If It's Good Enough for the Thai Restaurant...

When we eat out, it is most often ethnic food. Hard to get the authentic taste at home, huh?
On my last visit to one of the better Thai restaurants in town, I had to make a quick trip to the Ladies before leaving and on my way I spied cases and cases of canned this and that stacked against the wall. Well, I don't believe I actually spent a lot of time thinking the cooks were slaving away in the kitchen, and I haven't visited that particular kitchen, but I guess I did think those dishes were worth the cost of going out. (The food is very good, the service, not great).
Well, if instant curry paste and whatnot is good enough for the restaurant, maybe I can try it at home. Thai curry in a jar is readily available at most supermarkets, and I have used them with satisfactory results. But I recently went to my local Asian grocery, stocking up on various items, and I did some serious searching for Thai curry pastes. From Thailand. Found two brands. Bought Aroy-D yellow curry paste at Dixie Oriental, 3900 Bardstown Rd. Ingredients: shallot, garlic, dried red chili, salt, lemongrass, lime peel, galangal (similar to ginger root), cinnamon,, mace, cumin powder, coriander seed, turmeric. Sounded like a yellow curry paste to me.
I just eyeballed about 3 tablespoons of the paste, 4 cups of water, brought to a boil. Now, a REALLY good Thai curry will have some fatty coconut milk. Alas, hubby is counting points, so I just used 1/4 cup lite coconut milk. Added diced chicken breast, diced potatoes, and some onion and cooked till done. Served over rice. Terribly high in sodium, but certainly no more than a restaurant, and much lower in fat without sacrificing taste. Only thing I had to jettison was the guilt.
A tasty Thai main dish for 4 for $3.50

How Can You Mess Up a Potato Chip?

Seriously? Two bad bags of chips in two weeks? How can you mess up a potato chip? With hubby counting his points, and sweet, not salty, being HIS downfall, he has generously passed on his bags of chips from two recent lunch and learns.
Now, you can't knock a free lunch and no lack of gratitude to the sponsors, but the chips were just inedible - and I LOVE salty snacks. What a disappointment. It had plenty of salt and plenty of fat but NO TASTE. And not stale, just didn't taste good. And no, I have not evolved into a creature who suddenly does not care for fat and salt. Please. The chips didn't even pass the dog test.
I'm always looking for a "healthy' salty snack. Right. I have tried (and will continue to try) to find a lower-salt, lower-fat snack that satisfies. Frito-Lay baked items are hit and miss - but the 110 calorie bag of mini-pretzels are good - and "only" 19% of the sodium I need for the day. Now that is what I'm talking about.
With cereals being on sale of late (what's with that?), I decided to try making my own chex party mix. Used a few mixed nuts, rice chex, wheat chex and some cheerios. Didn't use much Worcestershire. Uh, I ran out. How do you run out of that stuff? Some walnut oil for flavor instead of butter, and some southwest seasoning. Not only not bad, but good.  Got to put Worcestershire on the list.