Tuesday Shopping and Cooking

Last night was our cooking night - a simple menu of fresh pasta, bolognese sauce, 2 curries, fresh fruit salad, caramelized fruit kebabs with vanilla sauce and toffee nests along with "J1's Drink" a fruit punch we have been making for years. Easy!

First port of call, the supermarket ..... aaargh - American supermarkets are different to Australian ones. Vanilla is not in a little black bottle near the food coloring - it is in a white box in the spice section. There is no Golden Circle Fruit Punch. But, taking a big deep breath, that is all good. What got me most was that the "Asian section" was about two foot wide and was mainly sushi stuff, soy and the like.

Okay, I do admit that earlier in the week I was overjoyed to discover a whole aisle labelled "Hispanic Food" and another half aisle for "Kosher Food". All of those foods I had never been able to find (tomatillos for example) are sitting there in plentiful amounts. And living in Australia I assumed that everyone had a whole aisle or so of Asian foods but that is not the case. There was NO coconut milk. The shop assistant was waving his hand at the empty space on the shelf saying "it is usually here" but I did notice that the ticket at the fromt of the shelf was for another product completely (maybe he was just trying to amke me feel better). AND there is no curry section .... at all. I asked about that and, after being looked at oddly, I was directed to the spices where I "might be able to find a jar of powder". And lets not even begin on the Thai curry pastes. So much I take for granted.

It ended up being more amusing than frustrating .... especially as Ms Weasley took me to another store that had coconut milk and the Thai pastes (no Indian curry pastes though).

Then the cooking fun began. Miss J2 did the fresh pasta and the two curries. Miss J3 did the bolognese sauce, the fruit salad (except for the pineaple and watermelon becuase you need to have a knife licence to cut them up), the kebabs and the drinks - which ended up being individual mocktails she kicked up the original concept by a notch or two. Me, I got the credit for the cooking (until I pointed out that I didn't really do much at all) and I did the dishes :-)

I had bought J1 some crabs (a personal favorite of his) so he had them - as well as tastes of the others.

In any case, bellies were full and the kitchen was clean by bedtime (well a bit after bedtime but pretty close) and this morning J 2 has taken one of the curries to give to her teacher :-)