My family and I drove west to check out some organic farmer’s markets for local veggies and stop by a winery so I could pick up some gifts for the friends and extended family I will be seeing in the next few weeks. After a long Saturday of hunting veggies (and wine) in Purcellville, I ended up with some okra, an onion, a case of wine and the most fragrant Thai basil I’ve ever smelled.
I’ve never actually smelled Thai basil, but I assure you, this is good stuff.
With my okra, onion and Thai basil, I had a slight conflict about what to cook. Thai basil appears to only be used in Pho or meat dishes. I’m not a Pho chef, nor do I eat meat. Luckily, I’m an Internet genius and in two seconds, I found this gem of a recipe, on a site I should look into more at a later date.
In my best impression of Rachel Ray, I gathered all of the ingredients together.
Can you smell the Thai basil?
Then, I grabbed a beer, because that’s the way I roll in the kitchen. Before getting to work chopping veggies, it was time to try a suggested treat by the winery people who somehow got me drinky and convinced me to buy an entire case of wine yesterday. Without going into too many details, I rimmed our wine glasses with dark chocolate and then dunked some bananas in the choco-remains. I also started Mac and Cheese for the kids since they are all on a “green food” strike and I’m three weeks into summer vacation, desperately searching for a grasp on authority. Does this have a point? No. Yes.
Yes, that's a dinosaur. He's about to eat the crushed pepper and cry. That's what he gets for eating meat.
Ahem. After my banana and wine interlude, I glanced back at the recipe and realized two things: I did not need an onion AND I forgot to display the limes. I took another picture.
See, no onion! The limes have emerged! And there's my knife!
I may have been a little excited about the prospects of juicing the limes. I don’t get a lot of opportunity to use the juicer attachment on Emeril (my multi-functional kitchen thingy), so, yeah… a little excited.
See, he's pretty. No comments from the "real juicer" owners, mmkay?
Back to the chopping. I’ve never cooked okra. I’ve never really eaten okra, and when I did, it was either fried or mushy-gross. Being an exceptional imaginary chef in my alternate reality, I was sure that I could change okra’s reputation. Granted, when I bought the okra, I figured I would just fry it, but again…” imaginary realm of superior cooking skills.” I chopped up a few little okra-ttes… and guess what I discovered?
Okra has snot.
No, that’s wrong. Okra IS snot. Gross. And still, I plugged on. I even took a picture of the snot, but my knife was too shiny to really show how horrible that little vegetable is. It may LOOK innocent, but I assure you, its defense mechanism is much like Slimer from Ghostbusters. (If you don’t know who that is, you’re too young to be here. Go read another blog).
Okra is chopped. What’s next? “It Mixes the Sugar in the Water.” The last time I did anything with sugar and water… it became “monster sugar” and did not work for the mojitos my friend was sure would be amazing, given my culinary skillz. This time, upon mixing the sugar and water I was reminded of the scene in MIB where the alien steals the skin of Edwin (was it Edwin?) and comes in for “sugar in water.” Yes, after the sugar and water were mixed, I did walk around my kitchen trying to impersonate Edwin. (Its not the destination, people, its the journey).
Finally, everything is chopped and ready to go. I follow the recipe almost exactly (except I added a little soy sauce, used crushed red pepper and had chives, not shallots) and while it looks similar to the photo posted on the original site, my version had a lot more juice to it. I blame it on the okra-ooze. As a side note, the snot did go away as I added more lime juice and let it all cook.
Its bubbling and sizzling and on the road to total yum!
The finished product! Thai basil Shrimp and Okra – I added some fresh cilantro at the end because I’m quirky like that. All in all, it was a really good recipe and an interesting use of okra. Snot included.
Dig in! Served over rice noodles and just a bowl full of yum! LoCo ingredients at their finest.
Read what Melia had for dessert!
