What's Cooking

My friend, Ellie, asked for me to share some recipes so here's a few things I made recently. Nothing fancy. Nothing too complicated. (I like my recipes EASY!) But lots of yummy! Sorry...no pictures. Totally involved in the process and forgot. Will try to remember next time.

Som Tum salad 

(NOTE: this is usually made with green papaya but since I couldn't find it I improvised with what I had. Turned out pretty good! **Recipes have ingredients in the order I cooked them.

Carrots - A handful, sliced into thin long strips

Green beans - A big handful or two. I blanched them but you could throw them in raw also

Tomatoes - 1 small one, diced 

Dressing -

Peanuts (handful, crushed)

Soy Sauce (1 tbspn...cause I was out of fish sauce)

Lime juice (squeezed about a half of lime to taste and then grated a little bit of the zest in it too)

Palm Sugar (one whole piece - a little bigger than a quarter - you can use brown sugar if you can't find)

Garlic - 1/2 tspn (more or less to taste)

Chilli (cut and then crush gently -with pestal and mortor - one or 2 chillis)

Mix it all together, dump over veggies and enjoy!

*If you can find you can also add tamarin sauce and use 2 tspn of fish sauce instead of soy.

I'm going to share my vegetable green curry dish with you also but I REALLY improvised a lot here. Had 3 different recipes I followed loosely and put into one. They all called for galangal, tamarind paste, and fish sauce. The first 2 I couldn't find (even at 3 Asian grocery stores) and the 3rd I thought I had but was out of. Despite this, it turned out really good! Huge hit with Jeff and my brother but the funniest thing is my darling daughter is NOT a fan of Thai dishes with coconut in them. I made her curry separate, adding less curry paste, more palm sugar, and no chillies. So here is what I THINK I did with ours...

Vegetable Green Curry over Jasmine Rice 

Vegetable oil (1 tbspn in hot pan)

Onion (1 vidalia thrown in with the olive oil in a big wok)

Green curry paste (1-2 tblspns)

Coconut Milk (1 can thrown in after onion cooked down a couple mins)

Water (1 cup thrown in after coconut milk. Bring to boil, then reduce to simmer)

Green beans - (threw in all the veggies than brought temp back up to med to med low, stirring often)

Eggplant (pre-soaked in salt water to take out bitterness, then rinsed, and cut into small chunks)

Small red potatoes (cut into small chunks)

Red peppers (sliced into long strips)

Bay Leaf - threw this in and let simmer a bit

Fish sauce (1-2 tblspoons) * I didn't have so I put in 2 tblspns of soy sauce and squeezed a lime in it plus added some lime zest.

Palm Sugar - 1- 2 hunks - more or less to taste

Basil - needed holy or Thai basil but used reg basil from my garden instead. Just a bit - maybe 5 small leaves.

Chillies - 1-3 depending upon how hot your curry paste is and how hot you like it. My paste had a good kick to it so I only added one crushed chilli but we all agreed I could have added another.

Okay, that's all I remember. Hopefully that's right! Spoon over Thai Jasmine rice.

Last but not least, here is a pizza I made last week that was a big hit. I love making home made pizzas but I gotta tell ya, this was this best one to date.

Goat Cheese Roasted Red Potato Pizza

Garlic Naan Bread
Garlic (small amount - less than teaspoon - sauteed in olive oil. Pour oil & garlic on bread)
Olive Oil (1-2 tbspns. Add more or less to bread as needed and spread evenly)
Red onion (cooked down a bit in olive oil then add to pizza)
Small red potatoes (sliced, boiled, then layered on pizza)
Goat Cheese (sliced off the roll of cheese little clumps and scattered around - but not covering - pizza)
Herbs de Provence (my favorite herb just sprinkled generously all over b4 popping in the oven. *I think a little extra rosemary would be great too but I was out of it.

I did convection cook for 15-20 minutes at 375 but other pizzas I did on regular oven setting at 400 for 20. All ovens vary so start watching it closely at 10 mins.

Let me know if anyone tries these and likes them! Also, please feel free to share some of your favorites!