Thai red curry prawns

 This week, as part of my Nutritional Assessment subject at uni, I had to complete a Food Record Diary. This is a detailed record of everything I ate and drank (including water) for four days, including the weight (in grams), meal type, and time of consumption. As you can imagine, this was quite a difficult and tedious task, as I had to weigh and record everything promptly and accurately before I could eat! Here’s a picture of my diary to give you an idea of what I had to do (please excuse the messy writing, also sorry as for some reason the picture has come up on its side).

The idea of these food diaries is to give an idea of your average food intake. Apparently, these diaries are also often used in weight loss programs, and have been found to be effective in helping weight loss – maybe it helps to make people more aware of their eating patterns, or perhaps like me, the effort of having to record each food rather puts people off eating!

I also found myself using some shortcuts and tricks to make the diary easier, which may reduce the representativeness of my diary. For example, I sometimes served myself a slightly bigger portion so that I wouldn’t have to measure any second servings, and I tried to finish all my meal so that I wouldn’t also have to measure the leftover weights. All in all though it was a useful exercise, as I gained an idea of what my future patients may have to go through, and I became more aware of portion sizes and of what I generally eat in a day.

Lots of vegies!

I included this Thai red curry recipe as one of the entries in my food diary, hence some of the rather precise and specific weights I have given (also I apologise for the low quality photos, as I only had my phone on me at the time I was cooking). Mr Duckie loves Thai red curry, and has been feeling the pinch of not being able to eat meat, so I decided to make the curry with prawns. I initially adjusted the recipe so that it would be for two people, but somehow I ended up with enough for dinner and then lunch the next day – maybe my measurements were off!

Plenty left over for the next day!

This was a very quick and easy recipe to make – you can use any vegetables you like (I used what I had in the fridge) and if you prefer, you can easily replace the prawns with firm tofu. The curry was rich, creamy and fragrantly spicy, with a slight tanginess as well from the addition of lime juice. Mr Duckie described this dish as hearty and a good substitute for meat. I added some peanut butter as well to the curry, which added an extra richness and savouriness, but feel free to leave this out if you have a nut allergy.

This is a tasty and versatile meal for any night of the week! What quick dinner recipes do you rely on? And have you ever done a food record diary?

Wishing you all a very lovely week!

Thai red curry prawns

Recipe adapted from Heart Foundation and taste.com.au

*Please excuse if some of the spoon measures are a bit off – I took down the gram weights but not all the spoon measures!

Ingredients

About 2 tbsp Canola oil (17 g)

1 brown onion (179 g)

2 cloves garlic (6 g)

1 thumb sized piece of ginger, peeled (15 g)

2 tbsp Thai red curry paste (56 g – I used Ayam brand paste)

270 ml can light coconut milk (269 g – I used Ayam brand)

200ml water

1 -2 tbsp soy sauce (I used 12 g but you can adjust to your taste)

1 heaped tbsp crunchy peanut butter (35 g)

Juice of half a lime (19 g)

1 tbsp raw sugar (8 g)

600g your choice of vegetables, cut into bite sized cubes (I used Kent pumpkin, fresh shitake mushrooms, fresh baby corn and broccoli)

200 g green prawn meat

Black pepper, pinch

1. Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion, garlic and ginger and fry until soft (about 4-5 min). Add curry paste, stir until combined with onion mixture and cook until fragrant.

2. Add coconut milk, water, soy sauce, peanut butter, lime juice and raw sugar, stir until combined and bring to boil.

3. Add vegetables and simmer until vegetables are cooked (10 -15 minutes depending on your vegetables).

4. Sprinkle prawns with black pepper, add to curry and simmer until cooked through (about 5 minutes). Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve with steamed jasmine rice.