October 2008 - Thai Beef Salad

SNAKES.... my cat brought a snake into the house yesterday morning. **shudder** Since I hurt my foot I had just been leaving the back door open for them to come and go as they pleased so I didn't have to get up and down all the time as they have a tendency to want in and out every 5 minutes. I was in the kitchen making coffee and toast, I turned to take my coffee to the table and Missy ran in the door with a snake in her mouth. **shudder** She proceeded down stairs and dumped it on the floor. It was still ALIVE and crawled under the coffee table where Missy proceeded to play with it. **shudder** Since it was 9:30 am on a work day (but my day off) and not knowing exactly what to do in my panicked state I rang my boss (my terrific boss). He came up but my Missy had killed it by that time. He did take it out side and get rid of it for me though. So there is no more open doors for my cats to come and go as they please. They will have to prove that they have nothing before being allowed inside. Oh, and I am getting someone to come and mow the lawn and clean out the weeds down the side of the garden shed asap.

I really wanted to make Tom Kime's Kebab bi Karaz (Lamb meatballs with sour cherry sauce). The picture looked so good and it just sounded really good. I couldn't get the dried sour cherries locally. I did look for them online however they were outrageously expensive. When I went for my MRI I looked in a couple of stores in that town too but I couldn't find them there either. I did consider using the bottled sour cherries however I figured that they would break up too much and would end up turning to mush in the sauce as they are already pretty soft. Another option I considered was using cranberries however all of the dried cranberries that can be bought are sweetened and I wasn't sure if that would work. So I decided to make something else. 

I was looking for something to make for lunch one day, something fairly easy given my current predicament. I also needed a recipe that I had all the ingredients for already as grocery shopping certainly isn't easy when on crutches. I decided on the Thai Beef Salad from the Tuesday Night Cooking section. It was so easy but so full of flavour. I just loved it. I did add some extra stuff to it like capsicum and sprouts and the lettuce came from my garden. I also added some freshly grated ginger to the dressing. I loved the dressing using sesame oil. I had never used it as the oil for a dressing before but will definitely be doing so again it was perfect. I just loved this and would definitely recommend it for a lunch or easy dinner.