Green Curry Chicken with Thai Iced Tea

OK, I have always loved Thai food but have always been too chicken to attempt cooking it! Then, for some reason, I got a wild hare up my ass (or is it wild hair? Note to self... research that later) to grow eggplant this year. What the hell do you do with eggplant? Which honestly I figured would end up being a moot point anyway because they were puny, straggly and thoroughly unproductive until about a month ago. Much to my great joy, and somewhat distress, I was blessed with a crapload of eggplant! What to do, what to do?!? And to make matters worse, this wasn't your normal fat, purple eggplant, it was long, skinny, Ichiban eggplant! Definitely not the kind you cut into sections and fry or turn into eggplant parmesan. Then it hit me... CURRY! So I hopped online, looked for a reasonable recipe, tweaked it to my liking, headed to my local Asian supermarket and took the leap! The recipe that follows is my version of a basic green curry recipe. I fused one from the Food Network with another I found on a Thai food site, picking and choosing elements I liked and could find and adding more veggies (ALWAYS ADD MORE VEGGIES). It came with a recipe for the green curry paste, but I will be honest with you, I found it SOOOO much easier to just buy the green curry paste at the Asian market! I found some by Maesri that was MSG free. So here goes:

Green Curry Chicken

Ingredients:
2 tbsp. veggie oil
Medium onion chopped into thin slices
Green bell pepper cut into slices
Eggplant, sliced
Fresh green beans
1 stalk of lemongrass (white bulb only)
1 tbsp. of fresh ginger
3 tbsp. of green curry paste
3 c. unsweetened coconut milk (2-13.5 oz cans)
3/4 c. chicken broth
3 good sized chicken breasts, cut into thin strips
Sea salt
Juice from a lime
Thai basil leaves
Cilantro

Put oil into a deep pot. Saute veggies for a couple of minutes to soften. Split the lemongrass down the middle and whack it to open the flavor. Add the lemongrass, ginger and curry paste to the pot and saute for 2 minutes. Pour in the coconut milk and chicken broth. Lay the chicken slices in the mixture to poach, add a pinch of salt. Stir everything together and simmer on low for 10-15 minutes or until the chicken is cooked all the way through. Squeeze in the lime and add the fresh basil and cilantro. I served it over rice. So YUMMY! Note: I did fish out the lemongrass before serving as I'm not a fan of it's hairy texture. It was pretty easy to find.

Thai Iced Tea (this recipe is for a single serving)

1 tbsp. Thai tea (cha)
1 tbsp. of sugar
2 tbsp. of evaporated milk
1 c. hot water

Let the loose tea steep in the hot water for 5 min. Then strain the tea leaves out. This tea is very orange and very fragrant! Add the sugar and stir until dissolved. Pour into a cup full of ice, top with 2 tbsp. of evaporated milk. You will get somewhat of a division, so you'll need to stir before drinking. This recipe actually calls for 1 tbsp. of sweetened condensed milk per serving as well, but for my taste it was just TOO much!

So this is what I ended up with...

And I don't mind telling you it was AWESOME! And it was EASY! So run with it and tweak it to your specifications! And this is what your plates will look like afterwards...
ENJOY!