To help ring in the New Year, we invited our (mostly Charlotte-based) blog team and their spouses over for a pot luck dinner on Saturday. Oddly enough though, the fun began weeks before anyone even arrived. As we started talking food details for our get together we quickly realized, in total, our group deals with quite a list of food allergies and aversions. And if we wanted a meal that everyone could eat we would have to adhere to the following list of (combined) constraints:
- No dairy/lactose
- No gluten
- No pork, beef, or lamb (only chicken or turkey)
- No seafood other than shrimp
Now it’s not very holiday-esque, but I have learned from cooking for another friend with gluten and dairy allergies…Asian cuisine is totally the way to go. Between the coconut-milk based sauces and dishes served over rice, the options are almost endless. So since I offered to provide the main course (and the alcohol!) I ended up settling on the below Green Curry Shrimp dish served over brown rice and topped with steamed sugar snap peas.
The fabulous thing about this dish (aside from how allergy-friendly it is!) is that it is super quick and easy to make. It took me no time at all to sauté the shrimp and throw together the finishing touches while everyone finished up their salad course. This dish definitely qualifies as a quick and easy weekday dinner for any night of the week. Now, as I mentioned, this was a pot luck gathering so here’s a snapshot of what everyone else contributed to our fun and delicious evening together:
Here’s what you see…
- Jill’s Appetizer: Carrots, red bell pepper slices, and endive with hummus plus some homemade quinoa cakes from Heidi Swanson’s Super Natural Everyday cookbook. The quinoa cakes did contain both gluten (breadcrumbs) and dairy (cheese), which is why they were separated by the foil (and they were really tasty by the way!).
- Shawn’s Salad: A beautifully arranged display of greens (including organic baby kale, spinach, chard and spring mix lettuce), lemons, shallots, roasted beets, tomatoes, portabella mushrooms, cucumbers, carrots, red bell peppers and goat cheese. Shawn also brought two homemade salad dressings including both a tahini-based and an olive oil-based one.
- Kiran’s Dessert: I couldn’t write this post about Kiran’s dessert without going in the kitchen to take a bite of the leftovers. This was a delectable flourless chocolate torte that was topped with a simple strawberry as opposed to any dairy-based ice cream or whipped cream. This dessert was a great choice for my (roughly) once-a-week non-real food treat! :)
And, last but not least, here is an official team picture (minus Vani and Andrew) that we took just before digging into all that deliciousness…
Before I share our quick and easy Green Curry Shrimp recipe I want to give a shoutout to our meal planning sponsor, eMeals. Recommended by money-management expert Dave Ramsey, eMeals is one of the veteran meal planning services out there. They are constantly adding new plans to their repertoire, which last year included both Clean Eating and Paleo meal plans. They are also one of the few services that allows you to choose a plan for either a large family (3 – 6 servings) or small family (1 – 2 servings). Be sure to check out eMeals if you are interested in having someone else make your weekly meal plan and corresponding grocery list for you!
Weeknight Green Curry Shrimp
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon coconut oil, or olive oil
- 1/2 cup onion, diced
- 1 lb shrimp, peeled and patted dry
- 1 cup coconut milk, low fat not recommended
- 4 teaspoons green curry paste, homemade or store bought
- 1 teaspoon fish sauce, optional
- 1/4 cup green onions, diced
- 2 tablespoons basil, fresh, chopped
Instructions
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In a medium sized sauté pan over medium heat melt the coconut oil.
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Add the diced onion and cook while stirring for 1 - 2 minutes.
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Add the shrimp to the pan and saute for several minutes, stirring occasionally, until they are pink, curled up, and cooked all the way through.
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Turn the heat down to low and pour in the coconut milk along with the green curry paste. Be careful to mash up the green curry paste with the back of the cooking spoon so it will be absorbed into the milk. Pour in the fish sauce, if using.
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Once the coconut milk has slightly thickened and the paste is bound with the sauce turn off the heat. Sprinkle the green onions and basil over top of the green curry shrimp and serve with whole grain rice and a vegetable.
Recipe Notes
Optional accompaniments: Brown rice and steamed sugar snap or snow peas
We recommend organic ingredients when feasible.
Healthy Eating Defined: Clearing up the Conflicting Messages
What kind of shrimp did you use? I’ve read awful things about imported shrimp recently, really toe-curling stuff. I do love a curry though!
We buy our shrimp from a vendor at a local farmer’s market. It is sourced from NC, SC, and GA I believe (we are in NC). We’ve actually set up off hour parking lot meetings in a pinch to pick up shrimp when entertaining because it is that much better! We don’t buy the farm raised imported shrimp from Thailand/Vietnam/etc. Aside from the quality issues, it tastes like salt and preservatives instead of shrimp in my opinion.
Do you/they have an online purchase option for the shrimp? We love shrimp, but all we have available is the store-bought imported bad ones from Asia. I’d love to eat good shrimp again!
Hi Tammy. Are you in the Charlotte are? This vendor is almost local: http://www.theshrimpconnection.com/East_Coast_Fish_Shellfish_Summerfield_NC.html and http://localsseafood.com/. If they aren’t in an area accessible to you, they might be able to refer you to a market that sells their seafood or to other online resources. Hope that helps. ~Amy
AWE!!! I love seeing these pictures… I’m so so sad we missed all the yumminess! Thank you Shawn for using my Tahini dressing recipe – hope everyone liked it :-)
It was delicious! I have been enjoying it everyday since :).
I thought since you weren’t there we would have you there in spirit! Looking forward to meeting you one of these days!
I was very curious as I had never seen a fourless chocolate cake recipe without butter before. Then I clinked on the recipe link, it did have butter. Still, flourless chocolate cake is one of my favorite winter company dessert recipes as it looks fancy but is extremely easy to make. That being said, I love to plate mine with a dollop of whipped cream and fresh raspberries, yum!
Also, I use dark chocolate.
Thank you for sharing! Have enjoyed seeing some new recipes/meals on your website – I will definitely try the shrimp curry and love seeing the salad presentation – great idea!
The shrimp curry looks so delicious! Do you have a recipe on how to make homemade green curry paste? Would love to try it one day.
As a matter of fact I do – straight from The Chiang Mai Thai Farm Cooking School in Chiang Mai, Thailand. If you’re ever in the area look them up – we had a great time and made some KILLER food! Our instructor also took us on a guided tour of the local market and she was straight up hilarious. Obviously you can reduce the heat with fewer or no peppers if you wish to make it more kid friendly. There are lots of takes on curry, so you could skip or modify some ingredients in a pinch or to save time. For example, the store bought green curry paste we used in this recipe contains only green chili, garlic, lemon grass, galangal, salt, shallot, spices, and kaffir lime. It turned out great, but the real deal in Thailand was superb.
Recipe: Green Curry Paste from The Chiang Mai Thai Farm Cooking School
Ingredients
2-3 long green chillies
1 tbsp chopped shallots
1 tsp chopped galangal (Thai ginger)
1/2 tsp chopped kaffir lime rind
1 tsp chopped garlic
1 tbsp chopped lemongrass
1 tbsp chopped krachai (Thai ginseng)
1/4 tsp roasted cumin seeds
1/4 tsp roasted coriander seeds
1/4 tsp salt
Instructions
Pound ingredients with a mortar and pestle until thoroughly mashed and mixed. Alternately you could use a blender or food processor.
Ive never had curry before because I’m allergic to peanuts and most stuff with curry I’ve ever seen has peanut sauce. It it really spicy? I try not to be a short order cook when it comes to my toddler but this looks so yummy! Trying to eat more seafood this year since we have done away with processed food already. Thanks.
Curries vary greatly in heat and flavor, but the green curry we referenced in the recipe is not that hot in my opinion. A few of our guests and I added some extra red pepper to ours to get the right heat level. Also see my reply above for a recipe you could use for inspiration. You could reduce the chillies for your toddler if you wish.
I can second that green curry isn’t spicy. It’s very mild.
Also, some good news for you – most Thai curries don’t have peanuts (at least the real Thai recipes, I can’t say about Thai restaurants in the states, it might not be authentic.). I think only one type does, a sort of brownish one- Massaman, and maybe Penang curry. Typical Thai yellow curry or green curry wouldn’t have it. You should definitely try them! :)
I love the picture of Jason with the ladies!!
You know it! By the way I was smiling much bigger in the other 10 pictures that were taken, but of course the ladies had to pick a shot where they were all looking smashing at the same time. Sigh.
That torte looks delish :) Now if only I had an excuse to make it :)
Why not make it today? Think of all those people that passed up the dessert tray on the Titanic! Life is short, lol!
Seeing that we are allergic to shellfish, including shrimp, this is not allergy friendly! Can you sub out the shrimp? Maybe chicken would be a good sub?
Chicken would be great! Don’t be afraid to use all parts of the chicken.
I absolutely agree that Asian food is the way to go when you need to cook for a group AND think about food allergies! You really do have so many options. I can’t wait to try this recipe. It looks amazing and I am sure that all of my kiddos (gluten free and otherwise) will devour it. Thanks!
This was delicious and so easy! Thank you!
My boyfriend and I made this for supper tonight with a few slight modifications. :) We don’t have an Asian market or store near my apartment (closest is 20-30 mins away), but we do have an Indian grocery store; so we used a Rogan Josh curry paste instead and it was amazing! We are new to the no processed foods lifestyle and this recipe makes us very excited to try more! Thanks for sharing!
your recipes never disappoint! Made this tonight and it was a hit. I will be first in line for your cookbook :)
Made this for dinner! Amazing!
Going to have to try this! Looks great…
When cooking Asian food, kust keep in mind that soy sauce is not usually gluten free. I realize these recipes don’t include soy sauce, but most people don’t realize how much wheat is in a typical soy sauce.
This was a hit at our house! My 3 year old daughter ate it up!
I love curry. I love shrimp. Am always searching for simple asian recipes and can’t wait to give this one a go!
No meat today in observance of lent and had some shrimp in the fridge. Was looking for a different recipe and more importantly quick… found this with egg noodles and we all LOVED it! Thanks for the recipe!!
I made this for dinner last night and LOVED it. I loved that it was very fast AND I loved the flavor. Will definitely be making this more often. We served it over quinoa and my husband loved the green curry/coconut sauce so much – next time I will double it to create more of a broth texture. Yum, yum, yum!
I made this recipe for the first time last week and we loved it! Only question is are you able to find coconut milk without a lot of additives? I tried Earth Fare and Trader Joe’s but even unsweetened coconut milk seems to have a lot of the various “gums” additives and carrageenan. I was just curious if you were able to find some without all the extras. Thanks!
Hi Amber. My family loves nut milks but I completely agree. Many have additives that we could do without. I know that the 365 brand at Whole Foods does not contain carageenan. Plus, you can always experiment with making your own at home. I have not tried this (yet) but have heard that it is not difficult. You might also try buying organic whole coconut milk in BPA free cans and thinning it with water. Hope this helps a bit. ~ Amy
Jason looks like a lucky man, there!! :-)
Just curious–what makes that flourless chocolate torte a “non-real food”?
Hi there Susan. The recipe doesn’t quite make the cut within “the rules” because it uses refined sugar. Looks delicious. I think I’d bend the rules for that one, too. :) ~Amy
I just wanted to mention that you can avoid soy in a lot of asian recipes if you switch to Bragg’s Amino Acids. It tastes very much like soy sauce but provides many essential aminos and contains no soy ingredients. The trick is you only need about half as much, so don’t be shocked by the sodium level because it’s far more potent than regular stuff.
If you are talking about Bragg’s Liquid Aminos, that is completely soy! It is just non-GMO soy but still dangerous to those avoiding soy due to allergies or health concerns. My daughter is allergic to soy, so I definitely wouldn’t want anyone getting Bragg’s thinking it was soy-free when the main ingredient is soy. The ingredients are listed on Bragg’s website: Ingredients: Our Bragg Liquid Aminos are made from health-giving, NON-GMO soybeans and purified water.
An actual soy-free alternative is Coconut Aminos, which my daughter uses with no problems.
Made this tonight and this was a hit with the entire family! So good! The only thing I changed was that I added half of the green curry because I was afraid that the kids would think it was too spicy or wouldn’t like the flavor. I think it was perfect for the kids. I loved the shrimp and the rice covered in coconut sauce. I served this, obviously, with rice, but also sliced raw yellow bell peppers. This is, definitely, a keeper and a go to recipe! Thanks! :)
Made the curry for dinner tonight with brown rice and edamame. It was delicious! My 2.5 year old gobbled it up and asked for more. Thank you for your outstanding recipes!
I am making this for dinner tonight. My fussy Miss four has seen me preparing the ingredients and has already said “Yuck!” haha…. I am really loping forward to it!! Will let you know what it is like :)
*looking :)
delicious dish!!!
This was amazing, I made it for dinner last night, thank you