Sunday, January 11 - Snow and Curry

We woke up at an ungawdly hour for a dark and dreary sunday in Vancouver. We hit the snooze three times. We were going to Cypress so it was before seven. Cypress gets overly crowded so the lines for tickets is obscene if you're not early.

We had cereal and coffee. I had Weetabix meusli. Either they have changed the formula when they branded it Weetabix or someone sat on the box on the way home from D's retreat where it was a leftover. But it was oat dust. So I added some Nature's path blueberry meusli on top.

For lunch and snacks we packed to instant ramen bowls, Paldo brand. One spicy chicken and one spicy cameron (shrimp, but that's what the pack said). I had some Clif bars and D had Odawalla banana nut. It was gud. The spirulina one he had last week was disgusting. It tasted like grass.

The ramen was pretty good and much better than paying 12 bucks for a wilted veggie burger and greazy fries. Just fill it up at the tea pot and a way you go. When you're paying on average of 60 bucks for a lift ticket on a mid sized local mountain you don't want to waste money. I don't mind as much paying that dough at Whistler cuz their lodge food is very good.

Dinner I cooked Korean Yellow Curry with Chinese Long Beans, Eggplant and Butternut Squash.

D made the organic brown jasmine rice.

1. I use any of the 'tablet' yellow curry's from a Korean or Japanese market. Ie. Glico or Golden are both good. I go for Hot. Hot is not hot, I promise. The mild and medium are too sweet.
2. For a single person meal with a lunch leftover, I use on cube (if a slab is cut in three, they normally are). For the two of us, I used two cubes. My mom will make a family sized stew with a whole pack but she probably uses way more aromatics like onions. Place the cubes in a small dish and soften with boiling water, set aside.
3. Chop a small onion (I used shallots because we have so many)
4. Mince 2-3 cloves of garlic
5. 1inch of ginger, sliced (so if you don't like it you can pick it out) i love it and eat it anyway
6. 1 chinese egg plant chopped in big chunks (so they don't fall apart)
7. 1/2 butternut squash chopped whichever way you like but not too big. (you can use a potato. it's more traditional, as is carrot)
8. 1 big handful (unravelled) chinese long bean. Chopped in half once. These are really long, say a foot. So chop as much as you like but I kept them long because they're so cool.
9. Saute onion until soft in peanut oil.
10. Add Squash and fry for 5 minutes or more
11. Add egg plant and fry for 5 minutes more
12 Add long beans and stir a bit.
13. Mix the soften cube to mash it up. Pour into pot. Add water to the dish to clean out the remaining cube and add enough water to bring barely up to the level of the veg.
14. Stir until you know the cube is mixed in.
15. Bring to boil. It won't thicken until you do.
16. Simmer until squash is soft.
17. Add whatever protein you like. I did 1inch cubes of one small pack of organic tofu. Heat the tofu through. 5-10minutes.

Serve in a bowl on top of rice.

I had a bloody caesar and D had Vinho Verde, a light, young portugese wine. Slightly effervescant.