Vegetarian Thai Red Curry

Hailing from the land of coconut trees, I am in love with any cuisine that has coconuts or coconut milk in it. So, needless to say I am an avid lover of Thai cuisine. The Thai Red Curry is a perennial favorite of ours. For me a Thai meal is never complete if it doesn't have the red curry as part of it.
One of the things I like about this dish in particular is that you can make it with whichever vegetables that you have  handy, as the secret is in the gravy.
If you keep the curry paste prepared ahead of time, you can put together this in no time.
Ingredients:
1 tablespoon cilantro
1 tablespoon coriander
1/2 tablespoon cumin
20 or to taste (de-seeded) dried Thai Red Chilies
1 1/2 tablespoons galangal/ginger
1/4 cup garlic
3-4 tablespoons lemongrass
1/2 teaspoon peppercorns
2 tablespoons salt
1/2 cup shallots
1 tablespoon Kaffir Lime Zest
3 tbs oil
Method:
Prepping
Soak the chili pepper in hot water for 10 minutes or until soft. You can see that the color gets brighter once when it's soft.  Skin the zest out from kaffir lime. Slice lemongrass thin to limit the fiber size. Peel garlic and shallots.

Grinding
Grind the dry spices(peppercorns, cumin and coriander) separately in a spice grinder or mortar and set aside to  add them to the curry paste later.
Squeeze the water out from the chili peppers. Put the rest of the ingredients in the mortar or grinder and make a smooth paste.The paste should be thick and not watery.Add the powdered dry spices to ground paste.
Heat Oil in a skillet.Add the paste and cook it until the oil starts to separate and the paste starts to clump together (3-5 mins).

This curry paste will stay fresh for a few weeks in the refrigerator and for a year in the freezer.
For the curry

Ingredients:
Oil – 1 tbsp
Red Curry Paste – 1-2 tbsp
Coconut cream -3/4 cup
Coconut Milk – 1 cans (14oz/400ml each)
Palm Sugar – 1/2 tbsp
Soy Sauce – 1 tbsp optional
Snow Peas – handful
Red Bell Pepper – 1/8, sliced
Green Bell Pepper – 1/4, sliced
Eggplant- 1 medium sized
Carrots – 1 thin slices
Onion – 1/4, sliced
Frozen corn-1/2 cup
Thai Basil Leaves – 4-6, torn up
Extra Firm Tofu – 14 oz block, cubed optional
Method:
Heat the oil in a thick bottom pan over medium heat ,stir in curry along with sliced onion and stir for a minute. Mix in the coconut cream.When curry paste is dissolved in coconut cream add the coconut milk ,soy sauce and sugar .Check the saltiness and add salt if needed.Add the cut veggies to this along with a green chilli if you need added heat. Add the basil leaves and cook till veggies are cooked.If you are adding Tofu add it 2 minutes before you are done with the cooking.