Pad Thai

I originally got this recipe from The Far East Cookbook, but I have adapted it over the years to my taste preferences and ease of cooking. This probably takes under 1/2 hour from start to finish, and the bulk of the time is in preparing the ingredients. Once you start cooking, it goes very quickly, so make sure you have everything ready before you heat up the wok. I sometimes add other vegetables if I have them on hand. Fresh pea pods are delicious.

Pad Thai

8 oz. flat rice noodles
1 tbs. soy sauce
1/4 tsp. hot chili paste or sriracha sauce
2 Tbs. fish sauce
4 tsp. rice vinegar
1 Tbs. brown sugar
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
3 carrots, in matchsticks
1/2-1 lb. cooked shrimp, chicken or egg
6 oz. bean sprouts
6 green onions, thinly sliced on a diagonal
2 Tbs. sesame oil
1/4 cup chopped peanuts to garnish
1/4 cup chopped cilantro to garnish

1. Place noodles into a large heatproof bowl. Add enough hot water
to cover noodles by 2 inches and let stand 15 minutes or until softened.
Drain and set aside.





2. Mix together the soy sauce, chili sauce, fish sauce, vinegar, and sugar in a small bowl. Set aside. Make sure all your ingredients are ready (vegetables cut up, eggs cooked, etc.) before you begin cooking, because once you start it goes very fast.





3. Heat a wok (or large pot or frying pan) until very hot. Add 3 Tbs. vegetable oil and swirl to coat wok. Add garlic and bell pepper and carrot and stir fry 3 minutes or until vegetables are crisp-tender.





Add noodles, and sauce mix and stir-fry 1 minute. Add a little water if noodles begin to stick.







Add shrimp (or chicken or egg), bean sprouts, green onions and sesame oil and stir-fry 2-3 minutes until hot.







Sprinkle with peanuts and cilantro and serve hot. Add salt and additional fish sauce and chili sauce to taste.

Quick Blender Tomato Soup

This one comes from the Williams Sonoma The Kids Cookbook, which I think is my favorite cookbook for kids because it has real food, not just decorated food and tons of sweets. It also is a good basic introduction to cooking, since the recipes teach a lot of cooking skills that transfer to all sorts of other cooking. I also like the fact that the recipes are good enough that I actually choose to make them myself fairly often. This tomato soup recipe is a good example. It is easy enough for a child to make, but soooo much better than the stuff you get out of a can.

On Monday I had a lot of fresh tomatoes, so I substituted them (chopped) for the canned ones and strained the puree after I blended it to get the seeds and skins out. I had to mess with the recipe to get it to taste right, though, and I have no idea what I did, so I'd recommend going with the canned tomatoes the first time around.

Here's my shortened version of the recipe for more experienced cooks. The kids' version is much more detailed.

Creamy Tomato Soup

3 small green onions
1 can (14 1/2 oz.) diced tomatoes
1 c. chicken broth
1/4 c. milk
1 tsp. sugar
salt and pepper

Blend until smooth: tomatoes, chicken broth, chopped green onions, milk, sugar, 1/2 tsp. salt, and a pinch of pepper. Pour into medium saucepan and bring to boil over high heat. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring frequently, until the soup thickens, about 15 minutes. Serves 2.

Cooking in the Kiln

I haven't been cooking much food lately because I've been spending a lot of time "cooking" pottery.

I pulled a couple of glaze firings out this weekend and have 3 or 4 whole shelves of beautiful work just waiting for Christmas shoppers (just give me a call if you want to come get first dibs).






I'm eager to get to work on a new batch, so if there's some particular item you're looking for, let me know and I'll try to include it. I want to have at least twice as much stuff heading into the Holiday season and try selling some on Etsy and at the Ellis Holiday Shoppe this year to come closer to breaking even with my costs.





So our dinner menu this week:
Sun: leftover food from tamale party
Mon: fresh tomato soup with melted cheese sandwiches
Tues: frozen pizza (storebought) with sauteed shredded butternut (cooks quicker that way)
Wed: bean and veggie pesto soup
Thurs: frozen burritos (I made them with leftover taco fixings a couple of weeks ago), lettuce & tomato
Fri: Pad Thai
Sat: frozen tamales (left from tamale party), green salad with guacamole dressing

As you can see, we had several meals from the freezer, and other three meals all took under 30 minutes.

Bean and Veggie Pesto Soup

I'm always on the lookout for meals that are healthy and easy. This soup from Rachel Ray is super easy if you already have some pesto in the freezer. I have bunches of basil in the garden this year (one of the few plants the groundhogs and deer didn't eat), so I made three batches of pesto and froze what we didn't eat that night. I still have to make more this week. Once you're familiar with this recipe, it's easy to cut up the veggies as the earlier parts of the soup are cooking. It takes about 30 minutes and is so full of veggies that you really don't need a side dish, though a green salad and some garlic bread would be good.

Bean and Veggie Pesto Soup

1 onion, chopped
1 large potato, chopped
1 zucchini, chopped
1 1/2 cups green beans, fresh or frozen
1 can chickpeas, drained
1 can cannellini beans, drained
6 cups chicken or vegetable broth
1 cup thin egg noodles or other pasta
1/2 cup pesto, fresh or frozen

Saute onion in olive oil. Add zucchini and potato and cook until barely soft. Stir in chicken broth and beans. Heat to boiling. Add noodles and green beans and cook until done, about 5-6 minutes (add noodles earlier if they need more time to cook than the green beans). To serve, put pesto in bottom of each bowl, spoon in soup and stir briefly.

Tamale Party

Every time we host a party, I think to myself "I'm obviously overdoing it - I've got to find a way to simplify". This time was no exception (250 handmade tamales? We're insane!), though things did go much more smoothly than the last time we had a tamale party. People mingled, the weather was perfect, and the tamales turned out fabulous. Enormous amounts of food were consumed.


I used the recipe on the bag of masa for tamales (which I don't even have to go check, because after making about 12 batches, I have it memorized). I've added my mixing method.

Tamale Masa

2/3 c. lard
2 cups dry masa for tamales
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
2 cups chicken broth

In a stand mixer with a wire whisk, whip the lard. In another bowl, measure the dry ingredients and stir together. Stir in the chicken broth. Add to the lard and beat with the beater attachment until light and airy. If you put a little dollop of this in a bowl of cold water at this point, it should float. If it doesn't, beat it some more to incorporate more air.

For vegetarian masa, substitute butter or oil for the lard (or a mix of the 2) and vegetable broth for the chicken broth.

If you've never assembled tamales before, it's easier to learn by watching someone than to follow directions, so I'm not even going to try to describe how. Maybe another post.

We used 4 kinds of fillings:
*chicken with tomatillo sauce
*pork with ancho chile and tomato sauce
*black beans with jack cheese and poblano peppers
*one that Jill brought - butternut squash with chipotle and green chiles.

We also had
*Oaxacan style black beans
*Gulf Coast Style white rice pilaf
*fresh tomato & tomatillo salsa
*Ancho and Pasilla chile sauce
*fresh tomatillo cilantro salsa
*Zoe's best guacamole
*tortilla chips
*watermelon lemonade
*grilled corn on the cob with lime and chipotle
*green salad with tangy avocado dressing
*fresh lime ice with raspberries
*homemade peach ice cream
*"Mexican chocolate" brownies (with cinnamon)

Offerings from the guests included Melissa's famous chocolate chip cookies, Amorette's smokin' roasted tomatillo salsa, Alisa's beet and carrot salad, Melissa's garden fresh tomatoes and basil, and April's fresh perfectly ripe mango chunks. (If any of you want to guest post your recipes, that would be great!). Thanks to Melissa for the photos - I never even thought about taking any. And thanks to Stephen for his monumental efforts doing the dishes.

Any requests for me to post on the other recipes? I got most of them from Rick Bayless, who is my go-to cookbook author for authentic Mexican food.

Where to find ingredients: we got the corn husks and masa at the little Mexican grocery in Oakland (just off Bates Street) -(you can also find them at Reyna's in the strip, and the masa for tamales I also saw for cheaper at Walmart), the lard came from the Forest Hills Giant Eagle in the meat section, tomatillos from the farmer's market, Poblano chiles from Walmart, peaches from our tree.

Clay says he talked to the gardener at CMU and asked if he could have the banana leaves when they cut them back next week, and got the ok. So you know that means we've got Oaxacan style mole tamales wrapped in banana leaves coming up. . .

Coffee Cake (with peaches)

A character in a book I'm reading (Strange Fits of Passion by Anita Shreve) eats coffee cake and I find myself thinking about coffee cake for days afterward. So finally, I decide to make one. I adapted this from the Joy of Cooking and scattered a few pieces of
peach over the top before I put on the streusel. It was exactly what I was hoping for. Lots of decadently sweet streusel topping (you could cut it in half), but the cake itself wasn't too sweet or rich, and the bits of peaches from our tree were like little gems of summer goodness.

Yogurt Coffee Cake (with Peaches)

for the streusel topping:
2/3 c. all-purpose flour
2/3 c. pecans
2/3 c. brown sugar
5 tbs. butter, melted
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. salt

Pulse pecans in food processor until chopped, then add remaining ingredients and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

for the cake:
2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/4 c. plain nonfat yogurt
1 tsp. vanilla
4 tbs. butter
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
2 1/2 cups peaches (or other fruit, like apples, cranberries, raspberries, etc.), optional

Preheat the oven to 350. Grease a 9x13 inch pan. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In another bowl, combine the yogurt and vanilla. In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar on high speed until lightened in color and texture, 3 to 4 minutes. Beat in eggs one at a time. Add the flour mixture in 3 parts, alternating with the sour cream mixture in 2 parts, beating on low speed or stirring until smooth and scraping the sides of the bowl as necessary. Scrape the batter into the pan and spread evenly. Sprinkle the fruit over the batter. Sprinkle the streusel over the fruit. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 25-30 minutes without fruit and about 40-45 minutes with fruit.

Taco Night Menu & photos

A taco feast:

From the grill:
lime cilantro marinated flank steak
green onions
poblano chiles
corn on the cob
ancho chile spiced potatoes

Also:
fresh tomato salsa
chipotle salsa from the farmer's market
guacamole
chips
cheddar and queso fresco
black beans
lime-marinated red onions
shredded cabbage
lime
cilantro
Mexican crema
fresh corn tortillas from Reyna's
sparkling limeade

Dessert:
Lime ice with raspberries
M's famous chocolate chip cookies