A Curry Party and Everybody's Invited

A couple days ago my roommates and I decided on a veggie curry for dinner. We get this great curry paste from the local asian market for like a buck something and it always spreads itself through a number of dinners. The ingredients on the back are actually in english and there's no funny business going on: dried red chilies, garlic, shallot, salt, lemon grass, sugar, kaffir lime, and spices (coriander seeds, cumin, cardomon). The brand is Maesri and it's called "Red Curry Paste". You can get it in green and I think coconut and spicy, although this stuff is pretty potent on the spice level. 

So with this as our base, we started cooking up some jasmine rice and choppin' veggies. We started by sauteing garlic and onion in about a tbsp. of sesame oil. Then the party started. 

We had red peppers and eggplants from our garden so those would go in. We had baby carrots that needed to be eaten up, cauliflower that was about to go bad, tons of peppers, some green beans -- before we knew it we decided to just throw in whatever veggies we had. There were some frozen peas and corn .. throw 'em in! Brocolli, ginger, throw 'em in! The total count was 12 different veggies. 

      not all veggies present pictured above...

For the sauce we had the red curry paste (about 2 tbsp) mixed with a can of coconut milk. After tasting that we decided it could use a little something. Again, it was a party! We had vinegar come along with the red pepper flakes. Corn starch to thickin' things up a bit. Peanut Butter for that extra kick, and Jamie's homemade nut butter which was pistaschio, cashews, and almonds. But where was that little hint of sweetness? Agave come on in! With this our curry party was complete. We were all a bit skeptical on how it was going to taste... but it was GREAT! I ate so much that after dinner when we went biking I had to pull over and stop for a deathly stomach cramp! I couldn't even imagine what I would do if I was in a body of water ... I probably would've drowned. 

So this time it worked. Throwing everything under the sun (or at least all the veggies in the fridge) in one pot and just going for it.