Friendly libraries

I visited one of my super friendlies this weekend to belatedly celebrate a birthday with her last Saturday (just as the cold front hit). To compensate for the fact that I forgot (well, technically, I did not forget, I just thunk it was 20 day later :P) , I made a 2nd time lucky chocolate pecan pie and (with help from my kitchen elf) a thai green curry, which complemented my friends veg cannelloni very nicely ;-) It did, I tell you! Well, I have a great deal of respect for her skill and patience and I watched in ravenous awe as she filled the last few pasta tubes with yumminess. Not something I'll be doing anytime soon.

I will post the chocolate(base) pecan pie recipe I adapted (from 500 chocolate delights ) later, but here's the curry for now.

The cooking was accomplished by asking my faithful kitchen elf (actually, he's more of a wizard and his cooking skills complement mine ;-) to get things going while I handled the aftermath of my violet black purple hair dye escapades and forced my (in need of a haircut) tresses into order with the clumsy use of my GHD (if only results were about the tool and not my handling of it, sigh). Anyway, the food was delicious and my hair looked ok.

*Trixified Thai Green Curry

• about 6-8 skinless chicken thighs and drumsticks
• 1 tin lite coconut milk
• 1/2 finely chopped onion
• 1-2 pieces of cinnamon bark
• 4 dried lime leaves
• 2-3 tbs green curry paste
  
• 1 tsp crushed cumin/jeera
• 1tsp crushed coriander/dhania
• a thumb sized piece of ginger, peeled and finely slivered
• 1/2 tsp ginger and garlic paste
• julienned carrots, baby marrow, red/yellow/green peppers
  
• salt
• sugar (to temper)
  

Saute onions, cinnamon stick, lime leaves on low heat until golden. Add chicken and rest of spices and pastes and brown briefly, then add coconut milk and about 1/2 cup of water and cook on medium heat for 10 minutes. Add veg/ginger and cook until just tender. Serve with basmati rice, garnish with fresh coriander. The lemongrass I had in the fridge did not look as healthy as it did when I bought it else that would have gone in too.

While we were chinwagging after eating the yummies, the conversation drifted towards blogging, since my birthday friendly had read mine on her cellphone. I was inspired to give blogging another go after another friend (also at supper) started hers (Memento Vivere).

Our hostess, being the super insightful, fabulous friendly that she is, went to scour her bookshelves for treats I would appreciate. This is what I got to borrow from her library:

Julie & Julia by Julie Powell - because of my blog, a book about a blogger who cooks her way through a Julia Child cookbook and her experience of life, love and a book deal. I can dream, can't I?

The Patron Saint of Plagues by Barth Anderson - I had the flu earlier in the week (nope, not the flying pigs virus type) and had been talking about The Zombie Diaries which documents a similar sounding outbreak...

Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan - coz of my review of Kiln People; this is along similar lines (the copy I loaned has a more appealing cover, but the title does not appear on it)

I will review after I read them, so watch this space ;-)

P.S. I read slowly :P