Sunday, March 21st, 2010
This was a great weekend. I got so much done around the house, caught up on emails, went shopping, cooked, watched movies, and spent some time at the beach. Spring is definitely coming–my parent’s daffodils are looking great already.
Friday night I made a fantastic salad…really surprisingly good. I eat so many salads that I need to vary the flavor components to keep it fresh. This one started with a bed of organic spinach, strawberries, blue cheese, and cooked fingerling potatoes that I coated with a bit of olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic powder. The blue cheese and potatoes were perfection together and the strawberries added a nice sweetness.
Friday night we watched Gosford Park, which Roman and I thought was kind of hard to follow. I think a lot of it had to do with the accents + the whispering voices. Great cast though.
Saturday morning I went for a walk along the beach since it was so warm and bright out. I came back home and made a breakfast burrito (using corn tortillas–naturally gluten free!) with 2 egg whites, 1 egg, spinach, cheddar cheese, and a pinch of pepper. Delish 
I ate this on my way out the door heading to the mall. I got two fantastic sweaters from GAP, a few cloth napkins, six towels which I got a ridiculously good deal on, and a dress for my sister-in-laws wedding in June. Overall, a very successful shopping trip. I love shopping by myself, it really is therapeutic to browse and go at my own pace. I always find amazing deals when I’m alone too.
Lunch was lentil soup Roman made the day before. I LOVE this lentil soup. The recipe is super easy and is adapted from here. I like dipping some Food Should Taste Good chippies in for some crunch.
I headed to the beach afterwards to get a little sun on my legs–they are so white! It was 74* and gorgeous.
And then it happened—I had pancakes! This might not seem like a big deal, but it’d been two years since I’ve had the warm fluffiness that is a pancake. Living gluten-free has changed my life for the better I believe, however, there are those days that I would sacrifice a small dog for a slice of pizza, warm bread, or a stack of pancakes.
I picked these up two weeks ago in Charlotte and I was thinking, why get dressed up and go out when you can stay home and eat gluten-free pancakes in your pj’s while watching an emotionally draining motion picture (The Boys are Back with Clive Owen)? Clearly I was game.
The original plan was for Roman and I both to eat these for dinner. I oohed and aahed as I took the first bite, and Roman, well he thought there was something wrong with them. Needless to say, he ended up eating this for dinner-
This morning I had a cup of tea and an omelet with one egg white, one egg, spinach, and cheddar cheese. This guy held me over for almost four hours!
Afterwards we did errands–taking the recycling to the center, Walgreens, grocery shopping, and then going for a walk around the neighborhood.
Roman and I have both been craving curry so we put it on the menu tonight. Roman went to India in November 2009 with a good friend while we were living in Thailand. He went to New Delhi for a few days (and bought me a kurta from the same shop Gandhi got his!), but spent most of his time in Kerala, the southern region known for its spices. While there, he bought Kerala pepper, cardamom, turmeric, chili powder, all spice, vanilla beans, garam masala, cloves, nutmeg, and saffron. I did a taste test tonight and McCormick’s turmeric has got nothing on this stuff.
Ingredients for Indian-Inspired Shrimp Curry:
- -1 onion, chopped
- -4 cloves of garlic, minced
- -1 pound of potatoes, diced
- -1/3 head of cauliflower
- -1 cup of frozen green beans
- -2 tablespoons turmeric
- -2 tablespoons chili powder
- -6 cups chicken stock
- -1/2 pound shrimp
1. Saute onion until translucent. Add garlic and potatoes and mix in turmeric and chili powder.
2. Add cauliflower and chicken stock to the pan and simmer for two hours (this starts to smell amazing).
3. Cook rice 30 minutes before serving. At the same time add frozen green beans to the onion, potato, and cauliflower mixture.
4. 10 minutes before cooking, marinate the shrimp in olive oil, garlic powder, s & p, and a bit of pineapple juice. Cook for three minutes.
5. Assemble dish by starting with a rice base, add curry, and top with shrimp and pineapple.
This was HOT, so if you’re not big on spice reduce the chili powder to 1 tablespoon.
If you want this to taste like authentic Indian curry, I would omit the pineapple. I needed to cut the heat with something sweet so this did in a pinch, but I did like the flavor profile of the dish better without it.
My stomach was burning from this so I settled it with some vanilla ice cream and chocolate peanut butter. That’s reason enough, right?
I love this stuff–
Off to read a bit and then to bed. I’ve switched from contemporary reads to classics for now and am currently reading The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. It’s very good.
Hope you have a relaxing end to the weekend. G’nite!
