Sesame Tuna Pasta: A Stupidly Simple Supper

Yep, that's going to be a new category: Stupidly Simple Suppers.  It'll be searchable!!

This recipe might be stupidly simple, but finding the time to blog about it was... less so.  Apparently, here's another post I started but didn't finish.  So get into your Delorean and head back to February 2014!!

Life is settling into a rhythm here.  Wake up, feed baby, get dressed, go to work, come home, feed baby again, feed us grownups, then maybe catch a bit of TV or a nap or see some friends, then blessed sleep.  Not a bad routine, but it doesn't leave a lot of time for fancy, multi-step dinners (or time for the cleanup thereafter!)

Enter these recipes.

My coworkers sometimes tease me, saying that I downplay the ease of certain recipes.  Mainly, this has to do with chopping.  I remember seeing a commercial for pre-cut potatoes once that made it seem like it took, quite literally, ALL DAY to chop a few spuds up for dinner.  At the time, I thought, "you can't be serious..."  but now, I understand a bit better (though I'll be damned if I start chopping veggies at work...)

This takes seriously minimal chopping.  I've played with this (fellow Blogspot user's!) recipe a few times, especially after a big sesame craving during pregnancy; I think this hot iteration is my favourite.  While I like chicken, Hubs doesn't, so I really liked this (much easier) tuna version.  It's a far cry from tuna noodle casserole (not that there was anything wrong with that, Ma, I swear...)  Try it out (except you, Ni, and all others with a sesame seed allergy).

Sesame Tuna Pasta

Serves 4

Adapted from weekofmenus.blogspot.com

• 1 lb rigatoni pasta (or similar short pasta; farfalle also works very well!)
• 2 cans of tuna packed in water, drained (chunk light is what I usually use; feel free to up the quality!)
• 1/3 cup canola, safflower or other mild tasting oil
• 1/3 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup sesame oil
• 1/3 cup honey
• 3 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
• 1 red, yellow or orange bell pepper, cut julienne (or chopped finely, if you're me)
• 1 cup of green onions, sliced
• 1/4 cup roasted sesame seed
• Black pepper to taste
• 3 cups washed baby spinach
• 2 tablespoons red pepper flakes

1. Boil and cook pasta according to directions. Make sure to salt the cooking water. Drain pasta and just leave it in the colander. 
2. Return the pasta pot back to the stove. (You don't need to wash it.) Add the canola oil, soy sauce, sesame oil, honey, peppers, and rice wine vinegar. Heat over low heat until the honey is dissolved and the peppers are softened.
3.  Remove from heat and toss in the pasta. Add the tuna, scallions, black pepper, sesame seeds, and red pepper flakes. Toss well to coat all the ingredients. Toss the spinach in at the last minute, so it only gets slightly wilted.
4. Either serve hot, or chill down and serve as a cold pasta salad (which I did for my coworkers at a potluck!)

Now that I've taken this little trip down recipe memory lane, I'm going to add this to my refridgerator-door-menu for next week.  Somehow, just knowing what I'll be cooking each night makes it seem like a LOT less work (maybe I'm mentally preparing on my drive home...?)

Thinking about cooking for the week ahead,
-Honeybee

PS- I took this pic of Baby G the day after making this pasta; he's giggling due to tickles at his 6-month well child doctor's visit.  Compare with previous post.  How time flies...

Freezer meal: Roasted tomato, sausage and spinach pasta

Hey look!  Apparently, way back in December 2013, I had thought about posting this and got distracted.  Mommybrain, thy name is Honeybee.

This was a super-tasty recipe, which I liked making (and eating).  It also made me smile because it marked the (slow) return of my ability to share my cooking with others (read: forcing friends to be my guinea pigs).  I really enjoy that, so after months of barely feeling up to cooking for us, let alone others, it was a refreshing change.  The idea was to create some freezer meals that we could just heat up quickly later when I went back to work, and to share the love with some of our dear friends who also welcomed a baby just four weeks and one day after G-man arrived!

The recipe really didn't take much modification on my part.  It's posted here, from Canadian Living Cooks (they called it "Make-Ahead Baked Pasta... not descriptive enough.  I like my title better).  I think my only addition was some baby spinach wilted in before baking (you can see this in the pics, below).  I felt like it needed some extra veg.  Feeding a bubs with my own body made me somewhat nutrition-conscious!

Lastly: this meal was brought to you by Costco.  I think only the garlic was purchased elsewhere.  I love that store.

Noticing one more draft from months ago... perhaps for another night...

-Honeybee

The finished (if slightly blurry) product.  Mmm, melted cheese.

Sooo, these are out of order.  Deal with it.  All packaged up, ready for the freezer, with reheating instructions written on the labels!

Recyclable (yay, no dishes!) aluminum baking trays, wrapped with plastic wrap (remove before baking!!) and wrapped again with aluminum foil.  Freezer safe!!

Handwritten reheating instructions.  Nobody has time to go back and check the online recipe!

Getting ready for packaging/baking.  The white dish on the right was for our dinner that evening, the other two for later!

Adding in that baby spinach!

Pasta boiling, roasted tomatoes, garlic and sausage at the ready!

Words cannot adequately describe how AHMAZING this smelled.  Roasted garlic, Roma tomatoes, and spicy Italian sausage.  Yet another possible application for Smell-o-vision... or... Smell-o-internets?  Nevermind.

Roasting off some sausage, fresh Roma tomatoes, and two HEADS of garlic.  Yup, this isn't for a first date.

Mmm.  Tasty tomatoes.  These did take a bit of time to chop and seed, but it was WORTH it.

Cajun Shrimp Pasta

Believe it or not, I managed to actually cook a bona-fide meal!  Wohoo!!  I even set up G-man's bouncy chair in the kitchen (safely out of the way of culinary dangers) so he and I could hang out while I was cooking.  Somewhat unfortunately, though, this leftovers container is the only pic I have of it.  Oh well.  A testament to how tasty it was!

Since my lengthy blogging hiatus, Pinterest seems to have soared in popularity.  I'm not immune; I even have a board linking back to this blog, showcasing my favourite pics.  No harm there!  I bring up Pinterest because Hubs' mom posted this recipe the other day, and it caught my eye.  Stupid-simple?  Spicy?  Tasty-looking?  Using ingredients I usually have around the house?  Winner!

Here's the pic from the recipe at this site.  MUCH better than mine (and looks far more appetizing!)

Of course, I can't leave well enough alone.  I had to muck with both the recipe and the method of preparation (the original involving the use of chicken, which isn't Hubs' favourite, and far too many dishes for my liking.  Ain't nobody got time to wash all that!).  This is my slightly altered version!

 Cajun Shrimp Pasta

Adapted from www.int-recipes.info/2013/11/cajun-chicken-pasta.html

Serves 4, with leftovers

Cajun Blackening Seasoning:

• 2 tsp paprika (smoked or sweet)
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 3/4 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 tsp dried oregan
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 3/4 tsp salt
• freshly cracked pepper (20-25 cranks of a mill)

For the Pasta:

• 1 Tbsp butter
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1/2 yellow bell pepper
• 2 small cooking onions
• 1 lb frozen raw shrimp, peeled and deveined, tails off (especially if you're Hubs)
• 1 28-oz can diced tomatoes (fire-roasted if you have 'em; I didn't)
• 1 large scoop (maybe 1/4 cup?) cream cheese
• 12 oz (or ~330 g, or ~3/4 of a 1 lb package, or whatever you can estimate) linguine
• 3 green onions

Instructions

1. Combine the herbs and spices for the blackened seasoning in a bowl.
2. Prepare a large pot of water for the pasta. Bring it to a boil over high heat and then add the pasta. Cook the pasta until tender and then drain in a colander.
3. Meanwhile, thinly slice the bell peppers and cooking onion. In a large skillet, melt the butter over medium heat. Once the skillet is hot and the butter is melted, add the sliced vegetables, and sauté until they are tender.  Add the shrimp and half of the blackened seasoning.  Cook until shrimp are cooked through (pink, firm, and opaque all the way through). 
4. Turn the heat under the skillet down to medium low. Add the can of tomatoes (with their juice) and the second half of the blackened seasoning. Add the cream cheese. Stir the mixture until the cream cheese has melted and created a creamy sauce.
5. If your skillet is extra large, add the cooked pasta to the skillet and toss to combine with the shrimp, vegetables, and sauce. If your skillet is smaller, you can add the drained pasta back to the large pot it was cooked in (with the heat turned off), then add the shrimp, vegetables, and sauce to the pot and stir to combine.
6. Slice the green onions and sprinkle over top before serving.

Tastiness, and took only about a half an hour at best.  Served this to my parents (now known as "the Nonni", Italian for grandparents) as a small token of gratitude for everything they've done for us since G-man arrived.  Of course they insisted that it wasn't necessary (and Nonna even did the dishes), but that's why we love 'em.  Plus, even though I'm a busy new mom, I can't leave behind my tradition of using friends and family members as guinea pigs for all my new recipes!

Looking forward to making some freezer-friendly baked pasta casseroles for her & her friends' new little families,
-Honeybee

G is for Goulash... and Great food.

I am, at this very moment, suffering from a small case of "didn't read the recipe right-itis" in the kitchen.  It's resulting in a bit of a cookie disaster.  So, to save face (and boost my self-esteem before attempting THIS for Thanksgiving weekend), I thought I'd post a recent recipe that worked really, REALLY well.

GOULASH.

What with the recent nuptials, I'm now quite flush with some absolutely fantastic kitchen items thanks to the amazing generosity of my family and friends.  My Aunt Marilyn bestowed upon me a most unexpected but incredibly welcome gift: a gorgeous blue Le Creuset oval Dutch oven.  This thing is tops.  Seriously (and Ni tells me she was all stressed out, worried that I wouldn't like it!).  I'm only recently coming to understand the beauty of being able to take an item from the stovetop to the oven, and this piece definitely delivers in that category.  And when not in use, it graces the baking rack/dining room display that I had to commandeer from Hubs to store the overflow of kitchen goodness.  It even matches the décor around here (such as it is)!

There it is... my precious... Right next to the wine cooler from Karm, the brie baker from Deb, and the candles from Aunt Mary Jane!

Alright, enough drooling over crockery.  Many months ago, I bought a large piece of nondescript beef with the idea that I would cook up something nice and slow-roasted for Hubs once he moved out here.  It sat in the back of the freezer for longer than I would have liked.  At long last, I decided to bring the beef out to take it for a spin in the new Dutch oven.

Carrot, beef, and noodle close-up.

Our best man lives out in Alberta, though his parents are still in Windsor.  His dear mum Jane made it to our wedding shower and gave me a fantastic (and heavy!) tome: The Complete America's Test Kitchen TV Show Cookbook.  Now I must confess: having access to only Food Network CANADA, I'd never seen an episode of America's Test Kitchen.  Upon reading, though, I could instantly get behind their philosophy of perfecting classic dishes for the home cook with an almost scientific approach.  I read this book before bed now.  I think it'll become a new favourite!

The picture from the cookbook (also from www.americastestkitchen.com).  I think I managed to match it!

I initially wanted to make a pot roast, but realized I had beef eye of round as opposed to chuck roast.  Delicious, yes, but didn't have enough fat for roasting.  Simmering in a paprika sauce, however, seemed more fitting.  So I turned to their Hungarian Beef Stew recipe and adapted it just a touch (given that we're only two people).  You can hit the link above and register on the website for the "original" recipe (the history/background/explanation is free!), or you can see what I did below:

Hungarian Beef Stew

Adapted (barely) from The Complete America's Test Kitchen TV Show Cookbook

Serves 4 (or 2 with leftovers for lunch!)

• 1 boneless eye of round beef roast (about 2 pounds or ~900 grams), trimmed of excess fat and cut into 1 1/2 inch cubes
• Table salt
• 1 12oz. jar roasted red peppers (or if you're like my dad, roast a couple of your own), drained and rinsed, about 1 cup
• 1/2 cup sweet (not smoked, not hot) paprika, fresh if possible (I bought a new package)
• 2 Tbsp tomato paste
• 3 tsp white vinegar
• 2 Tbsp vegetable oil
• 4 medium onions, minced (about 4 cups)- I got lazy and just chucked them in the food processor fitted with the blade and whizzed them until well chopped
• 3 large carrots, peeled and cut into 1 inch pieces
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 cup beef broth, warmed
• Ground black pepper

• Cooked buttered egg noodles tossed with chopped parsley, for serving (just look at the package directions for your egg noodles, I know you'll figure it out!)

1. Adjust an oven rack to the lower-middle position and heat to 325ºF.  Sprinkle the meat evenly with 1 tsp salt and let stand for 15 minutes.
2. Process the roasted peppers, paprika, tomato paste, and 2 tsp of the vinegar in a food processor until smooth, 1-2 minutes, scraping down the sides as needed.
3. Combine the oil, onions, and 1 tsp salt in a large Dutch oven (yay!); cover and set over medium heat on the stove.  Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions have softened but have not yet begun to brown, 8-10 minutes.  If the onions start to brown, reduce the heat to medium-low and stir in 1 Tbsp water.
4. Stir in the paprika mixture; cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions stick to the bottom of the pan, about 2 minutes.  Add the beef, carrots, and bay leaf; stir until the beef is well-coated.  Using a rubber spatula, scrape down the sides of the pot.
5. Cover the pot and transfer to the oven.  Cook until the meat is almost tender and the surface of the liquid is 1/2 inch below the top of the meat, 2 to 2 1/2 hours, stirring every 30 minutes.
6. Remove the pot from the oven and add enough beef broth that the surface of the liquid is 1/4 inch from the top of the meat (the beef should not be fully submerged).  Return the covered pot to the oven and continue to cook until the meat is fork-tender, about 30 minutes longer
7. Skim the fat off the surface using a wide spoon (I didn't really have a fat layer to deal with); stir in the remaining teaspoon of vinegar.  Remove the bay leaf, season with salt and pepper to taste, and serve on your delicious buttered egg noodles!

Mmmm.

 This made for a really nice Sunday dinner with the dude, which seems to be becoming a new trend.  He takes care of quick weeknight meals, and I enjoy my kitchen time on weekends to serve up some good slow comfort food.  It's really a win-win... hooray for teamwork!

Hoping all goes well with her first gumbo attempt on Saturday (and praying that the dark roux won't burn down the kitchen),
-Honeybee

Spring is springing...

...but I'm not convinced that it's fully sprung.  The avid patio-goers in Winnipeg would disagree with me, but they're wearing shorts and tshirts, so I call their sanity into question.

The lovely Kimmi, enjoying "spring" in Winnipeg.  This was in late April, people.

Talking about the weather in the 'Peg seems more like a form of ancient prisoner torture.  One day it's gorgeous, and you're out in a tank top and capris... the next day you're shivering in pants and a long jacket.  I had been warned about the possibility of early spring snows, but was a little shocked to wake up on May 1st to a repeat winter wonderland.  It snowed again around the 12th or so, I believe, but didn't stick.  Currently, we're experiencing cold, cloudy, rainy weather that brings to mind March in Ontario... not May (almost June!).

 

Regardless, in spring, this young girl's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of food.  I do feel a significant amount of regret over having missed fiddlehead season this year (I tried them for the first time in Winnipeg last year, and loved them!)  I have, however, come across a couple of nice spring-ish recipes that put me in the mood for blooming flowers and strolls in Assiniboine Park (y'know, after the floods recede).  Here's one I made not too long ago: Lemon dill smoked salmon pasta.

I don't know what it is about smoked salmon that reminds me of spring... maybe it's the spring/summer research projects I would do on salmon DNA?  Probably not.  Regardless, this is a nice, quick, easy and light pasta (G.I. friendly!) with fresh flavours.  I used bbq smoked salmon (not lox), since it's cheaper but just as tasty; either one would work.

Lemon Dill Linguine with Smoked Salmon

Adapted from The G.I. Diet Cookbook by Rick Gallop

Makes 4 servings

    •    1 serving whole wheat linguine
    •    1/8 cup extra virgin olive oil
    •    1/2 tsp pepper
    •    1/8 cup sprigs dill
    •    1/4 cup lemon juice
    •    1 tbsp lemon peel, grate
    •    2 large scallion
    •    1 1/2 cups whole snow peas
    •    6 oz smoked chum salmon (you can substitute lox or gravlax if you want)

1. In large bowl, whisk together lemon juice, oil, lemon zest, and pepper.
2. In large pot of boiling water, cook linguine for 5-7 minutes. Add peas and continue to cook for another 3 mintues until pasta is al dente.
3. Drain pasta and peas and add to bowl with lemon mixture. Add salmon, green onions, and dill; toss to combine.

 Enjoy.  I'm off to dig my winter coat out of the closet to go to an outdoor concert tonight.  Maybe I should grab my mitts while I'm at it.

Hoping she'll be able to break the margaritas out and sip by the pool soon,
-Honeybee

More homemade pasta

 I have one piece of kitchen equipment that I don't use often enough.  This would be my pasta machine.

There she is, in all her glory!!  She was a birthday gift from Nonna the same year that Hubs proposed.  It was a good day.

As much as I scoff at Giada De Laurentiis' macrocephalic bobblehead and overuse of cleavage as a way to increase male viewership, I have to admit that the woman has some good recipes.  I received a copy of her book, "Everyday Pasta", as a gift some years ago, and have been meaning to try her shortrib ragù recipe.  I had Jess and Kyle over for "cat orientation" prior to my holiday visit to Windsor, and used them as guinea pigs treated them to a scrumptious dinner as a thank you for looking after the fur babies.

Mmm.  Beef shortribs.  In all honesty, this marks the first time I've cooked with them.  Shameful, I know.

The ragù.  I LOVE that the beef simmers in this for TWO HOURS before being removed, shredded, and returned to the pot.  My kitchen smelled like a mamoni's fantasy world.  The recipe can be found here.  I also find it hilarious that this food writer (whom I've never met) also compares Giada to a dashboard ornament.  Glad I'm not the only one!!

On to the pasta.  Thanks to my wonderful aunt Lisa, I got Nonna's recipe: "2 1/2 cups of cake and pastry flour for 5 eggs or 4 eggs and 2 half eggshells full of water.  Add more flour as needed, probably about another cup or so. 5 eggs should be good for 5 or 6 servings but those are big servings. I think it's about 1 1/2 pounds of pasta"

Rollin'.  In the future, I think I'll make these one setting thicker.  They were just a liiiittle too thin to stand up to chunky meaty sauce!

So pretty :)

Finished product, topped with shaved pecorino romano.  Heavenly.

I also made parmesan popovers (they're in the blue bowl in the background), but I honestly didn't prefer them.  Kyle seemed to like them, so I gave him the leftovers.

Get that fork in there!! Delish.

Overall I was very pleased with the results (minus the popovers... I'm not even going to link you to the recipe).  Hubs, again, was jealous that he missed a good meat dish... lucky for him, I had enough ragù left over to freeze for another night.  It's just waiting for his arrival in this fair (and freezing!) city!

Thinking that an early April snowstorm might be a good excuse to serve up the leftovers,
-Honeybee

Red curry shrimp pasta, and a confession

Ever wanted to make a particular recipe, only to be repeatedly thwarted by lacking the right ingredients?  Or, in my case, using up a key ingredient in ANOTHER recipe before getting to the intended one?  Yeah.  That's the case here.  The ingredients in question?  Red curry paste and cilantro.  A note on that herb, confusingly also referred to as coriander and/or Chinese parsley.  Some love it, some hate it... it really seems to polarize people that way.  I'm part of the former group, which I discovered some years ago at my favourite Thai restaurant in Windsor (Basil Court.  You should go, right now, and order the Matsaman curry, Thai spicy noodle, and/or sweet and sour chicken.  I'm not kidding.  Tell them I miss them desperately).

There you are.  I'm so sorry I left.  Nothing in Winnipeg compares to you... not that I'm trying to replace you, I swear. *Sniffle*
(Image shamelessly and somewhat stalker-ishly ripped from Google Street View).

Ahem. *Discreetly dries tears*.  Sorry, back to cilantro.  I had bought a bunch, stuck it in my fridge, and then ended up using most of it for guacamole a few weekends ago when I had my friend/coworker over for some vino (more on that sinful liquid later).  As with pretty much any herb I bring into my house, I forgot about it, and it got all wilty and mushy.  Ew.  Not good eats, as Alton would say.  I had originally bought it with the idea of re-making this pasta, which I made for Hubs and myself several months ago with mid-level success.  In a fit of laziness, I had substituted drained, canned diced tomatoes for the fresh ones called for, with the results being somewhat lackluster.  

Not to be defeated by a pasta recipe (my ancestors, I'm sure, were rolling over in their graves at the prospect), I decided to give it another go this past Friday.  I was especially keen since it was a "green-light" dish from my glycemic index diet book (stay tuned for more on that; I'm just not ready to face the fact that I haven't been strictly following that book for the past month or so).  The stumbling block was a lack of red curry paste.  Despite a microscopic examination of the shelves at my local Superstore (which, strangely, also has a hard time keeping cilantro in stock), I have been curry-less for the past two months.  It wasn't until I tried switching supermarkets to Safeway (a Big Deal, since the Loblaws family of companies helped pay for my undergrad degree), that I found the coveted little jar of deliciousness.  Safeway also had an ample stock of what can only be described as the most luscious-looking cilantro I've seen in all my born days.  Full steam ahead!!!

Mmm, steamy.  See what I did there??

Now, I've been wrestling with the idea of posting this recipe, since my second attempt (with fresh tomatoes, GOOD wine, and better-quality shrimp) was so very successful.  Since I modified things slightly, I think I'll go ahead with it... mostly because I can't deny any shrimp and/or curry lover the means to try this delish dish.  I mean, c'mon.  Just look at it.

The acidity of the lime and cilantro really balance out the heaping spoonful of red curry I added, so my "version" of the recipe contains considerably more curry than the original.  I like it spicy.  If you don't, you know what to do: just cut back.  Marinading the shrimp in the paste is genius... not only are the shrimp infused with the flavourful heat, but any residual paste marries into the resulting sauce.  If you're not afraid of a departure from your standard American-Italian spaghetti and meatballs fare, give this a whirl.

Check out that cilantro in the foreground.  Gorgeous.

 Red Curry Shrimp Pasta

(Barely adapted from the "G.I. Diet Clinic" by Rick Gallop. 

Please don't sue me, Mr. Gallop, you won't get much)

Makes 2 servings

• 1/2 lb (half of a ~400g bag) large raw shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 1 1/2 tbsp Thai red curry paste(see note below*)
• 1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
• 4 cloves garlic, minced (don't skimp, or I'll hunt you down)
• Zest and juice of 1 lime (2 if all you have is key limes)
• 2 large tomatoes, seeded and chopped into about 1 cm squared pieces
• 1 cup white wine (see note re. skimping above)
• Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste (maybe 1/4 tsp for salt, 1/2 tsp pepper)
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• 4 oz (~1/4 lb or 226g) whole wheat linguine (I have no idea what 4 oz of pasta looks like.  I went for a quite small fistful.  I know that's not incredibly helpful.  You want enough pasta for two servings)

1. In a large zip-top bag, add shrimp and curry paste.  Squeeze the excess air out of the bag and seal it, mushing it around to coat the shrimp with the paste thoroughly.  Place in the refrigerator.  If the shrimp is frozen (as mine was), you can leave it frozen and let it thaw overnight with the curry on it; if it's fresh, leave it for anywhere from two to eight hours in the fridge.
2. When the shrimp is done getting happy with the paste, get a medium-large pot of salted water on to boil.  To a large non-stick frying pan, add oil and garlic and heat on medium until the garlic starts to get golden (~1-2 minutes; you'll hear it sizzle.  Don't let it burn).  Add tomatoes, wine, lime zest and juice, salt and pepper; bring to a boil.
3. Reduce heat and simmer until sauce reduces and thickens, about 8 minutes.  Add shrimp to the sauce and cook, stirring, until the shrimp are pink and firm (about 3-4 minutes).  Stir in cilantro.
4. Add the pasta to your water (which should be boiling by now) and cook until al dente (read the package, I'm still not very good with cooking times for whole wheat noodles.  Recipe says 8 minutes, I think I did 10-12).  Drain and add pasta directly to shrimp mixture in frying pan.  Toss to coat with sauce.
5. Devour.  Preferably, consume with a glass of the same wine you used in the recipe.

Note: I use Thai Kitchen authentic red curry paste; it comes in a small 112 g glass jar, and can be found in the "ethnic" section of most large grocery stores (though apparently not the one at Sargent and St. James, so don't look there).  Do NOT use President's Choice red curry sauce; this is NOT the same thing, as it contains large amounts of coconut milk.  Whatever you buy, it should be a concentrated deep red colour.  Oh, and I was joking about hunting you down.  Probably ;)

Those last two shots bring me to the "confession" promised in today's title.  I love wine.  Really, I do.  However, I know next to nothing about it, which I find somewhat shameful given my ethnic background(s) and level of adoration.  Oh, sure, I've been on tons of wine tours, and swirled and sipped and trilled with the best of 'em.  Just please, don't ever ask me to describe the bouquet, comment on the notes, or expertly pair a wine with a meal (unless I've already sneaked a look at the back label).  I'm an expert on two things: either I like the wine, or I don't.  Don't expect me to tell you why, with one exception: if my tongue goes dry and my cheeks pucker in, there's too much tannin for me, and I don't like it.

One of the few reds that doesn't have me chugging from a water glass...

As you can see in the pictures of my delish shrimp, I was drinking a bottle of Pelee Island Gewürztraminer (my all-time fave white).  The recipe originally called for a "dry white wine".  This ain't it.  It's a 2 on the sugar scale (read: pretty darn sweet, the very opposite of dry).  It's suggested as an apértif or as a dessert companion.  Bah.  It was the only white I had on hand that I was willing to crack open and cook with, and the label also describes it as "spicy and fruity".  Hmm.  My curry: spicy, check; fruity (owing to the tomatoes and lime), check.  Seems like a good enough fit for me, so I used it in the recipe and to drink alongside.  No complaints here.  Though I'm a million steps below a sommelier, I do know that you should use wines you'd actually drink in recipes, and then drink them.  At least I follow SOME rules.  I'm also pretty good with trying to find reds I like (merlot, shiraz) to go with my infrequent red meat binges:

Are you tired of seeing this burger yet?  I'm not.  Sorry.  But I think this'll be the last of it.

That's it for now.  Just needed to get that wine confession off my chest... I don't want anyone to think that my examples for wine/food pairing should be followed in any way whatsoever.  I know nothing.  Do as I (well, the recipes) say and not as I do, and all that.

Cin cin, à votre santé, and sláinte!
-Honeybee