Nibbling is Encouraged: 2 days in a row blogging?! I surprise even myself.

I am seriously amazed with myself. I have been a bit of a lazy oaf when it comes to cooking lately, but something has hit me over the head and I am back at it. Could it be the nice weather, vegetables staring at me guiltily from the counter, or just a new lease on life? I think it may be all of the above and I am not going to question it.

Here is the problem with me. I am not much of planner when it comes to knowing what I will make with all of the lovely food that I make. I just see something pretty and go for it and then spend a week trying to figure out what the heck I should make; and then it is some lat minute thrown together meal in an effort to use everything before it goes bad. Recently I have actually been making shopping lists and looking up recipes before hand, which has made me feel triumphant with all of my wonderful left overs for the week and it is also so much more cost effective for my wallet. (Who would've thunk it?! ~sarcasm~) But alas, I am a vegetable/fruit-holic and sometimes fall off the truck when I see a scrumptious food thing. That was the case with my lovely acorn squash that had been languishing on the counter. Poor thing! I tried to avoid eye contact, but I could feel her giving me the evil eye. It must be done, and did it was! HAHAHAHA! I know...I'm the only one that thinks I'm funny.

Inspiration came in the form of Pioneer Woman and her Trinidadian Chicken Curry. It looked so delicious and I had been having a hankering for some curry. The stars aligned when I realized that I had the necessary ingredients, with the exception of chicken. But what about using my acorn squash and some shrimp that could be de-frosted in no time? Only one way to find out.

In her recipe she marinated the chicken for at least an hour in garlic, tomato, onion, cilantro and mustard. I didn't have much time for marinading but I coated my squash in dijon mustard and minced garlic. The actual curry making was very straight forward: take turmeric, curry, and water to make a slurry, add it to heated vegetable oil, and allow to form a fragrant paste. Once the color had deepened and the slurry had thickened I added the squash and water. From that point it was pretty much guess work. Pioneer Woman cooked her chicken for 15-20 minutes, but as I wasn't really sure how long the squash would take to soften so I just had to play it by ear. Once the squash was fork tender I added the shrimp and then called it day! It took about 30-35 minutes, but the results were delicious!

I had some left over colcannon from last night's St. Patrick's Day party so I used that as my curry sauce catcher instead of rice. I'm going rogue over here! Yum and yum! Though not traditional it was really filling and I had one less thing I had to worry about cooking, which is always a plus in my book.

And now it's cooking picture time!!!