Fancy Frugal Foodie #4: Coconut Peanut Red Thai Curry

It's time for a curry party in my belly!

Pretty much every Friday night, we eat the same thing at my house... Pizza! And pizza is the ultimate in Friday night Fare, but every once in a while you are out of an essential ingredient or five.  In fact, I was down to little tidbits of this and that, and I was about to call in  the support squad (488-8888 Pizza Hut delivery is Really Great!), when the Mad Scientist grabbed a can of coconut milk and gave me big puppy dog eyes and said, "I thought you were going to make something with coconut milk this week."

Never being one to back down from a challenge, I grabbed this recipe from Pinch of Yum and made it, and it is one seriously delicious meal.  The sauce is creamy and rich and addictive. The heat from the curry paste makes you feel alive, but the sweet from the coconut 

What makes this fancy and frugal? Well, for starters this meal kept us from ordering pizza, but for another I cannot tell you how many leftover ingredients get used up every time I make a curry.  One third of a box of rice noodles? Check.  Two already cooked chicken thighs? Checked. Languishing asparagus? Check. 1/8 of a bunch of cilantro? Check. Sriracha? Check.

It's always a check with Sriracha.

The original recipe calls for Peanut Butter, Coconut Milk, Red Curry Paste, Fish sauce which aren't staples for everyone, but they are for me.  I did have to make a few substitutions and omissions from the original, so I've decided to include a recipe here, even though it is super similar.

Additionally, any food that can be made and photographed with this cute of baby around, deserves to be called fancy. Littlest has now mastered forward crawling which puts the Mad Scientist and I at a major risk for disaster if we don't pay attention to him pretty much every second.

Oh, and if you are wondering if those are my flip flops laying around in the middle of my living room floor, the answer is maybe.

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Coconut Peanut Red Thai Curry

by Pinch Of Yum 

This delicious red curry sauce comes from Pinch of Yum! I've only changed one ingredient and omitted a few of the extra ingredients. Check out the original here

Ingredients

• 1 Can Coconut Milk (I prefer full fat)
• 1 Tablespoon Peanut Butter
• 2 Tablespoons Red Curry Paste
• 1 Tablespoon Fish Sauce
• 1.5 Tablespoons Vinegar
• 3 Tablespoons Brown Sugar
• 3 Cloves Pressed Garlic

Instructions

1. Melt peanut butter in the bottom of a sauce pan on medium heat.2. Add garlic and red curry paste and allow it to cook for about a minute. Then add coconut milk3. Add the Vinegar, brown sugar and fish sauce.4.If you want a fairly thick sauce like the one above, allow the mixture to simmer but not boil for 10-20 minutes. If you want a thinner mixture allow it to boil for about ten minutes then use chicken broth or water to thin it to your desired thickness.

Details

Prep time: 5 mins Cook time: 20 mins Total time: 25 mins Yield: 4 Servings