INSTRUCTIONS:

AS ALWAYS, IF YOU ORDERED MULTIPLE KITS PACKED TOGETHER, ADD A FEW MINUTES TO THE TIMES FOR HOT FOOD.

There's nothing wrong with serving this all at once, but doing the shrimp cakes first breaks the meal up nicely and helps with timing.  I'd serve the cucumbers with the shrimp cakes, then let any remaining cucumbers carry over to the main course of the chicken and green beans.

You do have a small hoop to jump through here... boiling noodles.  Just follow the instructions below, I believe in you.


First, do this:

• heat your oven to 325 degrees

• remove the lid from the pan of yellow chicken and cover with foil

• grab a medium mixing bowl for the noodles

• find a medium saute pan for the green beans (unless you decide to microwave them...)

THAI SHRIMP CAKES
325 degree oven, 10-12 minutes
uses the thick red sweet chili sauce

Place the shrimp cakes onto a foil-lined baking tray, laying them out flat. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until the bottoms are sizzly and they are warm. Serve warm on a shareable plate, either with some of the chili sauce drizzled over them or with the sauce on the side.

CUCUMBER & CASHEW SALAD
chilled
uses the chopped seasoned cashews

Stir up the cucumbers to distribute the green onions, then place the salad into a small shareable bowl, pouring any liquid in the container over the cucumbers. Sprinkle the top with chopped seasoned cashews (as much or as little as you like) and serve cold, having some with the shrimp cakes and any extra with the chicken.

YELLOW CURRY CHICKEN
325 degree oven, 35-45 minutes for the chicken, boil 8-10 minutes for the noodles
uses the noodles, thin orange noodle sauce, fried onions, and lime

Place your pan of chicken curry, covered, into your preheated oven and heat for 35 minutes. This is fully cooked, so we are mostly looking for everything to get hot. Take a look after 35 minutes and give it a stir; if it's hot and steamy you're good, if not then re-cover and heat for an additional 10 minutes or so. After it's done, the curry can rest, covered, on the countertop for up to 10 minutes until you're ready to serve.

At the end of the cooking time for the curry bring a medium pot of water to a rolling boil over high heat (using a lid when heating the water helps a lot.) When you take the curry out of the oven and it's resting, add the noodles to the boiling water and boil over high heat for 8-10 minutes, stirring every now and then. Drain the noodles in a colander, then rinse quickly with HOT tap water. Add the noodles to your medium mixing bowl, then shake up the noodle sauce and add to the bowl (use it all.) Stir well to coat the noodles, then divide into individual bowls.

Uncover the curry and divide into your noodle bowls, either putting the curry over the noodles or placing the curry to the side of the noodles (I do the noodles-on-the-side thing.) Top each portion of curry with a good amount of fried onions, and squeeze as much or as little lime juice as you like over the curry. Serve hot, with green beans on the side.

GARLICKY GREEN BEANS
stove top, 2 minutes (or microwave if you must)

I like heating this in a pan on the stove top, but you can heat it in the microwave if you like (they'll be like 90% as good.)

The green beans are fully cooked, so what we are going to do is stir-fry them just enough to heat everything up. Get your saute pan (preferably non-stick, but if it's a standard pan you'll still be fine.) Heat it up, with nothing in it, over medium-high heat until hot. An easy way to check if it's hot enough is to sprinkle a drop or two of water onto the pan. If it evaporates in a second or two, you're there. Spray very briefly with some cooking spray (or about a teaspoon of oil,) then immediately add the entire contents of the container with the greens. Stir quickly to mix everything together, and turn the heat up to high. Once things are steamy and smelling nice (which should be after about 1-2 minutes) it's ready. Serve hot.

THAI ICED TEA POUND CAKE (if ordered)
room temperature (or warm if you're a rebel, see below)
uses the fluffy pale yellow salted coconut cream

This cake SHOULD be served at room temperature, that's how it's done. But I won't tell anyone if you place those slices onto a foil-lined baking tray and heat them in your preheated oven for 5-8 minutes. Not to get the cake HOT, just a little warm. This cake is wonderful when slightly warm, you get more of that awesome tea flavor.

Either way, serve with a healthy scoop of that salted coconut cream.