Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Everything's Getting Smaller

I’ve been in the process of downsizing whether shoes, books, records or magazines, it all has to go. This took on a life of its own when it came to the cooking magazines. I have hundreds of magazines and even more pages and pages of printed recipes to store on my computer and recycle the paper.

When I was off my feet, I started cataloging these tens of thousands of recipes which gave me the opportunity to relive the desire to cook up a storm. Since most of my mags are Cooking Lights, I was able to easily store more than a decade of culinary wonders on myrecipes.com. It’s so handy and easy to catalog each recipe in multiple categories, make a menu, and even make and edit a shopping list (this is Paul’s favorite since it organizes the list into categories like “dairy” and “produce” making it so much easier to do the shopping)

Now as I go through the mags and save recipes, I can add them to a variety of menus for upcoming weeks and organize another little bit of my life. Plus, I can cook more and shop less.

Tonight’s culinary experience is a little Thai number I saw in an issue from a couple years back. Something I had dog eared twice and never made. Until now. Coconut Curried Chicken. The recipe is simple, and I even substituted brown rice of the couscous (I’m not a big couscous person, unless it’s Israeli couscous). This is one of those quick meals that as the rice cooks, the rest of the meal comes together. I added some steamed broccoli and some fresh tomatoes from my Dad’s garden to make it all work (in a healthy way).

What a colorful and lush dish, I need something equally delightful to drink: raspberry lemonade with iced green tea and a splash of raspberry soda water! Now the perfect spot to dine: outside of course. The lemonade tea helps the humidity seem less like a pest and the flavor and scents along with the sounds of frogs and birds makes me feel like I am in Thailand, and I didn’t even need to use my passport.

What I learned from this recipe?

Keep the rice to a half a cup, the sauce and chicken are so flavorful you’ll never miss it.

Happiness Happens Month – Taking time to make myself a healthy and delicious meal makes me happy. It’s a boisterous happiness as my comments while eating sound an awful lot like other forms of ecstasy.

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