valentine's curry

Another Valentine's Day meal which may soon become our yearly treat. We're two for two right now, so we'll see.

The best way to describe this delicious curry is "delicately sweet." Yes, I coined that phrase while cutting up the vegetables. It tastes almost like a dessert. You can put as much or as little heat as you'd like, and the best part is that it's very easy to make. Once the vegetables are cut, the hard part is over. You could even throw this in the crock pot in the morning and have it ready by dinner time.

{ingredients}

• Thai Kitchen Coconut Milk (1.5 cans--save the other 0.5 for the rice)
• Thai Kitchen Red (or green) Curry Paste
• 1 sweet potato or yam or regular potato, diced
• 1/2 butternut squash, diced
• 1/2 cup carrots, diced very fine
• 1 zucchini, quartered and halved
• 1 yellow squash, quartered and halved
• 1/2 sweet onion, diced
• 1/2 orange or red bell pepper, diced

{directions}

Like I said, this is super easy. Once your vegetables are diced finely (you can cut them larger, but it will just take longer to cook), pour 1.5 cans of coconut milk into a large pot. Add two or three teaspoons of the curry paste. You can add more or less depending on your spice tolerance. Stir it once. Add all the vegetables. Cover and bring to a boil. Let it simmer until the vegetables are nice and tender.

Really so easy, and all the ingredients, even the Thai Kitchen ingredients, are sold in the Asian section of your grocery store. They aren't very expensive either, and the curry paste lasts forever because you don't need a lot to make it super spicy.

Now all you need is some rice:

Sweet Coconut Rice

(adapted from The Food and Cooking of Thailand)

{ingredients}

• 1.5 cups water
• .5 can of coconut milk (see above)
• 1 cup Jasmine rice
• 2 Tbsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt

{directions}

Combine the above in a rice cooker, stir, and cook for twenty minutes.

Do you see what I mean by easy? I was even able to throw together this amazing chocolate souffle while the curry and rice simmered away. Enjoy!