A coconut recipe . . and maybe an announcement

I took a short blogging break and enjoyed counting up all my friends. Well. . . blogging friends. It's pretty clear I have more blogging friends than real friends. So many friends emailing or leaving a message that they wanted to continue the friendship. But no one wanting to meet for lunch :( 

As far as lunch goes, it just hasn't been the same since I moved away from my favorite lunch spot. My mom, sisters and I never argued when Mom took us to lunch because we all agreed.  It was always -The Emerald of Siam- right next to the ancient Uptown Cinema in Richland, WA.  It serves a simple buffet of only four or five entrees with rice but it's the best $6.95 splurge I ever took. Alainna used to go just for the chicken wings, and we would count up how many bones she stacked up. She'd call in first to make sure that they would be on the menu so she wouldn't have to settle for a large pan of shrimp crackers instead. But my favorite was the Coconut Curry Stir Fry. Meat and veggies in curried coconut milk. Mom found out the owner  had a cook book, bought it, and after that we started making up our own Thai curry. 

Coconut milk is probably one my favorite ingredients ever. It's a little more difficult to keep stocked up on it though. They don't sell it at Aldi, and I definitely won't buy it at Top's. The last time I checked there it was $2.69 a can.  Better to buy it at the little oriental store on the corner that reeks of  fish. The coconut milk is $.99 there, and they don't carry lite.  In that case just ride your bike to the store like I did last week with my backpack. It was a couple miles away and I figured the bike ride justified non-lite coconut milk. We only have a month till we move so I just bought 5 cans. I also buy my Jasmine rice, won tons, and fish sauce there. The thai red curry I buy at Wegman's. If I have these things on hand I can recreate the Thai lunch buffet at my house any day of the week.

I took off on my bike right before dinner last Monday night when I discovered we were running low on coconut milk and I just had to make  

Avocado Mango Salsa with Coconut Rice 

 to celebrate Brent's homecoming from a weekend camping out in our van and making a decision where we are headed. 

Sound interesting? Recipe first.

It's my new favorite and even better than Thai coconut curry, so I am posting this one instead of the Thai recipe I have been going on about.

Avocado Mango Salsa:

Dice one avocado, 1-2 roma tomatoes, and one mango

1/3 cup chopped cilantro

1/4 c. onion, diced

Juice of one lime (or lemon juice if that's what you have)

Several dashes Frank's Red Hot sauce (all the rage around here)

salt and garlic salt to taste

I sort of made it up. I hate store bought mango salsa, But this stuff. . . I could eat the WHOLE BOWL. . .

 

Myself. 

Especially with this Coconut Rice to go with it.

Coconut Rice

1 1/2 cups rice (Jasmine is best)

1 3/4 cup water

1 can Coconut Milk

1 tsp. salt

1 Tbsp. sugar

more chopped cilantro leaves

 Bring to boil and simmer for 20 minutes.

Serve with it up with Black Beans and Tortilla chips on the side. And if you really want to feast. . .

Grill up some Pineapple and Teryiaki Chicken Kabobs too. 

I am a big sweet and salty fan and for me this meal is as good as it gets.

OK, now here it is.

Hidden carefully in the recipe section of this blog. 

Brent and I, after VERY extensive consideration have decided that we want to 

Purchase a practice in ALTOONA, PA. 

Remember the near fainting spell in the office post. This is the very one. 

We just can't find anything we like better. And we have looked. Oh, my have we looked. 

And we have prayed. So very hard. 

And after all this we keep coming back to central Pennsylvania. 

And I guess Georgia, and Tennessee, New Hampshire, and almost Wisconsin. That was our next venture on the radar. So yes, we have been bouncing all over the place. But this is THE ONE we just can't let go of and it feels as close to right as anything can when you are making a huge leap like this. 

Nothing is a done deal yet, because Brent now needs to spend hours in the office going through patient files, etc and making sure that we are really getting what we are paying for. And of course securing a fat loan will need to happen first. But we have signed a letter of intent and are in the process of making it happen. So unless something comes to light that makes us run in the opposite direction we will soon be locating in a mountain town of 50,000 in the heart of Pennsylvania. 

It's funny but of all the places I have ventured to tell people we are investigating, hands down Pennsylvania gets the worst reviews. The best thing I have heard about it is that "It's Beautiful" (Oh, it is). . . but that opinion is always inserted in the middle of stronger opinions like, "Bunch of old mining towns", "Isn't the whole state about dead", "Nothing going on in Pennsylvania"  "People are really different there" "Well, if you can stand to live there". . . kind of stuff. 

So hopefully these people are all uninformed speculators and have no idea what they are mumbling about.

So what do you think? Do you wanna follow the blog from Pennsylvania?