Sunday, September 30, 2007

Adventures in Dutch Cuisine

I am taking my training to be a wife very, very seriously. Very. Seriously. When Martin was in Eugene, he made this traditional Dutch dish. It's basically potatoes mashed together with really finely chopped kale. It's usually served with sausages, but I actually just like it quite a bit by iteslf. It sounds simple, but it's actually really really tasty. I liked it so much that I tried to make it myself today.

Step 1: boil potatoes.
Step 2: chop kale and add to potatoes to boil
Step 3: mush together with butter and salt.
Step 4: Looks like I'll be eating lots of potatoes and kale this week...
Consume with lots of water. Potatoes can make your mouth so dry!

Monday, September 24, 2007

I'm back, and I'm cooking!

It seems strange that I didn't blog at all while in New York City for the summer. You'd think there's so much going on that I'd have stuff to blog about all the time. But as it turns out, blogging is for people who are *just* busy enough to have stuff to blog about, but not so busy that they don't have time to actually blog. I fell into the latter category this summer. But now I'm firmly back into the first category.

I did manage to end my single life by getting engaged this summer. To a vegetarian. Something that's completely unimaginable to me about 8 years ago. But my taste has slowly evolved over the years from a near-complete carnivore to one that appreciates fresh vegetables and fruits. So being a vegetarian is no longer an immediate strike in my book. Martin showed up at just the right time.

Since he bought me a ring and everything, I figured I ought to learn how to cook some vegetarian dishes. Here's my attempt at turning a "green curry beef" recipe into a "green curry Thai eggplants and Shiitake mushrooms". It's possible that putting Shiitake mushrooms in such a strongly flavored dish is a sacrilege. But, whatever. I've never been an orthodox cook.

The ingredients are very simple: Thai eggplants and Shiitake mushrooms, green curry paste, Thai fish sauce, and coconut milk. And apparently, I also needed palm sugar. But oh well, brown sugar and syrup will have to do -- I figured they must taste similar... sweet.

Having been reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, I've been carefully looking at the ingredients of processed foods to try and eat less corn! I was happy to see that the ingredients of the green curry paste, the most processed thing I used in my dish, contained ingredients with names I understand: e.g. green chili. And none of them is corn.

Simmering...
And voila! Final product, with white rice.
And it was yummy.