Sunday, September 28, 2014

Vegetable Thai Coconut Curry/Pontypool

A simple recipe calls for a simple film. The food comes together in about 20 minutes and is super simple to make. Nobody would be able to guess this though - the flavor is outstanding. You can swap vegetables or use a green curry paste here. I just used what I had in my farm share.

October is already halfway gone, but this film is the first scary movie I've watched. Halloween is my favorite holiday, and watching scary movies has been a tradition in October. Hopefully we'll have time to review some more in the next couple of weeks!

Side note: check out these beautiful carrots I got in the farm share this week. I used the tops for pesto and it came out so well.

Recipe: Vegetable Thai Coconut Curry


Ingredients:

1 lb zucchini
1 small bunch of carrots
1 can coconut milk (use full fat and put it in the fridge for a few hours before)
2 jalapeno peppers
1 block firm tofu
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp water
1 tbsp wasabi (I used wasabi powder)
1 tsp coconut oil
4 tbsp red curry paste
2 tbsp fish sauce
1/2 cup stock
1 tbsp brown suger
2 tbsp lime juice
handful of cilantro, roughly chopped

Drain the tofu and cut into ~1 inch cubes. Mix soy sauce, water, and wasabi together. Mix the tofu in and set aside to marinate. 

Dice the carrots and zucchini into curry- sized pieces. Finely dice the jalapeno. Leave the seeds in if you want the extra heat. 

Scrape the top layer of coconut cream out of the can of milk. In a skillet over medium high heat, heat the cream until it starts to bubble. Stir in the curry paste and cook until fragrant, about 3 minutes. Stir in the vegetables and cook for another 3-5 minutes. Add the coconut milk, bring to a boil, reduce and simmer, and cook for another 10 minutes, or until the vegetables have softened.

Meanwhile, in a separate skillet, melt the coconut oil over medium-high heat. Add the tofu and cook until all the liquid has cooked off, stirring frequently. I left mine on the heat until it got some color.

Stir the fish sauce, stock and sugar together in a bowl. When the vegetables have finished cooking, add the tofu and sauce and stir to combine. Heat through for another 2 minutes. Turn off the heat, and squeeze the lime over everything and add the cilantro. Serve over rice or noodles.

Step-by-Step Instructions



I didn't take a picture of the tofu because it's not pretty. Drain, cube, and marinate it in the soy sauce, water and wasabi. Then chop the vegetables into curry-sized pieces



Scrape off coconut cream from the top of the can. Heat until bubbly. Stir in curry paste.

Add the vegetables and coat in the sauce. Cook for about 3 minutes. Add the coconut milk and bring to a boil. Cook for about 10 minutes or until the vegetables are done.


Meanwhile, cook the tofu in the coconut oil until all of the liquid has evaporated and the tofu has some color.

When the vegetables are done, mix the rest of the liquids together. Add these, along with the tofu and cilantro. Serve with rice or noodlez.

Review: Pontypool


I was really wary when I saw this move was rated PG. This movie made me change my mind about horror films only being good with extreme amounts of gore.

About 85% of the film takes place in a basement radio station in Canada. Grant Mazzy is a snarky radio show host back on the job after a hiatus from the business. Midway through the show, he starts to get reports of some strange activity happening in the small town. The reports get more and more bizarre and we follow the crisis through phone calls and radio signals coming into the station.

The area where Pontypool really shined was leaving these insane events to the viewer's imagination. There was just enough information to draw a picture, and I constantly found myself letting my vision blur and go into my head to paint the picture of what I was hearing. It was refreshing to see a movie that relied on dialogue and storytelling instead of billion dollar special effects. The movie wasn't solid all around, though. There was a part towards the end where the mystery behind the town scare was revealed, and it was a bit disappointing. I think they could have left even that to the imagination and had a better scare. Either way, it was a great addition to this season's horror queue. Recommended.



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