Shrimp and Veggie Curry Dish

I feel like I go through phases with my food dishes of choice. For a while, it was chicken and roasted veggies and kale. Then, it was meatloaf (so random, but so good). Then it was fish tacos (ok I always love these, but have to force myself to not request them every week!). Recently, though, it’s been curry dishes. When RM was doing the Whole30 (more on that later- he’s working on a recap guest post for you guys!), we were looking for meals that fit the guidelines and that were not boring. With so many restrictions, this wasn’t as easy as you might think, but this dish fit the bill and we were super happy with how it came out.

Before some of you start going “yuck. I don’t like curry”, I want to let you know that this recipe doesn’t taste like traditional curry (like this curry recipe did). I can’t really explain the difference, but it’s a milder taste and just doesn’t remind me of traditional curry dishes. Maybe it’s because of the curry paste we use, which is Thai Kitchen curry paste- either red or green. I forget which one is my favorite because we interchange them all the time (I think we’ve made this dish 4 times in the past three months- I just made it again on Monday with chicken thighs and the green curry paste), but either one will work and be delicious- I promise. Another thing we change up is the “meat” of the dish. We’ve used chicken breasts, chicken thighs and shrimp, but I think my favorite is when we make it with shrimp, as I’m showing in this recipe.

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Ingredients

  • 2 tbsp. green or red curry paste
  • 1 can of coconut milk (make sure there’s no added sugar or anything- just coconut!)
  • 1/2-3/4 lb peeled and pre-cooked shrimp
  • 1/2-1 cup cooked quinoa, rice, millet, etc. (optional!)
  • 1/2 cup chopped onions
  • 1/2 cup chopped red pepper
  • 1/4-1/2 cup snow peas
  • 1/2 cup chopped broccoli
  • 2-3 large carrots, spiralized or chopped very thin (can use a shredder, too)
  • 1 clove of garlic, minced
  • salt & pepper, to taste
  • 1-2 tsp red pepper flakes (depending on how hot you want it!)
  • 2-4 tbsp EVOO (for sautéing)

Directions

1. Chop/spiralize your veggies. Heat a large pan with plenty of EVOO and add in all the veggies once it’s hot. Cook until they’ve softened (about 10 minutes). Season them with salt and pepper as desired. If you’re going to eat this with quinoa/rice/millet/etc., start cooking that now, too.

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2. Once the veggies have softened, remove from the heat and add in your coconut milk. Bring to a simmer and add in the curry paste after about 5 minutes. Stir to combine and let them come to a boil before turning down the heat and letting it simmer for a few minutes.

3. Add in the veggies and shrimp and let everything simmer until the curry sauce thickens.

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We’ve served it over nothing (during the Whole30 challenge), over quinoa and over rice. I think my favorite is rice since it soaks up the extra sauce a bit.

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I love these “one pot” meals because cleanup is a breeze and it’s great to get a bunch of food groups in with just one dish (stuffed peppers is another favorite to accomplish this).

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Another beauty with this dish is that it reheats so well! The flavor intensifies in the perfect amounts.

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YUM! Just looking at these photos makes me want to have a dish of this right now! This week I also paired it with some kale, which was another great way to soak up the extra sauce. This is a great dish for 2 that will leave you with plenty of leftovers or a small dinner party. I’d love to know if you try it!

Questions for you: What’s your favorite non-American style cuisine? Do you like curry? What’s your favorite protein to add to a dish?

 

Brussels Sprouts w/Broccoli, Onions & Slivered Almonds

You guys… This side dish I whipped up the other night was absolutely delicious! It’s probably no surprise that I love Brussels Sprouts, and this dish was no exception. I had been wanting to cook them a different way besides just roasting them and I definitely achieved that with this recipe. And, the beauty of it is that I can see us making different variations of it and pairing it with lots of different meals in the future. YES!

Another beauty about this recipe? Super easy to throw together. I think chopping the veggies was the most time consuming part- big deal, right? With a glass of wine as my kitchen partner, it was actually quite therapeutic.

Brussels Sprouts

Ingredients

  • 2 cups Brussels Sprouts, ends cut off and chopped into 4 sections
  • 1.5 cups chopped broccoli
  • 3/4-1 cup chopped onions
  • 1/4 cup slivered or chopped almonds
  • 2-4 tbsp of white wine (optional, but what isn’t better with a little vino?!)
  • EVOO to taste
  • 1 clove of garlic, minced
  • salt & pepper to taste

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Kia’s North Conway Bachelorette Weekend

I love celebrating my friends, and this past weekend was such a wonderful way to do so. My college friend, Nikia, is getting married this weekend so we all headed up to North Conway last weekend to celebrate her last weekend as a “single” lady. It was a mix of college girlfriends and some of her other girlfriends from different parts of her life. We all got along so well and by the end, it felt like we had all been friends for so long!

We arrived at various times on Friday night and took that time to drink wine, hang out and relax. The house that we rented was amazing!!! It was perfect for us because there were so many bedrooms and bathrooms- a must for a group of girls! It slept 14, had 6 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms, huge kitchen, 2 gas fireplaces, a game room and a hot tub with views of the nearby mountain. The Maid of Honor found the house on VRBO if you’re interested in checking it out!

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On Saturday, we got up and I led a 45 minute bootcamp. I did this at Sheila’s bachelorette weekend and was pumped when Kia asked if I would do it for hers. I’m all about drinking and partying and straying off of my normal healthy eats for a weekend, but I really like when I can still get in a workout and some movement because it’s something that makes me feel so much better! So, when you have a group of girls willing to do it with you, it makes for a fun event. I’ll post the workout on Wednesday, but it was a good one and it was so funny to listen to everyone grunting and groaning!
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San Francisco Recap: Part 2 {Wine Country!}

In case you missed my part 1 recap of my recent girls trip to San Francisco, you can read it here.

I went to bed on Friday night dreaming of our Saturday in wine country. The last time (and only time) I went to wine country I was all hopped up on Vicodin due to a broken elbow just a day before my trip. Let me just put this on record: wine and Vicodin together are not a good idea… just trust me on that!

We woke up early on Saturday since our driver was due to pick us up at 9am. Since the girls had blow out appointments, I headed out on a short 2.5 mile run. The humidity seemed terrible (probably because I’m so used to the super dry weather here in Boston) and the hills were not my friend. But, I did feel so much better after I did it!

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Shortly after 9, we were all settled in with bagels and bubbly and en route to Sonoma. How cute/amazing are these little mini cans of bubbly?! I’m obsessed- thank you for introducing me to them, Kel!!

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The car ride there was so fun- we played trivia with the driver, sang to T.Swift and got to know each other better. Three of Kelly’s friends joined us (Heather, Kim and another Amanda) and they were a super fun addition to the group! Our first stop was Scribe Winery since Kelly is a member and could get free tastings for everyone. Although the morning fog was still present, by the time we left, it was beautiful, warm and sunny. And, let’s face it- the wine still would’ve tasted just as good had the fog not worn off 😉

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I don’t know about you, but starting my day with a wine tasting at 10:30am was pretty fun. The wines here were my favorite and I ended up buying the Rose. I also loved that they put out snacks for us 🙂

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Solid first stop!

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Once we finished, we went to the Sonoma Cheese Factory to pick up sandwich lunches for our next stop at Nicholson Ranch. They let us set up shop at an awesome table in the sun with some pretty gorgeous views.

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We did a 6 flight wine tasting and the wines were really good! Nothing that I wanted to buy and send back, but still very tasty.

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I mean, do you think we could’ve asked for nicer weather? I don’t. Nope, it was pretty perfect.

Kelly’s friend, Kim, is a member at Rutherford Hill Winery, so we headed to Napa for our final tasting (she gets 4 free tastings as part of her membership!). I didn’t take any pictures while we were there, but it was so fun! We ended up getting a couple of bottles of the Pinot Grigio and hanging out at the picnic tables with some mutual friends who live in San Francisco, too (they ended up being in Napa for golf, so we texted the crap out of them to come meet up with us!).

On the way back to San Francisco, we made an obligatory stop at The Fremont Diner to share some of their famous Salted Caramel Milkshakes.

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And yes, they tasted just as good as they sound… if not better!

The rest of the ride can be summed up by this picture… the end of wine country day… enough said:

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Once we got back to the city, we changed quickly and headed back to Fillmore Street to have some much needed dinner (we drank A LOT of wine throughout the day!) at Palmers. Apparently they are known for their burgers, but I opted for meatballs (surprise, surprise) and Brussels Sprouts.

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Our last stop for the night was at Mauna Loa, but none of us lasted long at this point.

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To be honest, I’m not sure how we lasted until 11pm after the day we had!

What an amazingly fun day- thank you so much for organizing, Kelly! And, for sharing your friends, who are now our friends (because they’re super awesome!) 🙂

Questions for you: Have you ever been to wine country? What’s your favorite type of wine? Do you like milkshakes?

San Francisco: Part 1 Recap

Can I please go back to San Francisco? If you could plan out a perfect weekend getaway, it would be exactly the weekend I had with a few of my girlfriends while in San Francisco a few weekends ago. Everything from the travel itself to the weather to the company to the city was so awesome. Since I’ve got lots of pictures and things to recap, I’ll break them up so that the post isn’t ridiculously long- enjoy!

Thursday

I had an 8:30 flight and since I live a mile from the airport, I had time to get up and do a little workout before calling a cab. I did 20 minutes of random cardio moves and ended with a fun combo: 10 burpees, 1 hand release push-up… 9 burpees, 2 hand release push-ups… 8 burpees, 3 hand release push-ups… and so on until I did 1 burpee and 10 hand release push-ups. It was way more challenging than I thought and my arms were spent by the end!

I packed up my healthy snacks and got to the airport with ease.

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