Thai Coconut Curry Soup

It's been a while! I had a little side job blogging recipes for another blogger for the last several months and that kind of sucked up my will to blog. I stopped blogging for her at the end of last year, and now (three months later), I am ready get my toe back in the blogging world. Though I am not entirely sure why as pinterest has completely obliterated any reason at all to have a recipe blog. Well, except I kind of take comfort that if I die or something my kids and husband will have a log of all the recipes I loved. So...there's that I suppose.

Anyway, I made this soup for dinner last night and it knocked my socks off. I will definitely be serving this the next time we have people over for dinner. I can't believe I went the first 28 years of my life thinking I didn't like Thai food. Idiot.

Thai Coconut Curry Soup
by www.sweetspot.ca
The sweet, sour, spicy, salty and savoury flavours of Thailand are one of my favourite ways to fill a bowl. They’re seductively addictive, always well balanced and one of the world’s great cuisines. They’re also easy! This is a very simple dish to make.

Ingredients
Two 14 oz cans of premium coconut milk ( I translate premium to mean FULL fat)
1 heaping tablespoon of Thai curry paste (I used red)
Roots of 1 bunch of cilantro, rinsed well
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, thinly sliced
2 cups of chicken broth
1 carrot, shredded
4 or 5 lime leaves (what the...?)
2 stalks of lemon grass, halved lengthwise, woody leaves removed ( used 2 TBS lemongrass from a little tube I found near the fresh Basil at Smiths)
2 tablespoons of fish sauce
Zest and juice of 2 limes
A small knob of frozen ginger
A handful of bean sprouts
One 8 oz (225 g) package of rice noodles ( could easily use cooked rice instead)
Leaves of 1 bunch of cilantro, rinsed well
2 or 3 green onions, thinly sliced
A sprinkle or two of salt or soy sauce

Directions
1. Scoop the thick coconut cream from the top of just one of the cans into a large stockpot set over a medium-high heat. Melt the cream, add the curry paste and stir for a few minutes until they begin to sizzle.

2. Add the cilantro roots and chicken and sauté until the chicken is cooked through, about 5 minutes.

3. Add the coconut juice from the first can and all the contents of the second can along with the chicken broth, carrot, lime leaves, lemon grass, fish sauce and lime zest and juice. Grate the frozen ginger into the broth with a Microplane grater or standard box grater. Simmer for 20 minutes or so.

4. Stir in the bean sprouts. Add the rice noodles, gently pushing them beneath the surface of the broth. Turn off the heat and let stand until the noodles soften, about 5 minutes. Rice noodles don’t need to simmer like pasta to cook; they simply need to rehydrate in the hot liquid.

5. Stir in most of the cilantro leaves. Remove the lemon grass stalks. Taste and season with a touch more salt (or soy sauce) as needed. Ladle into large bowls and garnish with the green onions and remaining cilantro leaves.

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This recipe sat on my menu rotation for weeks because I didn't know where to buy things like lime leaves and lemongrass. But let me assure you, you can modify it to make it less intimidating. For example I found lemongrass in a little squirt tube at smiths (on clearance!), and I used additional lime zest and juice instead of lime leaves.

Also, if I were to do this recipe again I would skip the expensive rice pasta (like three dollars and something a box!) and just simply add rice to the soup. I did spend the big bucks and bought red curry paste and fish sauce but really they were pretty cheap and I will be able to use them in several more recipes. I hope you enjoy this one as much as I did!

Black Bean Soup

There comes a time in every person's life where they need to make dinner in a jiffy. It's okay, it happens to us all. Sometimes you just gotta stop at Del Taco, and other times, when you've stopped at Del Taco three days in a row...you just have to think of something else. This recipe was just about the easiest thing I have ever made, and I thought it tasted great. I probably wouldn't serve it at my next dinner party, but if I did my next dinner party would certainly be less stressful! I look forward to making it again soon - especially since all three of my kids came back for seconds, and thirds!

Black Bean Soup
by: Favorite Family Recipes

3 cans black beans (do not drain)
2 cans chicken broth (which I figured was slightly less than four cups...not sure if that is true or not)
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups cooked rice (how lucky that I had leftover rice in the fridge, eh?)
avocado, sliced
grated cheese
tortilla chips (the best thing you can do in your life is throw your tortilla chips on a cookie sheet and let them sit in a 250 dg oven for ten minutes, trust me)
sour cream

Blend together the black beans with one of the cans of chicken broth. Add black bean mixture, the other can of chicken broth, and salt to a large pan. Cook on medium heat until nice and hot (no need to boil, though mine did...and spilled all over the stove...sigh). In individual bowls, layer the rice, then the soup, then the toppings.

Notes: I mixed the rice in with the soup while it was heating and nothing bad happened : )

Easy Chinese Dumpling Soup

The great news is that none of the pictures on this blog will be pilfered. The not-so-great news is that that means that the pictures will be, well, not-so-great. But that's okay! In three years we will all look back and laugh at what a novice photographer I was! Certainly I will learn and grow in three years, right? And it's also pretty likely that my pictures will all have an eerie orange-ish hue since we never eat dinner before about 7PM, and while I don't know much about photography, I do know that 7PM in a darkened kitchen is not really ideal lighting. And also, I feel like it is only fair to point out that it is *highly* likely that I will never post pictures of the process of preparing the recipes. I'm sorry, is it just me or would that be really hard? I mean I can barely prepare a meal without wanting to put all three of my kids up for adoption, I can only imagine if I added an hour to the process by washing my hands, posing my food, click, rinse, repeat. Please forgive me.

It should be pretty easy to forgive me because this soup comes together in about seven minutes and tastes divine! The broth is so delicious, the ginger really gives it a nice flavor, the perfect comfort food! Plus, can life be any better than when you have a package of frozen potstickers in your fridge? I think not.

Easy Chinese Dumpling Soup

adapted slightly from www.soupchick.com

4 cups chicken stock
1 slice fresh ginger root, 1/4 inch thick, peeled but left whole
2 scallions sliced (or three green onions thinly sliced)
1 tablespoon shao hsing wine (I used rice vinegar with good results)
2 tablespoons dark soy sauce
kosher salt, to taste
fresh black pepper, to taste
15 frozen chinese dumplings (potstickers)with filling of your choice (do not defrost)
hoisin sauce for garnish (optional)

In a 3-quart saucepan, heat the chicken stock, ginger root, scallions, shao hsing wine and dark soy sauce. Bring to a boil, then simmer 10 minutes. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper. Add frozen dumplings, and when the soup returns to boiling, reduce heat and cook for 5 minutes. Divide evenly in to serving bowls and drizzle a bit of hoisin on the dumplings, if desired.

*Kristi's notes: The original recipe calls for 24 Chinese dumplings. When I made it I put in 20, my husband and I still felt like there were too many dumplings for the amount of broth there was. I suggest either reducing the dumplings to 15, or doubling the broth and keeping the original 25-30 dumplings. I would plan on each adult wanting about 4 dumplings.