| Lunch Box 634: Chicken & Cactus Curry |
[Mar. 6th, 2009|11:32 pm] |
 Last time I went to the farmer's market I picked up some cactus. That was actually the second time I'd tried to buy it, but the first time I found out the hard way that the pads hadn't been thoroughly de-needled. Them things have all sorts of hair-fine needles, and when I got home I had to get out some scotch tape to pull the last of them out of my poor fingers. But this time the pads were very well "shaved" - it looked like they'd used a vegetable peeler the size of a paint roller - so, judging them safe, I bought a few, determined to find out what cactus tastes like.
My answer: it's kinda like bell pepper. Not hot but - well it just has that flavor. But it's a succulent, so it has a different texture. And, as I found out when I steamed some of it, it generates slime like okra does. Blah, I am not a fan of slimy food. But I remember a coworker telling me about how his mother used to thicken soup with okra, so I thought that maybe it would do well in curry. You know, use the slime to thicken the sauce and use the sauce to mitigate the taste a bit. The result is the above chicken & cactus curry, which was quite good. Not good enough to make me want to buy cactus again, but it was a worthwhile experiment.
Then I have steamed broccoli and a blood orange. If I could find some blood orange seeds I'd try to plant a tree.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 559: Chicken noodle curry |
[May. 23rd, 2008|08:28 pm] |
 Once again I have some yakisoba curry, which is exactly what it sounds like. I didn't want it to slop over into the other items in the box, so I used less water than I would normally, resulting in a thicker sauce that won't splash around. The curry has chicken, carrots, onion, broccoli, and shrimp noodles. Which technically makes it non-yakisoba, but that's splitting hairs and I'm not going to post a whole new recipe just for a noodle change.
And then there's baked purple sweet potato, which is practically crowding the edamame, out of the box, some takoyaki (with takoyaki sauce in the blue container), and a taro mochi.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 549: Breadfruit is neato |
[May. 5th, 2008|07:19 pm] |
 Recently some friends forcibly took me to the Dekalb Farmer's Market. I've said it before and I'll say it again, that place is massive and has the best produce section in the known universe. They did not have purple potatoes of any kind this time - imagine my bitter disappointment - but I did see a few "hey, lookitthat, I must have it!" items, including breadfruit. Now, I had no idea what a breadfruit was, but I got one anyway 'cause I had a sudden desperate need to find out. Looking online, I found a few recipes. I tried two: baked breadfruit and steamed breadfruit. The baked version didn't come out all that well, as it was for ripe, fruity breadfruit and mine was unripe and vegetabley, but the steamed version was perfect - and I am here to tell you that steamed unripe breadfruit, dipped in butter, tastes like artichoke heart. Imagine an artichoke heart the size of a honeydew melon. That's some good eatin'!
So, here I have some chicken & vegetable curry, some green beans right out of a can, some light-fried plantain chips, and steamed breadfruit, the last of which is drizzled with lemony butter.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 547: Curry is convenient |
[Apr. 25th, 2008|09:08 am] |
 I used to hate curry. That was before I understood that there was curry that would not burn the lining off the inside of my mouth, and which furthermore actually tasted nice. But now I like it, and furthermore appreciate its convenience. I stumble home and don't feel like doing fancy cooking, I can just stir-fry whatever I have handy, chuck in some curry mix, and I have a meal. So, here's some vegetable curry - in this case, an armload of vegetables that followed me home from the farmers' market - and baked Japanese sweet potato, corn bread, apple, and purple imo-yokan.
This is almost a vegan meal. I thought it was for a moment there, and then I realized that I'd put egg in the corn bread. Drat it.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 512: Food for the sicky |
[Feb. 12th, 2008|10:17 pm] |
 I've had a cold for a while now, and it flared up big-time late last week, hence my recent absence. Also hence this lunch, which is composed entirely of totally-easy-to-cook stuff. Cut up a bunch of veggies and some chicken and make chicken & vegetable curry! Boil some frozen edamame! Cut up some persimmon and pick out some pomegranate seeds! There, it's lunch! Well, actually dinner, and the next day's lunch.
By the way, this was made with a new package of curry. Yes, I bought a new package of curry, which means I must admit to liking the stuff. Those of you who remember me refusing to try it in the past because of my memories of mouth-searing spiciness have permission to point at me and laugh.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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| Lunch Box 498: Actually nontoxic |
[Jan. 15th, 2008|07:09 pm] |
 When people have suggested in the past that I cook curry, I've firmly refused on the grounds that 1) I hate hot spices, as they render food inedible to me, 2) all of my memories of curry were of meals that my parents loved and I could not eat, so 3) why in the world should I bother with that crud?
I eventually decided that, what the heck, I've cooked jellyfish before, so I could take a chance on curry. I bought a package of the mild stuff. Then, a few months later, when I had a fridge full of leftovers to fall back on should it turn out as bad as I remembered, I made it. And... amazingly, it was good.
So, here's some of that batch of chicken & vegetable curry over rice. It is flanked by my everpresent baked purple sweet potato and steamed broccoli, and I have some carrot & raisin salad for dessert.
(Website post, with links to recipes.) |
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