The countdown to Christmas has begun with the usual battle between deadlines and social engagements. My biggest problem is when the invitations come with the obligatory ‘plate’ request. Any other time of the year I’d love to spend hours concocting something Masterchef-ish to dazzle the guests (I wish). But at this time of year anything beyond opening a few cans is just unthinkable. Case in point….
Calling an abrupt halt to my weeklong keyboard dalliance, I raced to the local fresh market with a twenty minute ‘window of opportunity’ to purchase and make said masterpiece. Grabbing fail safe items I left the store with baby potatoes, a brown onion, a tin of lite coconut milk and a can of green curry paste.
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© The Ponder Room
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Back home I hurled the crockpot onto the bench, franticly chopped the onion, cut the potatoes in half, and threw them all into the pot along with the coconut milk, a vegetable stock cube, some celery liberated from the bottom of the fridge, and a large dollop of green curry paste. Turning the switch to high I returned to report writing.
Two hours later the smells wafting from the kitchen reminded me about the crockpot. The plan had worked, the potatoes hadn’t turned to mush, and it looked passable. Then I tried it.
As the spoon touched my mouth my lips instantly signalled their retreat, without a single word of goodbye or cursory glance backward, they were gone, clearly reluctant to hang around incase seconds were on offer. Looking to my right I saw the can of green curry paste and read it, properly, for the first time. ‘Green chillies’. Fantastic what I thought was curry paste was actually a huge wack of pure green chillies. I’d created the equivalent of potato molten lava.
With an hour until the party, and still having to decide on a party dress, I threw myself head first into the fridge and found a cucumber, a red capsicum, some spring onions and Ceaser Salad dressing. The volcanic hot coconut sauce was replaced with salad dressing, and behold! As long as the guests limited themselves to three potatoes I might just get away with it.
Footnote: The salad plate was returned empty at the end of the night, which made me ponder……perhaps I’d gotten away with it? Or maybe the hostess just threw it out when I wasn’t watching to save my ego any further embarrassment, my hastily put together clothing choice being enough on its own. Either way I now know that as you get older the most essential cooking ingredient is….glasses.
Apologies if you received the earlier incorrectly post, a paragraph went missing for a while.
2 Comments
Oh, funny! I’m just catching up on your posts after my trip. Your description of having the plate returned empty has got me started wondering about several times when that has happened to me … hmm …
Hehe doubt it – but I might start taking note of how the plate leaves the table just incase.
Trip? Will have to go to your blog and read all about it. Have you posted it yet or are you fresh back?