Thai Green Curry

Tonight I bring you something a little more wholesome than chocolate caramel slice (though perhaps not quite as delicious - but you can't be having sweets all the time!). This is another Cake Family dinner favourite - lots of veg, pretty quick and pretty easy to make, and full of flavour. You can of course also add chicken or fish or whatever else takes your fancy.

We start off with an assortment of veges; an onion to start it off, and carrots are always good, and an apple gives it that extra something. The rest is up to you; tonight we had yams, courgettes and shanghai/pak choy.

We start off by frying up the onions in a little oil. We should spend much longer doing this so the onions are perfectly tender and all the rest of it, but we tend to be a bit impatient and tonight was no exception. Once the onions are soft and translucent we dump the rest of the veg on top, with the exception of the pak choy and the apple (yes, I realise apples aren't actually vegetables but best be clear!). Stir fry them a bit, enough to start them softening up, then add the curry paste. This is magical stuff - we use Mae Ploy green curry paste, which you can get from most Asian supermarkets. It's well worth a special trip; the regular supermarket brand's versions don't come close, and this is amazingly flavourful and can pack a pretty solid punch; the teaspoonful shown above right is the total amount we added to our dinner. On more than one occasion I have added too much of this, and it's still good but you need a glass of water after every mouthful. ;-) Hmm, maybe that's not so good... Anyway, you use so little that this stuff lasts forever - and tonight's was just right.

The other magic ingredient is this pretend coconut milk. Coconut milk/cream is great, but pretty high in fat, so while we sometimes have the proper stuff, we've found this is a great low fat option - 1.6g of fat/100ml, if you care about that kind of thing (Mr Cake does far more than me, and he discovered this product, but I'm more than happy to make this sort of switch, since it means I can eat a little more chocolate without feeling guilty, and I can barely tell the difference).

After adding the curry paste, give the veges a bit of a stir so the paste is mixed through, and the aroma of the spices is released. When it starts smelling fantastic add the coconut milk (or fake coconut milk, as the case may be) and simmer for 5-10 minutes, until the veges are nice and tender. Add the apple 3-4 minutes before serving, and the pak choy about 2 minutes before dinnertime - both cook very quickly, and are nicer if just quickly cooked. You'll want to have cooked up some rice - we do ours on the stove and starting about the time we put the curry paste in works well, timing-wise. And that's pretty much it; this will do 2-3 dinners for us, which is as we like it - it might have been quick tonight but it'll be even quicker tomorrow!

It's not the prettiest but it tastes much better than it looks!

I think Mr Cake and I need some new additions to our standard weeknight dinners - what dishes do you whip up in the blink of an eye at the end of a wearying day?