Curried Rice with Shrimp

It starts for real today. The architect for the new building met with us today to go over some of our requirements for the new place. Up until this point it was all up in the air, serious, but not super serious.

The economy is in the tank, the stock market fell 500 points today and we are talking about building a new restaurant from the ground up and we don’t even have the money secured yet. No risk, no reward!

We figured out today that the restaurant will be approximately 1,800 square feet with almost half being devoted to the kitchen and storage. Current kitchen = 87 square feet, new kitchen = 900 square feet. I think we will be able to stop turning down business soon.

So tonight I told myself I need to kick it into gear. I need to start working much more on the business planning and complete all of the projects that are out there. I need to engage and reinvent myself for the upcoming 9 to 12 months. Here are my priorities starting right now.

1) Spend more time with my wife, whom I love dearly, away from work so when we are working our ass off and arguing (her words) and debating (my words) in the next year we can realize that it’s only about work. We are going to San Francisco in a few weeks to kick this off.

2) Spend more time with my stepson Randy because he is in the thick of it at the University of Nevada at Reno and needs all the support he can get. Spend more time with my parents in California since they are the reason I’m successful and able to do any of this.

3) Make a new to do list with deadline dates for all of the projects I want to work on and actually do them. Don’t play paintball if I’m not on schedule. Don’t buy any new books or hobby stuff unless I’m on schedule.

4) Get up one hour earlier each day, thank GOD for everything I have, drink a cup of coffee and read something for pleasure so I’m not pissed off that I don’t have as much leisure time.

5) Work out every night regardless of whatever the hell happens, even if I have to stay up until 11:00 to do it.

6) Come up with a comprehensive blueprint for what is working and what is not in the current location so as not to make the same mistakes again.

7) Increase baked good sales by 50% within a three month period! Yeah Joannie is going to like this one. Much of the business plan for the new place calls for a huge increase in baked goods. Why wait?

8) Cook dinner at least 2 times each week and blog about it! Continue to improve my photography skills. The photography part really needs to wait until paintball season is over for the winter and then I can trade out the time.

9) Eat less than 2,000 calories per day, at least 6 days per week. Lose 20 pounds in the next 5 months.

10) Increase the traffic to my blog from the current 500 to 800 visits per day to more than 1,200 per day.

Okay there it is. I think it covers everything that is really, really important for the next 6 months. Let’s see how it goes. How many do you think I can achieve out of the 10 things? Damn, there are so many more important things I need to do as well.

Oh, here is the first pic of the empty lot where the building is going! This corner is the 4th busiest in Reno, there are businesses on all corners with the exception ours. The daytime population in a 5-mile radius is 140,000 people. I only need .00107 of them to come in each day. Should be a cakewalk. Which we will be selling a lot of. Cake. See Nancy’s blog this week!

So what about the recipe? Well, here it is. Of all places I found it in Real Simple Magazine and I would have passed on it, but it had curry in it, which I love right now, and it was also easy. The perfect food for after work.

I made a few adjustments to the original recipe with Nancy’s help to spice it up a bit.

Curried Rice with Shrimp (serves four)

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 2 carrots, chopped – I didn’t have any, the dog ate them
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 3 teaspoons curry powder
• Pinch red pepper flakes – adjust to your level
• 1 cup jasmine rice
• Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
• 1 1/2 pounds of large shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 1/2 cup fresh basil

Heat the oil in a large skillet, with available lid, over medium heat. Add onion and carrot, cook stirring occasionally until soft, 6 to 8 minutes.

Add the garlic and curry, cook, stirring until fragrant about 2 minutes. If it starts to burn, turn down the heat. Cooking the curry activates the spice.

Add rice, 2 1/2 cups of water, 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper,  and pepper flakes. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 15 minutes.

Season the shrimp with 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1/4 teaspoon of pepper. Nestle the shrimp in the partially cooked rice. Cover and cook until the shrimp are opaque throughtout, 5 to 6 minutes. Fold in the basil, this is the best part, and serve right away.

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