Curry Favor with the Rain

(For the life of me, I cannot get this to spin 'round.)

My latest Jamie Oliver cooking experiment was Chicken Tikka Masala. Making this dish brought together two of my goals for 2010: to cook more and to waste less. I wanted to use the rest of my curry paste before it went bad soooo......

FAIL. It was runny. Bill suggested this was because I didn't strain the diced tomatoes and dump the excess water. Who knew! Also, the coconut milk we used was the kind that was all solidified at the top of the can and you have to stir it? Totally news to me. The end result was that, even with stirring, the sauce had this kinda curdled look to it, which in hindsight could have also been from the excess water. Seriously. Look closely at the photo. Curdle. And it felt about that way in your stomach.

The night I cooked this was tumultuous anyway. I live across from a small, neighborhood market, and for years I have watched almost accidents at the stop-sign intersection. Last Sunday night, in the dark and rain, a woman was actually hit. We ran down with umbrellas -- it was pouring -- and the paramedics and her super stoned husband showed up and it seemed like maybe her leg was broken. The kid who hit her looked shocked and then terrified.

So yeah. Weird evening. Curdled food.