It’s official. One week from today is turkey day for all of you up in that little place I like to call the United States. The day when thousands of people will be sitting down to home-cooked feasts with friends and family and eating until they are so stuffed that they need to unbuckle their pants.

Growing up in the States, I never considered that there were people out there that didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving and follow the traditions that my family ( and everyone else I knew ) did. It just never crossed my mind. That seems kind of ridiculous to me now obviously. You know, because most of the world doesn’t celebrate it. My horizons have been expanded quite a bit from my small-minded American girl days.

Of course, my crazy family still likes to celebrate Thanksgiving here in Chile. You can’t just not celebrate a favorite holiday! I wonder if we’re the only crazy people out there who celebrate holidays from other countries. We’re weirdos. But then, come to think of it, there are many places in the U.S. where they celebrate Cinco de Mayo and that’s a Mexican holiday so there are bound to be others out there that are as crazy as we are.

That’s all beside the point anyway because you don’t have to have leftover Thanksgiving turkey to make this recipe. Use leftover Christmas turkey, most of the world celebrates that holiday right?  Really though, you can use any meat that you want. I usually like to add chicken when I make this. It’s one of my favorite ways to use up all of those random veggies in the fridge and it’s so easy.

This is the perfect thing to throw together for a weeknight dinner. It takes about 1 hour from start to finish because of the brown rice but most of that is hands-off. Plus, it all happens in one little ol pot which makes this a very low maintenance (low dishes) dinner.

As predictably as ever, monday has rolled around again and we are all expected to endure it. Let’s try to make the most of it, shall we? How about a delicious pumpkin chicken curry?

My family’s finally starting to get settled into our new house after our first week here. It was a long week though and the weekend flew by way too fast. Don’t you hate that? I always think I will get in some catch-up time but, of course, that never happens.
I’ve also been cooking so much lately. For real, like living in the kitchen. If only I had the time, energy, and patience to blog every single recipe that I made last week, *sigh*. It’s just so much fun being in a fresh new space and having room to work that I have been cooking and baking way more and blogging about it less and now I feel really behind.

It’s okay though, I have a plan. No, really! I am going to get it together one of these days and figure out this whole blogging thing. There’s gotta be a secret to making time for everything and making it all flow that I just haven’t discovered yet. I definitely haven’t got the writing part down if that isn’t childishly obvious.

Ha! I say that as if I have some other part of it covered. I have no idea what in the world I’m doing half of the time you guys. But hey, at least I’m having some fun in the process. Thanks for bearing with me. Your support means everything to me!

Sorry, enough about all of my inadequacies in the blogging department. Let’s talk about the delicious flavors happening in this dish. It’s got peanut butter in it for one thing! I don’t know about you but I could probably live on peanut butter, if that were possible, and peanut butter for dinner is one of my faves!

Then you have the curry and the pumpkin going on and they play so well together, especially with all of the veggies. Plus, lots of cilantro, (which I seem to be adding to everything recently.) Then you serve it on the coconut ginger rice and it has so much flavor! You can’t stop eating it and when you finish you basically lick the bowl clean and possibly even tear up a little bit.

All I’m trying to say is that this is well worth its sizeable ingredient list. You have to try this one!

I wish that I could tell you that this recipe came from an old and wise Hawaiian woman who I met while travelling around the world. Unfortunately I have never been to Hawaii or around the world for that matter. That doesn’t mean that it is not a good recipe though.
 I hope to travel around the world someday, to taste authentic cuisines from every nation, climb mount Everest, that sort of thing. For now I am still discovering South America and all of its beauty and culture., but no matter where you live, it is nice sometimes to let the flavors of food transport you to far and exotic places. The grass is always greener, you know?
 This may not be what Hawaiians really eat but we can still pretend. I made this recipe for my family and it was a hit. No one cared that it wasn’t authentic. Who cares where they eat it, this stuff is good!

This is my second post in my series of chestnut recipes. I decided to go with a risotto recipe with mushrooms because it sounded so good to go with all my roasted chestnuts.

Risotto is not a really difficult dish but is does require more time than some people are willing to spend. I think every minute is worth it. With each cup of broth you infuse the rice with more and more flavor as you stir. I like using brown rice because it is healthier than white rice and I like the texture it gives to the risotto.

This recipe is perfect for serving as a side or you can add chicken and serve as a main course. You can’t skip the vino blanco (white wine). It gives a subtle intensity to the risotto that makes all the difference in the flavor.