I'm always proud when I bring a little creativity to the kitchen. Whether that's a technique, like opening a can of pumpkin puree by stabbing it with an apple corer, or a substitution, like maple syrup for vanilla extract, meals seem more impressive when I know exactly what happened to make it so. Despite that fact, I fantasize about having a large kitchen, fully stocked with spices, an array of kitchen gadgets, and high quality cookware and bakeware, all impeccably cleaned and organized. Thank goodness that exists here at home.
I never cooked much at home as my mom always did all of the cooking without complaint or requests for help, like much of what she does for us. At home now for the break with much enthusiasm for cooking, my efforts are still primarily for my own edification instead of a substantial contribution to the functioning of this household. I put together a list of things that I wanted to take a stab at over this break. I started with something simple, however, when my sister Nicole insisted I use a jar of red curry paste she had brought home. I found a
recipe for pineapple chicken curry, which we were mostly stocked for. Since Nicole was out of town for the day and my mom had dinner plans, I was cooking for myself. I trimmed down the serving size, wrote up a grocery list (complemented by my mom's coupons), and went about making myself dinner.
My first trip to Safeway at the beginning of my first cooking summer with George was strange. I, of course, had been to the grocery store many times with my mom, and I had even gone to that Safeway before on snack runs. That first trip was different because I was shopping to feed myself fully, with a grocery list cobbled from the flyer that week. I have since become far more comfortable with grocery shopping and have come to enjoy it.
I didn't need much on this trip to Randalls since we were mostly stocked, but we definitely didn't have coconut milk. I drove the 5 minutes, got my cart, and headed for the front door. I first saw who I think is the mom of a fellow band member from high school as I was walking in, but I briskly walked past to avoid an awkward encounter with a mistaken identity. Being a division of Safeway, Randalls stores are quite familiar to me, though I felt somewhat strange again, like during my first Safeway trip. Safeways and Trader Joe's around Stanford have students walking through often, but the Randalls in quiet Texas suburbia are filled with middle-class adults with their own houses and families. In the baking aisle, I encountered a high school couple trying to pick out the right type of squeezable frosting for their baking adventures. Although they were far closer to my age than any of the other shoppers I had seen, a glance back from their cake mix to my cart reminded me that it wasn't quite like that. At self-checkout, I was trying to scan a barcode on a coupon when an employee pointed out that I should cover the extra barcodes. I thanked him, scanned it, then looked back at him. He looked very familiar, and when I looked at his name tag, it just seemed to fit. A Facebook search just now informs me that, yes, he was a classmate in high school, but in that moment, I don't think I could've related to him at all.
Cooking went as smoothly as possible upon getting home. As I mentioned, I halved the recipe believing that the recipe was sauce-heavy anyways, which it was, though I kept the vegetable proportions. The chicken got substituted by roasted chicken in the fridge, which didn't work quite as well since it was drier being pre-cooked than raw chicken, which presumably would've come out more tender from cooking in the sauce. My mom told me to skip the fish sauce since I would only use a little, and I substituted soy sauce, which was fine. And not being a fan of bamboo shoots, I used carrots. In all, it turned out fine.
In fact, the curry turned out so well that Thai curries go on the list with Italian as being potentially not worth paying for. I made it, and it suited my palate. My exposure to Thai is limited, and it's likely that restaurants achieve far better results; I just can't tell.
This evening, I helped my sister cook, primarily by chopping vegetables and stirring while she directed the effort and made the decisions. We made
Peanut Butter Noodles, which also hit the same sort of tangy taste from my curry.
This also turned out fine. The most alarming part about it was the little chunks. With chunky peanut butter, garlic, and ginger, there were small, unidentifiable, sauce-covered pieces at the bottom. Although I love peanuts, I dislike biting into ginger (though I couldn't cook without it), leaving me in quite a quandary about whether to go for the bits. Moral of the story: note the rough size of all particles in a meal, and be sure to cut to make them all distinguishable.
