Remembrance Day Poppies

Today is Remembrance Day, or Veteran's Day to our neighbors down south. I figured I'd do a poppy seed themed dinner in honor of this. Poppy seed foods are actually quite difficult to come by! Other than a selection of cakes and muffins and other such desserts, I wasn't really sure what to do for a poppy seed theme. Poppy seed dressing made sense, so I went with a Spinach and Pear Salad with Poppy Seed Dressing. The pears are absolutely delicious right now. The dressing was a little tart and the seeds kept getting stuck in my teeth. I actually don't really like poppy seeds, it just seemed like it was time for another theme dinner.

For my next trick I made Poppyseed Noodles. Since they're so simple (basically noodles tossed in butter with poppy seeds) they would've been very good, had it not been for the poppy seeds. Sometimes when I make dinners like this people ask me why I made something knowing that I wouldn't like it. Well, there are two reasons. The first is because, like with my cilantro escapade, I like to try things I previously disliked and try to acquire a taste for them. The second is because I run out of ideas for new dishes. I tried to scrape off the poppy seeds and douse this in Parmesan, which worked fairly well.

The Mushroom Poppyseed Chicken Curry was fun because I've never had a white curry before. Contrary to the horrible picture it actually looked quite pretty. The sauce is comprised of yogurt and ground almonds which gave it a nice texture. It was also a good excuse to make use of my new blender that my mom bought me and had shipped across the country (thanks, mom!) I thought for sure we'd make lime margaritas as our first blender creation but tequila is out of the question because Shannon is sick. The flavor of this is sort of like butter chicken without tomatoes and the poppy seeds are disguised somewhat well. I wonder if I'd test positive for opiates if I did a drug test right now?