Thai Beef and Peanut Curry

I’d best be described as a moderately adequate, yet unadventurous, cook. If you locked me in a stocked kitchen for a weekend, I wouldn’t die or have to eat spaghetti with ketchup for 48 hours, but I wouldn’t mind having some cooking skills beyond what is needed for survival.

My problem is that I’m a little lazy, and it’s easier to fall back on tried and true recipes than try something new. That routine gets a little stale, though, so I’ve decided to try to branch out a little more by trying at least one new recipe each week. I’ll post the successful trials here, I think.

First on the list is a slowcooked Thai Beef and Peanut Curry from Sydney Table.

I halved the recipe and substituted the red curry paste for roasted red chili paste, not because I decided to rely on my own culinary instincts, but because I’m an idiot who can’t read labels. My version possibly doesn’t count as a curry because of this. Maybe it’s a Thai Beef and Peanut Stew now. Either way, it turned out delicious (if a little less red than it should have been). It’ll be interesting to try it with the curry paste later and taste the difference.

I love using my crockpot, but I find a lot of the recipes I try tend to taste a little bland and ordinary. This was a refreshing change from that.