Shelly, I can't help with the Hess trucks as I've never heard of them either, but I'm sure the little kid will like one. As for the Indian food, oh yeah, we love it here, and it does help a lot to have a good friend with authentic recipes and spices. There's a pretty large south Asian population here in Toronto and two big Indian districts with stores for the ingredients. Christine's mother lives in the one in the east end of town so when she drops in there, she just swings around the corner for all her fresh herbs and spices. She did that on Sunday. Oh, and there's this one restaurant, Sidhartha, that makes the BEST veggie samosas in the world. I could live on those things, lol. And a tamarind sauce to lick your fingers for. Yum.

I really will try to get the recipe out of Christine for you, but she doesn't measure anything, just to warn you, lol. And she calls things by different names too, just to make it more complicated. She makes this reddish paste up, calls it a massala something. She uses a mortar and pestle thing, moves her hands in an almost magical way for several minutes, then voila! A pungent fragrance comes up from the bowl, then she whisks it into some coconut milk and adds some ground up dry spices. She also adds something weird, something I'd NEVER think of, so I will pay extra attention this morning.

It's 9:30 now and she'll be here soon, so I'd better get into the kitchen. I'll have to watch Y&R later today. I really do wish I could send a big bowl of the curry to you. I know you'd love it!!

Curry Recipe!!

First we chopped and sautéed a huge white onion in xv olive oil, added 4 crushed cloves of garlic, then added Christine's masalla. I caught her adding a touch of water to the onion in the frying pan, about a 1/4 cup.

Masalla -

in a bit of xv olive oil, crush turmeric, saffron, cinnamon and fresh ginger, make a paste OR you could use some Patak's curry paste from a jar. If you do use the pre-made stuff, the lime juice is REALLY important to cut that tinny taste it will have.

Into the frying pan with the onions and garlic goes half a tin of organic coconut milk, cook and stir for about half an hour, gradually add a large tin of diced tomatoes put through the blender to puree. Cook and stir, add juice of half freshly squeezed lime and then some chopped up hot peppers, four or five depending on how much heat you like. We used little skinny green ones you can find in any grocery store, not scotch bonnets or anything exotic.

Meanwhile cut up 6 boneless skinless chicken breasts and brown them in the same frying pan AFTER you have emptied it into a crock pot or stewing vessel. That way any residual flavours from the cooking of the coconut milk, masalla and tomatoes will get picked up by the chicken. Use half a teaspoon of xv oo per load of chicken so it won't stick to the pan. Chop up half a bunch of cilantro and dump that into the crock pot along with the chicken etc. Cover, bring to a low boil, then turn heat down to low for three hours.

Serve with rice and pappadums.

Thank you for that recipe! We all love curry in this household!! KaeEll, have you ever made Senegalese soup? It's a nice, elegant way to get that curry taste when you don't necessariliy want to do a main dish.

For those who love curry, and who haven't tried Senegalese, it's a chilled curry soup, that also has a little bit of apple in it. Very easy to make except for jojo who needs to get herself a blender!!

If anyone wants the recipe, I'll dig it out. It's one of Jim's favorites...

Soup recipe please, Moore! You should have seen my kitchen after that curry-making this morning. There was goopy stuff all over the place and two loads of dishwasher later, it's all over my sweater now too. Christine told me if I don't get it out right away, it will stain forever (saffron). Surely the soup doesn't make such a big mess!

Apple and curry are great together.

Both of those recipes sound SO good. I just wish I had the energy to cook. I need to kick this cold soon.

Yeah jojo, you really need to get yourself a blender. They're not all that expensive, and can be used for a gazillion different things, including shakes, and breakfast smoothies! Not to mention soups and sauces...

Your dip sounds wonderful. I love red onions too, by the way. YUM!! I'll have to try this because it has everything that I like.

I've made a "loaf" that's similar to your dip, but it doesn't have red onions or sour cream. It does use cream cheese mixed with goat cheese, sun dried tomatoes, and pesto. Also very easy, and can be served with bread or crackers.

I definitely want to try your dip. Thanks!!

Yumm-o dip, Jojo! I'll definitely try that over the holidays. And Moore, thanks for the soup recipe. It'll make a really nice summer appetiser.

Shelly, crock pots can take quite a while to heat something up from scratch, so put the soup in there a good hour beforehand and when it's piping hot, turn the thing down to warm. The nice thing is that it won't scald the soup or overcook it. And sure, put the two hams in the turkey roaster. I can't imagine any reason it wouldn't do the trick.

Shelly, KaeEll gave you good answers. I can't imagine that the turkey roaster wouldn't work for your hams.

As for the soup, just to be sure, I would put it in the crock pot no later than 4:30 pm. Another thing you could do is to heat some of it in a smaller pot, and then add it to what's already heating in the crock pot. It may speed things up a bit.

You don't want to serve people cold soup! (Unless, of course, it's MEANT to be cold, like the Vichyssoise or the Senegalese!!)

Sounds perfect!!

Here you go, Shelly. Early in the day it tends to be too heavily used and rejects requests. It recently merged with Langenberg and gets too many hits, but if you try it later on in the afternoon, it's good. I'm looking for another, less used site now as I need it every day.






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