Thai Night

As usual I have failed to keep up with my daily blogging, and now have a store of pictures to share that would be more than anyone could handle. At least I'm consistent! So, I'll do my best to keep the length down.

Sunday night we decided to have some dessert along with the second disc of Ben-Hur. Fresh cherries and pastry cream... uh, YES PLEASE!

Ben-Hur was a good one, but looong! At least I can say that I've seen it now! We also watched The Losers. It's a good action/comedy with lots of stuff blowing up. Very entertaining. Not exactly award-winning, but fun.

Yesterday was mostly spent hanging around home, enjoying the last bit of weekend. We seem to have acquired a whole case of mangoes, so I was trying to come up with something to do with them. I decided I'd try to make coconut sticky rice with fresh mango. I searched around online and found this.

I had never heard of steaming the rice before, and I didn't have "sticky rice" so I used arborio. It actually turned out amazingly good! I was so impressed with my skills! (ok, I was actually impressed with this recipe!)

I soaked my rice, then steamed it.

While it was steaming I made the sauce and cut up 2 mangoes.

You all know how to cut up mangoes, right? Start by standing the mango on end with the edge facing you. Take your knife and make a cut slightly off center. As you slice down you'll feel the stone, just keep cutting around it. Do the same to the other side, leaving you with two halves and the stone. It'll have a lot of good fruit on it still, so trim it off as best you can. ( I have to admit that I gnaw on the stones until there's no trace of fruit on them. Picture me leaning over the kitchen sink, giant hunk of mango in my mouth, juice dripping down to my elbows and chin. Pure joy!)

To get the fruit out of your halves, cup it in your hand, and use a knife to slice a grid, making sure not to cut through the skin. When you have the grid cut just push the peel side up, essentially turning it inside out. It'll look like this.

Then you can just slice off the cubes! Look at this mouth-watering bowl of dreaminess! Yum!

So once I had all my components ready I put the cut mango in the fridge to chill, and poured the sauce over the rice as called for. It absorbed the sauce so well! I was worried it'd stay kind of crunchy, which would not have been so great, but it did just what it was supposed to!

Once the liquid was absorbed I stuck it in the fridge to chill too.

B decided to make some curry to go along with my dessert, turning it into Thai night! Here's what he did.

Start a pot of white rice (or brown) cooking, so it will be done when your curry is.

First he chopped up an onion and tossed it into a pan with some coconut oil.

then he chopped up 2 chicken breasts and tossed them in. Cook together until chicken is opaque on the outside.

Meanwhile, cut up 2 large potatoes into bite sized chunks and microwave until cooked. set aside.

Add to the pan a few tablespoons of curry paste (we used mild), and a can of coconut milk ( we use light). Cook this down a little bit until it looks slightly less watery, maybe 5 minutes.

Next he tossed in whatever vegetables we had around. There were half used bags of green beans and baby carrots lurking in our freezer, and they were starting to look a little sad, so in they went. A yellow bell pepper also found it's way into the pan.

The veggies were cooked for a few minutes, then a couple of kaffir lime leaves went in, along with 2 heaping tablespoons of peanut butter and 1/2 cup of water.

Once the consistency was about right, and the chicken and veggies were properly cooked (about 10 minutes) the spices were added. Curry powder, cayan pepper and smoked paprika. This is when the potatoes went in too. If you put them in too early they will disintegrate into the sauce.

At this point taste it! Make sure you have enough spices, and that the flavor is how you like it. The sauce should be a bit soupy because the rice will soak it all up.

And there you have it! B's homemade curry!

I put together the dessert, and it looked SO good!

B served up the curry, spooning everything over the rice. A sprinkling of chopped peanuts finished it off. This dinner was making me drool just sitting on my tray!

Unfortunately B and I didn't control our excitement very well, and ended up eating WAY too much! That sticky rice if super filling! We both went to work waddling and holding our distended bellies. It was worth it though!

What is your favorite dinner theme? Thai, Mexican, Greek...?

Fabulous Fruit Tart Time!

Ok, remember these bad boys?

Well, I finally have the recipes for you! Told ya i'd remember! These recipes are all by Cathy Burgett, my old baking instructor. She is so amazingly talented! So, here goes...

Pasta Frolla (sweet dough for tarts)

1 3/4 sticks (7 oz.) butter, cool but malleable

1/2 cup sugar

pinch salt

1 egg

1 egg yolk

1 tsp. vanilla

grated zest of 1 lemon

2 1/2 cups flour (pastry flour works best, but regular is ok)

-Cream the butter and sugar until ewll mixed, but not light

-Add the egg and egg yolk, the pinch of salt, and the flavorings.

-Mix well to combine. Add the flour, and cut with a dough scraper to mix lightly just until incorporated.

-Squeeze the dough together lightly, and knead once or twice to finish the mixing.

-Form the dough into a ball and wrap in plastic wrap.

-Refrigerate at least 20 minutes before working with this dough.

-Roll the chilled dough out on a lightly floured surface, about 1/8" thick.

-Cut to slightly larger than your tart pan, roll dough up onto rolling pin, and unroll it into the tart pan.

-Fit the dough smugly into the tart pan, and cut it off at the edge of the pan by rolling the pin back and forth over it.

-Prick the bottom and sides of the dough with a fork.

-Refrigerate for 30 minutes to one hour, or freze for 10 minutes before baking.

-To bake, preheat the overn to 375*. Line the bottom of the tart pan with parchment paper or foil, and fill it with rice or beans to weigh it down.

-Bake for 15-20 minutes, then remove the weights, and continue baking for 10-15 minutes more until golden brown and cooked through.

-For small tartlettes this dough does not have to be weighted when baking.

Yield: one large tart shell (11-12") or 12-16 small tartlettes

Once you've got your shell baked set aside to cool. You can make the next recipe while those are baking and cooling.

Pastry Cream

2 cups milk

4 Tbs. butter

1/2 cup sugar

5 egg yolks

2 Tbs. cornstarch

2 Tbs. flour

1 tsp. vanilla, or 2 tsps. juice or liqueur, or the grated zest of 1 lemon or 1 orange

-Bring the milk and butter to a boil over high heat.

-In a small bowl whisk together the sugar and egg yolks until thick and creamy.

-Whisk the flour and cornstarch into the yolk/sugar mixture until well combined.

-Temper (add a little to bring up the temperature) the hot milk into the yolk mixture, then pour the yolk mixture back into the pot of milk.

-Over medium-high heat, whisk constantly until the cream thickens and boils.

-Remove from heat and pour into a clean, dry bowl.

-Flavor with an extract, juice, liqueur, or zest.

-Cover with plastic wrap in direct contact with pastry cream, and refrigerate until cool.

Note: to lighten pastry cream, whip 1/2 cup heavy cream to medium-soft peak, and fold it into cold pastry cream. Chill until ready to use.

Once your tart shells are cool, your pastry cream is cool and your strawberries are washed and sliced in half you are ready to roll!

To assemble those tasty tarts just start scooping the pastry cream into the shells. make a good thick layer,but leave a bit of space between the cream and the top of the tart shell edge so it doesn't spill over. At least 1/2", but more if you have a large deep shell.

Once the pastry cream is in and smoothed, start placing your strawberries. Start at the outside edge and set the strawberry halves cut side down. Keep moving in circles and slightly overlapping as you go. When you reach the center and have a little space left i like to put either a whole strawberry with the green top up, or a sprig of mint to finish it off.

Get some jam, apricot is traditional, but i use strawberry or raspberry for the color, put a few spoonfuls into a microwave safe bowl and heat until liquidy. If it has chunks or seeds you'll need to strain them out. Add a bit of boiling water or some lemon juice to thin it just a bit. Carefully paint your berries, using a pastry brush, with the jam so everything is evenly covered. Not only does this add a pretty shiny finish to your tart, but it also helps seal in the freshness of the berries and cream so they don't dry out.

And Voila! You've got a gorgeous tart ready to eat (but it's so pretty you'd better take a picture first!).

You don't have to use strawberries for this tart, if you've got other things around. Mixed fruit tarts are lovely because of the variety of colors and textures. Try kiwi, pineapple, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, star fruit, pomegranate seeds...anything that catches your fancy! (Things like apples and bananas don't work well because they change color, and citrus usually isn't a good choice because they are so juicy and will sog out the tart shell.) Arrange the pieces in whatever way looks beautiful to you! Try to keep the fruit in consistent bite sized pieces. And make sure someone oooh's and aaah's at all your hard work!!! Now dig in!