Thai Coconut Rice

I love coconut! I've searched high and low for this box of rice! I read someone's review on Amazon and it sounded so great. Basil with garlic and coconut and throw in some lime at the end and its excellent! I found it at our Smith's grocer on 400 S. 600 E.

I decided to serve it with Grandma Schubert's 'Salat' which is just iceberg lettuce cut in small pieces, add equal amounts olive oil and cider vinegar, then sprinkle with garlic salt. Make sure its fairly oiled/wet. Nothing worse than dry iceberg.

I finished this off with a side of black beans (I used canned organic).

Spicy Tortellini Soup

Oh my, this soup makes me happy. It's so fast and the spice from the Colosimo's sausage is just perfect. Colosimo's is a local sausage maker who has come up with some sophomoric billboard ads that are pretty funny.

Ingredients:

• 8 cups chicken broth
• 2 to 3 links of Colosimo's or other Italian sausage (spicy if you like)
• 1 lb frozen or fresh cheese tortellini
• 1 bag washed baby spinach leaves or 1 box frozen spinach
• dash of nutmeg and black
• grated parmesan to top

Coursely chop spinach and set aside. Using a large pot, squeeze sausage to remove it from its skin, then brown, breaking it into small pieces (like browning hamburger). Add broth and heat to boiling. Add your pasta and continue to boil until tortellini is cooked. Add your nutmeg and pepper, then throw in spinach. Cook just 2 to 3 minutes more and serve with parmesan. You can turn this into a vegan dish by using vegetable broth, vegan ravioli or tortellini and non-dairy parmesan.

Cute Little Couscous Soup

I found this beautiful, EASY, soup recipe on 101cookbooks.com. I changed it slightly so that I could use ingredients from my local Reams (2 blocks away, how fast is that?) and didn't have to do the extra chopping in the original recipe.

Ingredients:

• 8 cups vegetable or chicken broth (the Better Than Bouillon vegetable turned the broth a lovely red color)
• a couple shakes of the red pepper flakes (less if you don't like spice)
• 1/2 jar oil packed sun dried tomatoes, chopped (I buy the julienned version so I don't have to chop) (reserve some of the oil from the jar, maybe 2 - 3 Tbs)
• 3 cups of cauliflower/broccoli blend (if you like more veggies, throw in the whole 16 oz bag)
• 1 cp couscous (you can add more if you like your soup thick)

Bring the broth to boil, then add red pepper, sun dried tomatoes/oil and veggies. Simmer 5 min (10 if you like your veggies soft). Add couscous and stir. Simmer another 5 to 10 minutes until couscous plumps up. Serve with sliced green onions. (I add my onions during the simmer since I don't like the strong taste raw.) Take off heat and serve immediately or couscous can get overcooked. I serve this with a small salad or crunchy bread.

Thai Tonight

My brother, Anson, Twittered me this afternoon.

@TheMorsel For dinner?

I thought that was so cute. Short and to the point. Since I have a cold and don't feel like making much, I opted for an easy dinner. I've been testing Thai recipes lately and this cute little box caught my attention when I was shopping at Whole Foods on Friday. This doesn't make quite enough for both of us (Fred snow shoed to the top of Tuscarora yesterday and did another long snow shoe today, so he's famished!) but I added a salad to bulk it up tonight.

The instructions call for chicken, shrimp, vegies or tofu plus a 1/2 cup of fresh bean sprouts. I'm going for the tofu and I also added a bit of shredded carrot and some crushed peanuts.

• Boil 3 cups of water, then soak the noodles for 3 - 5 minutes. (I set my timer for 3 and I wouldn't go longer than that. They were perfect.)
  
• Immediately drain and rinse the noodles in cold water to stop them cooking.


• Heat up a little oil in a frying pan or wok, then add chicken, shrimp, veggies (in my case carrots and sprouts), or tofu. If using chicken, make sure its cut into fairly small pieces. You don't want your veggies overcooking waiting for the chicken to be done. In fact, I wouldn't add the sprouts until all that is cooked.
  
• Once that's done, add noodles and the seasoning packet into the pan. If there is no liquid left, add a couple tablespoons of water so the seasoning can absorb into the noodles. Be careful to turn down the heat at this point so things don't start sticking to the pan.

That's it. About 10 minutes total time. You can garnish with some chopped peanuts and a little lime if you like.