Thai / Dinner Party

When my friends Sina and Shoshana came over for dinner recently (well--not so recently; I'm pretty behind on posts), I made some Thai recipes from The Asian Vegan Kitchen, featuring these kaffir lime leaves:

On the menu was an awesome hot and sour mushroom soup with two kinds of mushroom and deep-fried tofu strips. With lemon basil and cilantro, plus a kind of ginger-lime-garlic paste, this soup was FANTASTIC.



The other main event was a tofu-vegetable mussaman curry. I took a short cut and used pre-made red curry paste, but also added bell pepper and cauliflower to an already wide array: potato, tofu, green beans, and more. I subbed cashews for peanuts, but either way, between the coconut milk, ground nuts, and potatoes, you have an amazingly creamy dish.

We also had jasmine rice mixed with brown basmati, and some sauteed spinach with onion, garlic, tamari, lemon, and water chestnuts... which reminded me of my dislike of water chestnuts. Like jicama, I guess: what is the point???

Both these recipes were from Hema Parekh's Asian Vegan Kitchen. It's a fantastic cookbook; the recipes are usually pretty complicated but so worth it.

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But there's more! Sina brought many beautiful items from his garden, including these perfect little tomatoes:

He also brought fresh oranges, passion fruit, and watermelon, from which (with a bit of mint) we fashioned "Sina surprise."