After making fried eggs and shrimp, I needed to do something with the extra tomatoes and red onion. I looked in the fridge and saw some tofu and fresh egg noodles that we often pick up at the local Asian supermarket. With a few other ingredients, I whipped up this super easy curry tofu noodle stir-fry.

We enjoyed the dish so much, I made it again a few days later. The first time, I added a little too much hot curry powder for Hungry Bear's taste. My heat tolerance is off the charts, so it was mild for me. The next time I made it, I threw in a little coconut cream to soothe the heat and sweet petite peas for some color.

After Hungry Bear made her Hawaiian marinated chicken last week, we still had three pounds of unused chicken thighs. I needed to figure out what to make with them before they went into the freezer, where they would be forgotten. We are really bad with frozen meat and don't plan ahead enough to thaw it out.

I had a craving for green chili chicken stew, but couldn't find a recipe to my liking. Hungry Bear loves sweet potatoes, so I made braised chicken curry with yams, which is based on a Ming Tsai recipe. I've been tweaking this curry over the years. The dish calls for orange-flesh sweet potatoes, a.k.a. garnet yams.

The biggest changes to the original recipe are the omission of the banana and adjustments to the curry powder. I think there is enough sweetness from the yams, so there's no need for the banana. I've also adjusted the amount of chicken stock and added peas for some color.

Last month, we had a dosa making party at Jane and Mark's place. Chetana, Jane's friend/co-worker, and her husband, Mahesh, were our dosa gurus. Their mission was to teach us how to make a proper South Indian dosa. We had great teachers and the dosas were the best we ever had.

In case you are new to dosas, they are South Indian crêpes and are considered a breakfast dish, but can be eaten at any meal. The batter is made from rice and dal, blended with water and fermented overnight. To make a dosa, the batter is ladled over a greased griddle and spread into a circle, similar to a French crêpe. Dosas can be served plain, with chutneys or filled with vegetables, eggs and even cheese.

When Hungry Bear and I arrived for lunch, all the prep work was complete and the dosa instruction and eating festivities began. In addition to the dosas, Chetana and Mahesh made...

• Lilva Kachori Chaat - topped with yogurt, powdered-roasted cumin, tamarind chutney and sev (fried noodle)
• Sambhar - lentil curry soup
• Coconut Cilantro Chutney - grated coconut, cilantro, asafoetida, dahlia (lentil), curry leaves, mustard seeds, salt and chili peppers
• Mulgapoodi - a.k.a. gun powder, a blend of powdered spices and gingelly oil
• Aamras - mango puree with milk

We started lunch with kachori chaat, which is a small snack consisting of a flour dough ball filled with spiced pigeon peas and topped with yogurt, powdered-roasted cumin, tamarind chutney and fried noodles. The chaat was tasty with great textures from the soft filling, crispy dough, creamy yogurt and crunchy noodles. It also had a nice interplay of flavors from the tangy tamarind, cooling yogurt and spiced filling.

This past week, Hungry Bear and I hosted Sunday night dinner. I love pulled pork, but I don't like most BBQ sauces. They are usually too sweet and tangy for my palate. Instead, I decided to make pulled pork with all of my favorite Vietnamese flavors. The entire menu was...

• Curry Cauliflower Soup with Honey
• Vietnamese Pulled Pork Sandwiches
• Fumi Salad (Asian Cole Slaw)
• Pumpkin Loaf

The Vietnamese pulled pork was fantastic with great flavors from the caramel sauce, lemongrass and chili peppers. Although I was very pleased with the results, I want to make it one more time and tweak the recipe a little bit before I share it with you.

However, I will share our curry cauliflower soup recipe. We first had this soup last year at Chapeau!, which is our favorite neighborhood French restaurant. It was served as an amuse-bouche. We loved it so much that we had to try to replicate the recipe.

This past Sunday, Hungry Bear and I had friends over for Sunday Nite Dinner. We wanted to make a simple, one-pot cooking dish. Hungry Bear suggested one of her favorite meals, Thai green curry with chicken. It's been awhile since we made green curry, so it sounded good.

Over the years, we have experimented with various green curry recipes, but we haven't been completely satisfied with any of them, particularly the green curry paste. This time around, we tried a curry recipe by Kasma Loha-unchit, who teaches Thai cooking classes in the Bay Area. We used Kasma's recipe for the green curry paste and followed most of the directions from her easy green curry with pork recipe.

Obviously, we substituted chicken for the pork, but we also made a few other changes to the recipe. The modifications were...

1. Increased the amount of meat - we used 2 lbs of skinless chicken thighs with bones, instead of 1 lb. Our friends are big carnivores, so this step is always necessary.
2. Added chicken stock - the stock is used for two reasons. First, it lightens up the coconut milk curry. But more importantly, the stock is used to braise the chicken thighs. I'm a big fan of braised meat, especially when the meat falls off the bone. We followed Kasma's directions to prepare the coconut milk and paste mixture, then added the chicken thighs and enough stock to almost cover the chicken (approximately 1 cup).
3. Increased the cooking/braising time - we simmered the chicken in the coconut, curry paste and chicken stock for approximately an hour, until the chicken meat almost fell off the bone.
4. Added more ingredients - we also added straw mushrooms, bamboo shoots and sweet petite peas. The extra ingredients were added to the pot with the eggplant.

The end result was delicious green curry with braised chicken server over jasmine rice. Everyone had at least two servings! We were extremely happy with the curry paste recipe and our green curry tasted very authentic. The braised chicken was fork tender and is much superior to the pieces of chicken used in most recipes. The cooking time is longer to braise the chicken thighs, but it's definitely worth the wait. We did save some time by not having to cut pieces of chicken.

For dessert, Hungry Bear and I made thick and chewy chocolate chunk cookies and had our friends make their own ice cream sandwiches with vanilla and chocolate ice cream. It was quite decadent. I felt like a glutton, but I loved every bite of my ice cream sammy. I plan on writing a follow-up post to discuss the dessert in the full detail it deserves.

Dinner was excellent and it was fun hanging out with our friends. Next time, to make the curry more flavorful, we will marinate the chicken thighs in some green curry paste and a little fish sauce. Additionally, I want to brown the chicken prior to adding it to the braising liquid. I can almost taste it now, and can't wait to make green curry with braised chicken again!

SNDsters: Jane, Mark, Howie, Hungry Bear, Chuck