired, serve with naan bread. Heat in the oven for a few minutes, put a bit of butter on the hot naan bread, cut into quarters and serve alongside vindaloo.

Enjoy!

The curry simmering away on the stove:


The final product:

Tuesday, June 8

I'm back....

Hello again to everyone...

So I kind of took a two and a half month hiatus from blogging. I was finding that I just didn't have enough time in the day to keep up with things. Since March, numerous things have gone down in my life.

I've moved back in with my fiance and we're trying to get back into the swing of things. My dog Louie is getting along peachy with his new home. We've been taking him to puppy classes at Petsmart and he's really doing well in terms of his fears and shady shyness.


I had a falling out with my step-mother because I have chosen to continue me relationship with my fiance. This has been very hard on me and I'm not sure how to go about rectifying the damage that has been done. My cat escaped the safe confines of our home and was impregnated..two days ago she delivered 3 kittens. Now we need to find happy homes for three little fuzz balls. They are super cute! A god friend of mine had a lovely little bundle of joy named Aryana! We've taken to calling her "Squeaks" because she always seems to be making sqeauky noises.


The best thing that happened to be is in terms of work! I was the successful applicant for a full-time contract position out in the county,but now I am finding that I have too much time on my hands. On a good day in this rural little village, our truck is lucky enough to get called out to one standby for a nearby busier town. Most days I find myself twidling my fingers, reading books (I've recently become a crazed fanatic of the Sookie Stackhouse Series [LOVE LOVE LOVE!! And I've already read all 10 novels currently in circulation]), scrapbooking my life away, playing Bejewelled Blitz on Facebook or downloading and then using applications on my new iPhone (LOVE IT!!!). I absolutely LOVE knowing my scedule and being able to plan things in advance without worrying about whether I am going to be called into work. The contract is only supposed to be about 7 months, but 7 months is better than nothing at all, and I can't really complain because I haven't been working for a year yet and I already have this position so...GO ME!


Tonight I am starting an 8-week fitness challenge. I joined a bootcamp!!! It's called Booty Camp Fitness and is offered only to women. With 93 locations all over Canada, I'm seriously hoping that this is going to be (1) uber fun, and (2) give me results!!! A girl I went to highschool joined the classes and has been talking about it a lot on Facebook and I had to look into it. The 8-week course costs $300, has two 1-hour classes and week (I picked the Tuesday/Thursday option) and has many additional bonuses (check the website if you're interested). I'm going to post pictures soon of me now (the dreaded BEFORE shot..dun dun dahhhhhh!!!) and we'll see how I change over the next 8 weeks. Here's hoping the course lives up to its motto: "Fun, friendly, fitness!"

More to follow! I hope all in well with everyone else in the blogging world!

- Co Co