Hello! I have returned. 🙂
Halloween is my favorite holiday, so this year my husband and I ended up doing something really special for Halloween, which consumed the two weeks before the holiday and caused us to need a week of recuperation afterward. We performed in the 18th annual BareBones Halloween Outdoor Puppet Extravaganza!
BareBones productions are unlike anything I have ever experienced or seen. There are life-size puppets (some require several people to puppet), aerialists, and pyrotechnics. Throughout it all, the production honors the dead in a spooky and entertaining way.
It is also completely an organic process. I joined the production just three days before our first performance! In the two rehearsals prior to our opening night, we were just figuring out blocking, and in some cases, what was really going to happen during the show. The show evolved over the course of our five performances, culminating in what I would call our best performance on Halloween night.
I don’t have a lot of pictures since I was performing… however, you can see pictures of the dress rehearsal prior to our opening night here. There is a great picture of Martin on stilts and in his tengu costume. There is a picture of me putting on my make up. And I’m in a bunch of other pictures – just look for the long red skirt. My favorite is the one of me and the rest of the ground tengu puppeting a gigantic pop-up book.
Needless to say, we’ve been busy. So busy, that I’ve hardly had a chance to use my CSA bounty!
I adore these mini butternut squashes! I want to find a way to serve them in their miniature state – we’ll see what I end up figuring out. I put a piece of broccoli by them so that you could see how small they are. They are so cute!
So, the recipe I have for you is something I just whipped together one night and then ended up salivating over unexpectedly. I’m not a big rice and beans person, but the ease of this recipe and the tastiness of it made me fall in love.
This did end up quite spicy, which is why the garnish of sour cream/yogurt works so well. Use mild bell peppers and find mild curry to use if you are spice averse.
- 1 cup long grain rice
- 1 tablespoon canola oil
- 1 small onion, chopped
- 2 carrots, chopped
- 1 cup chopped peppers (I used Ukrainian and jalapeño)
- 1 tablespoon fresh ginger, minced
- 1 can black beans, rinsed
- 4 ounces red curry paste (I used Maestri brand)
- 1 1/2 cups water or coconut milk
- Sour cream or plain yogurt
- Rinse the rice. Place in a medium saucepan. Add 1 2/3 cups water. Boil, then simmer until tender.
- Heat oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add onions and carrots.
- When the onions are translucent, add the peppers and ginger. Cook until tender. Add beans. Cook until heated through.
- Mix the water/coconut milk with the curry paste. Stir well. Add the cooked rice to the skillet and pour in the curry liquid. Stir well and cook until heated through.
- Serve warm with a dollop of sour cream.
- Consider doubling the recipe. It makes magnificent leftovers!