Sri Lanken Dinner

The moral of the following story is that home cooked food is delicious, and this was no exception. Trixi made us curried pork shoulder (apparently the market was out of cuddle fish) and spicy lentils with sautéed greens. For the pork, she had to roast curry powder, cumin, and ground chilies. You just put it all in a small pan and heat it until the oils come out and changes the powders dark. Saying the kitchen was fragrant was an understatement! She also used a lot of coconut milk. The lentils were cooked very much like rice, but with lots of spices as well. 

Dessert was vanilla ice cream covered with passion fruit that her daughter brought from her garden in Australia. I've never had fresh passion fruit, and it was fantastic! I really want to figure out a way to grow a passion fruit bush on our balcony. They were so fresh tasting and strong. Not like eating a mellow melon or something, this was like "I am a passion fruit!! And I have passione!!" Went very well with the vanilla ice cream.

I was inspired by all this home cooking, so I tried my hand at a roast chicken tonight. Came out pretty well I'd say, but then anything covered in butter is bound to taste good. I also made a mango lassi for lunch. These are the yogurty mango drinks you get at an Indian restaurant. I think I got the recipe down! And we get such good mangos here! But cutting them up is not simple. The middle has a huge stone that is oddly shaped. I cut off the fruit as best I can, then suck on stone as a "mango Popsicle" to get the rest off. Delicious! 

In addition to our Ikea furniture, we also got a new tv, and it has 3D! Apparently Drew's work considers a tv an appliance, so if you move in and the apartment doesn't have one, as ours didn't, then they will buy one for you and loan it to you for the duration of your rotation. So, we won't be taking this tv with us back to the states, but in the mean time, we get to watch 3D movies! I look like a rock star wearing the 3D glasses over my real glasses, but who cares.