Being back to reality is hard. Which is silly because I really like my reality. But going back to day-to-day activities seem so tedious when every day last week was started out on the beach with a cocktail in hand. Ew, listen to me. Stop complaining, Juli. You’re the worst.
You know what isn’t the worst? This curry. If you haven’t been on my blog very much, I’ll fill you in on a little tidbit about me: I LOVE curry. Not just kind of or yeahcurryiscool kind of love. No. I want it for my last meal. But the thing is, not all curry reigns the same. Is that how the saying goes? Whatever. There are all sorts of restaurants out there that have curry (many of which are thickened with flour…WTF?!) and some that just aren’t properly flavored. I’ve never been to Thailand so I can’t speak from experience, but I’ve eaten Tom Kha Gai at Departure in Portland and chowed down on duck red curry at Lotus of Siam in Vegas and both absolutely blew me away and just ignited my love for curry even more. Even though I’ve made curry in the past, it just never was exactly what I wanted it to be…until now. This curry has so much flavor, so much depth, and so much absolute perfection. I’m serious, I love this curry so freaking much and wish I could eat it every day. It’s my birthday on Friday and I have dinner planned at a Thai restaurant already. All I’ve asked Brian for months now is to take me to curry for my birthday. But he’s also taking me for gluten free pancakes at Snooze for breakfast. Fudge, I love that man so much! He knows the key to my heart!
I’m about to turn 28 years old this year and I’m pumped about it! 27 was such a great year with being engaged, getting married, releasing my third cookbook and buying our first home! So much cool stuff happened and I don’t want that to end. I asked one of my friends the other day what he would have done if he wouldn’t have had kids right away when he got married. And he said travel. So that’s what we have planned. We want to landscape our backyard (since we still have a whole in the cement after our sewer line fiasco and most of our grass is just dirt now) so we can get a hot tub at some point and enjoy winter more. But then we are ready to travel! First, I think we are going to hit up the Keys. Then Costa Rica since I loved it so much and want my favorite guy to experience it too. Have you ever been to the Keys? Any recommendations? What’s the difference between the Keys & Key West? Let’s start planning this vacation together!!
Shrimp Thai Green Curry
- Yield: 3-4 1x
Ingredients
For the marinade
- 1 pound shrimp, deveined and peeled
- juice of 1/2 lime
- 1/2 teaspoon grated ginger
- 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- pinch of salt
For the curry
- 1/2 yellow onion, diced
- 1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
- 1 orange bell pepper, thinly sliced
- 3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
- 3 tablespoons ghee
- 2 tablespoons green curry paste
- 2 (14 ounce) cans full fat coconut milk
- 2 heaping tablespoons almond butter
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 3 teaspoons fish sauce
- 1 teaspoon grated ginger
- juice of 2 limes (about 4–5 tablespoons)
- 5–6 lime leaves, rolled between your fingers to release the fragrance
- 1 lemon grass stalk, cut in half lengthwise
- 2 red jalapeno peppers, thinly sliced (remove seeds for less spice)
- 3 large basil leaves, thinly sliced
- handful of cilantro, roughly chopped
- 1/3 cup cashews, roughly chopped
Instructions
- Place shrimp, lime juice, ginger, red pepper flakes and fresh salt in a bow, mix and set aside.
- Slice pepper, onion, and garlic while the shrimp marinates. Place 2 tablespoons of ghee in a large high rimmed pan. Once hot, add all the veggies to the pan and cook for 6-7 minutes, until onion is translucent and peppers are soft. Remove from pan and set aside.
- Add 1 more tablespoon of ghee to the pan. Once hot, place shrimp in pan to cook on each side for 1-2 minutes, then remove and set aside. (I did this in 2 batches to make sure the shrimp got a perfect color and crust on it, making sure the temperature of the pan doesn’t drop too much).
- Once shrimp has been removed, add green curry paste and whisk around. After about 30 seconds of whisking, add coconut milk, almond butter, honey, fish sauce, ginger, lime juice, kaffir lime leaves and lemongrass. Whisk together to combine. Let simmer for 5 minutes then add the pepper/onion mixture back to the pan along with thinly sliced red jalapeños. Simmer for another 5 minutes. When there are 2 minutes left, add in shrimp to heat through. Once it’s done cooking, add basil, cilantro, and cashews.
- Before serving, removing lime leaves and lemon grass!
- Garnish with extra cilantro!
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This looks delicious!! I just started following your blog. Congrats on the wedding and the marriage. I agree with your friend. Definitely travel!! Kids are forever. We did not mean to get pregnant 6 months after our wedding (Whoops!) but she’s the best thing ever and I can’t imagine my life with out her sassy self (she’s 3 now). With that being said, just know that life after kids does exist. We’ve managed to take a trip every year-just the two of us, all stateside. You just need a good support system, and people willing to watch your offspring. It helps if they’re cute too 🙂
that’s always good to hear because almost all of my close friends have shown otherwise. they rarely leave their child and when they do, they are freaking out about it.
Umm no. We spent NYE in Times Square, ventured out to Boston for a Cubs/Red Sox game, Nashville etc. You have to take time as a couple to do stuff. We just had our second daughter this past November and we’re leaving her overnight with my mom for the first time this weekend to head down to Chicago (we live in Milwaukee). At first I was like, “Waah I’m going to miss her so much!” But then I was like, “I can sleep/eat/drink uninterrupted!!” LOL! My in-laws and my mom help us out with the longer babysitting tasks and we found a babysitter that my cousin used for her kids on nights we just need to be “us” outside our parental duties. We’re two and through. I have a very strong belief that kids should never outnumber the parents.
Hello!
This recipe sounds amazing, but may I ask: how many calories would this be? I’m very conscious about how much I’m taking in every day and would quite like to know the calories for recipes I might want to use, as well as the sodium, sugar, etc. Would it be alright if you had calculated these for your recipes and listed them with each one? -Katya
hey katya, you can easily find out those numbers by putting my recipes into an online nutritional calculator!!
Hey Juli – I’ve been a reader for a long time (which is weird because I am not paleo nor have I ever done crossfit). I’ve also never commented, BUT I wanted to point out some funny coincidences I noticed this week. 1) Your new last name is v similar to my last name (saw yours on Snap, mine is Rauth) 2) We have the same birthday 3) I’m from CO originally, but currently live in Philly and for my birthday I’m flying home and the first thing I’m doing is eating pancakes at Snooze
Anyway, just wanted to point that out because I love a good camaraderie. Congrats on the wedding/marriage and happy birthday!!
that’s awesome!! i absolutely cannot wait for those pancakes!
Rachel are you me?? I too live in Philly and share a birthday with you and Juli! Earth Day birthdays unite!
Juli — Congrats on your marriage and amazing wedding !! I have been a reader since 2012 and have never commented but reading your blog every day and seeing all the wonderful things going on in your life feels like watching a friend find happiness! Best of luck and happy birthday!
P.S. Your blender bottle mayo with the immersion blender was life changing a few years ago 🙂
I have been to Key West twice and loved it both times. It is much more developed with amazing restaurants – Loui’s backyard. There is a difference. Fly into Miami and do the drive down if there are other keys you want to stop in.
Am I missing when you add the lime leaves and lemon grass? I see when you take them out, but when do you put them in? With the jalapenos? Thanks!
sorry that mistake is fixed! just add it when you add the coconut milk and everything else! sorry again about that!
I LOVE curry too and a lot of my friends won’t eat it because they are afraid it will be too spicy! I try to tell them to stop with the pad thai and just try a low heat curry!! The Keys is the group of all of the keys….Key West is the southern most key in The Keys. Key West is most touristy and party your face off-everyone should go there for a couple nights for sure. Other keys have different things to offer. Some have amazing resorts, great fishing, yachting, etc. I would do an airbnb or vrbo in the Keys for sure! There are some amazing privately owned homes there that you can rent. Damnit now I want curry for lunch.
I totally agree with Emily on the airbnb rental idea! While there are some amazing resorts and hotels on some of the other Keys, Key West has a very eclectic vibe with some totally amazing vacation rentals (one of the better BNBs being Tropical Inn, right on Duval).
I live in south Florida so we take weekend trips there quite regularly. Food is amazing, fun shops, great beaches and plenty of sights to behold. My extended family travels to Marathon and Islamorada every summer. They are big into boating/fishing and scuba diving. The “Keys” in general are amazing, beautiful water and fantastic weather. . .as long as you don’t plan on traveling during the height of hurricane season :).
If you want to recreate that reception of yours and party your face off again, I would strongly recommend Key West. It is very similar to New Orleans, but surrounded by water (more reasons for cute swimsuits, ps, thank you for posting links – I may or may not have bought a couple of them already!!) Hope some of this helps. Congrats on your wedding, and happy traveling!!
Everyone we know just popped out a kid and we’re planning an epic 2 week trip to Hawaii! We did Italy last year and a bunch of our friends were super jealous. I’m all about that travel life, do it up!
Ok, so we did a destination wedding last year in Clearwater, FL, and did our honeymoon in Key West. It was great (and we made it SUPER CHEAP by staying in a great airbnb and making our own breakfast every day!) but overall Key West wasn’t what we thought it was. There were a ton of drunk adults there (50+). We went in May and the weather was gorgeous. Beaches there suck – so plan to do other things besides just sitting on the beach. My hubs is in the military so we were able to get onto the military beaches which were wayyyyyyy better than the public beaches – even then we only went to the beach like twice. Duval street is fun if you want to party your face off – (which we can appreciate – but we don’t like to be hungover all the time). There are roosters everywhere.
If you’re looking for a great dessert restaurant, try Better Than Sex. Idk if they have gluten free stuff – but everything has crazy innuendo names – we laughed our asses off. And the food was INCREDIBLE!! 🙂
Also this gym is the coolest – Old Town Fitness!! If you’re like me and like that garage gym feel – it’s freaking awesome. The people there are so friendly – and there’s this super cool dog that welcomes you as you walk in! They gave us a deal when we said we were working out on our honeymoon/just visiting for a week. Just so you know – it’s old and rough on the inside – like an old school bodybuilding gym. No working bikes or anything like that. We also tried to go to Crossfit Key West. FYI- it’s right next door to a pole dancing studio.
Also this curry looks amazing.
Are the kaffir lime leaves you used fresh or dried? Just wondering because I’ve only bought dried but would love to try fresh if they’re not too hard to find. Also, congrats on your wedding!
i used fresh
Can’t find kaffir lime leaves locally. Is there a substitute I can use before I order them online?
you could just use extra lime juice! it just won’t taste exactly the same!
In reference to they Keys, it really depends on the type of vacation you want to have. If you’re looking for lounging and relaxing, I suggest the rest of the keys. If you’re looking for a party. party, party all night long, then Key West is the BOMB! You definitely cannot go to the Florida Keys without at least a day trip-turned-over-night trip doing the Duval crawl. There’s a lot to see throughout the Keys and there are some iconic restaurants throughout your trek to Key West. .. Don’t expect much in the way of beautiful white sand beaches though. The snorkeling will be awesome, and you may want to look into a trip to the Dry Tortugas while you’re down there. I haven’t done it but my mother and sister have and they still talk about how beautiful the water is and how epic the snorkeling was. Hope that helps!