Tropical Green Curry with Pork

I made curry for Valentine's Day this year.

(No person in their right mind would want to go to a romantic restaurant on Valentine's Day. Everyone else will be there, probably crying about how their boyfriend didn't buy them diamonds like all the other boyfriends or something. Ew. Besides it was a weeknight and somebody in this household (it's me) insists on going to bed at ten on weeknights. So no going out for us.)

I know a lot of people are against strong-smelling food on Valentine's Day. To these people I say, fine, go eat your depressing gruel in your own little corner. Strong-smelling food such as curry and garlicky things is absolutely the most delicious. Plus toothbrushes and breath mints exist so just use those.

Anyway the recipe.

 Let's start with a delicious-looking pork chop. Why don't I cook with pork more often?

 The fat is really easy to cut off so I did. I am all for fat, don't get me wrong, but this recipe is going to have tons of healthy fat added later on in the form of coconut milk, so I figured that was enough. (Also it's easier to cut the meat once the fat is off, and I'm lazy.

 Cut it into little strips. These were as thin as I could get but that's because I suck and never sharpen my knives. In real curry the meat is thinner. So if you can get it thinner, do.

 For my veggies, I added a red bell pepper,

 and an eggplant. (ignore the fact that it's kind of gross-looking eggplant, none of the eggplants at kroger that day were especially stellar)

 Chop up some garlic and fresh ginger and throw it in to cook. You could probably cheat with the powdered kind but it wouldn't turn out as well at all.

 OK, this is totally optional, but I was making a pineapple upside down cake at the same time as I was making this curry, so I threw in the juice and leftover pineapple. Pineapple juice adds such a great flavor to pork. Then I just cooked it until most of the liquid was either absorbed by the vegetables or evaporated.

 Ok this is starting to look nice and cooked. Won't give us food poisoning, and all that good stuff.

 Add two cans of coconut milk. (You could do a smaller batch and add just one. I guess. But really, add two. This makes dinner for two *and* lunch for the next day, so it's not like you're eating it all right now.)

 Now. A jar of curry paste. Yes, the whole jar. (Really, one jar per can of coconut milk you're using would probably be good. But it's expensive so I just used one jar. And it turned out delicious but really mild. So don't expect spicy.)

 See how the curry paste didn't turn it that green? It's definitely not as strongly-flavored as restaurant curry.

 It would probably be fine without adding anything, but in an attempt to make it greener I added some cilantro. I bought this tube of cilantro blend stuff because it lasts longer than fresh cilantro, but it turned out to not be nearly as flavorful, so I'm just going to have to deal with buying cilantro all the time and never using it all up before it gets gross.

 I also added a mango at this point. Mango is so so so delicious in curry. I couldn't put it in before because it would have gotten really mushy. But if you do add a mango, let the curry simmer for a little while so it gets soft.

I served this with brown rice and a margarita. (I was going for a tropical dinner theme - we had pineapple upside-down cake for dessert because it's Kurt's favorite and so obviously I had to make a dinner involving all the other tropical fruit. Themes are my favorite thing.)

So here's an ingredients list in case you want to make this:

-a couple pork chops

-a red bell pepper

-an eggplant

-a mango

-fresh garlic

-fresh ginger

-cilantro

-two cans of coconut milk

-jar (or two) of curry paste

-pineapple juice if you want to make it like I did

-brown rice

(This is a really expensive dinner to cook... you basically have to spend just as much as you'd spend ordering it at a restaurant. But it was a special occasion and I wanted to try making curry again because I haven't in a while.)