December 6 Meal: A Meal for Two Nights

Sometimes Bon Appetit does a wonderful thing by having you create a recipe that can be eaten two nights in a row as two completely different meals.  The Shrimp and Coconut Curry with Green Beans is such a recipe.  The first night you make the curry and can eat it with rice.  As a side note, it wasn't until the end of the month that I saw the tiny print at the top of the page for a rice recipe.  My rule is that the recipe has to have a large, bolded title to qualify as one I must make for the challenge.  I just made plain basmati rice with the curry.  The second night you use the shrimp curry to make quesadillas.  Oh, and did I mention they are both quick recipes.  Genius!  As an appetizer I made the Indian Eggplant and Onion Dip with Pita Chips.

Shrimp and Coconut Curry with Green Beans

This recipe starts with cooking up the green beans.  Create a paste from lemongrass, basil, cilantro, shallots, jalapeno, curry powder, and fresh ginger.  Cook the curry paste with some oil, then add coconut milk and shrimp.  Reserve half of the shrimp curry for use the next day and eat the rest with some rice, or on its own.  I liked that the green beans were part of the curry because they had the sauce with them and I didn't have to think about making a vegetable.  My only complaint may be that it needed a little bit more sauce.

Yumminess: 8 out of 10
Indian Eggplant and Onion Dip with Pita Chips
Whenever the word Indian is involved with food I am never disappointed... until now.  It wasn't that it tasted bad, it just didn't taste right.  Roast eggplant, onion, and garlic.  Scoop out the eggplant, unpeel the garlic, and mix with the onion, as well as mint, cilantro, and garam masala.  So, one problem may have been the mint.  Shaun and I have decided there are limited places that mint belongs.  This dip is not one.  The second problem was more mental.  I have cute little glass spice jars in a drawer and garam masala is one spice that I always have on hand.  However, I had myself convinced that the garam masala lid was on the wrong bottle and I has used something like nutmeg.  That made me think the dip tasted to sweet.  When I went to Whole Foods the next day I smelled the garam masala from the spice section and it was the same thing.  I've tried much better eggplant dips, so this one isn't for me.

Yumminess: 5 out of 10