Keep on the ‘grass
March 27, 2010
The last of Zoe’s dad’s Thai lemongrass went into the pot last night, along with some lime leaves that came to me in the same package.
I know, being lucky enough to live in London, these kind of ingredients are readily available here. But there’s something about knowing they came direct from their country of origin, tucked into the corner of a suitcase, that makes them taste so much better.
As well as giving me these Thai delights, Zoe also pointed me in the direction of this Nigel Slater recipe for pumpkin and tomato laksa.
Obviously, coconut milk is the essential ingredient that makes a laksa a laksa, and as I didn’t have any, I’ll just call last night’s supper a Thai curry.
The other things I changed in the recipe were replacing the pumpkin with butternut squash, adding some sweet potato (simply because I had some that needed to be finished), adding some peas (there’s my obsession with green stuff again) and using tinned tomatoes instead of cherry ones (again, just because I had an open tin and it needed to be used).
Served with rice vermicelli noodles, this spicy, citrussy, fresh combination is very hard to beat.
And the cupboard was bare… 
March 29, 2010 at 12:28 pm
Well, you’d be proud of me. I finally broke down this weekend and went through everything in my pantry and threw out the outdated stuff. Wait, it gets better. The only thing I’ve bought at the store is stuff I know I will eat the next week. I still have a long way to go before I’m a “bare cupboard” but I’m getting there. Keep up the posts, they’re very inspirational.
March 29, 2010 at 7:35 pm
Hi Christina. Certainly sounds like you’re heading in the right direction. And, I tell you, it’s so satisfying getting to the end of a week knowing that nothing fresh has gone to waste. I still sometimes don’t manage it every week, but as long as most of your food gets used up in the end, you can give yourself a pat on the back!