Simple and Fresh

Easter weekend I treated myself to something I really enjoy- a Thai cooking class! We shopped at local outdoor markets and were taught how to chopped, sliced, peel and prepare all of our own food in an authentic style- while sitting on the floor!

The secret to good Thai food is fresh ingredient that is cooked quickly. This includes the soups and curries. In the states we might cook a soup all day to extract the flavors, but here you crush (pulverize with a stone pestle ) many of the spices to release the flavors. We made five courses from scratch and cooked them outside on the deck. It was a really fun experience and I enjoyed every bite!

Got a Craving?

One of my favorite treats when I was in Thailand was sticky rice and mangos, but my Thai friends preferred DONUTS. It was always a special treat to buy donuts, especially around the Holidays. Oh my gosh- those look so delicious. I am totally craving chocolate donuts right now. So I figures I would post some on my blog instead of posting them on my thighs! Yummy- those look so good. Okay, everybody enjoy!

Sticky Rice and Mango

Favorite quote this week!

" Friends are the bacon-bits on the salad bar of life!"

Quote by: Pastor Dennis Beatty

All these postings of cookies and chocolates made me feel like I needed to have something healthy! So here is a delicious salad. Gosh, I feel healthier already!

Cobb Salad

• 3 hard-cooked eggs peeled
• 8 bacon slices
• 1 head romaine lettuce, leaves separated and torn into bite-size pieces
• 2 cups chopped watercress lettuce
• 4 cups diced cooked turkey or chicken
• 2 avocados, pitted, peeled and diced
• 2 tomatoes, chopped
• 1/4 pound plus 1 ounce Roquefort cheese, crumbled
• 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 1 clove garlic, minced 1/4 teaspoon coarse salt
• 1/2 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
• 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil Several long chive lengths for garnish
  

Cut the hard-cooked eggs into 1/2-inch dice. Set aside.
In a large frying pan over medium heat, fry the bacon about 10 minutes or until crisp; transfer to paper towels to drain. When cool, crumble and set aside.

Make a bed of romaine lettuce on a platter, shallow bowl, or individual serving plates. Arrange the eggs, bacon, herbs, watercress, turkey or chicken, avocados, tomatoes, and the 1/4 pound Roquefort cheese in a neat pattern atop the lettuce, in rows

In a small bowl, whisk together the wine vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, garlic, salt, and pepper. Using a fork, mash in the remaining 1 ounce Roquefort cheese to make a paste. While whisking, slowly drizzle in the olive oil to form a thick dressing.

Pour a little of the dressing over the salad and garnish with chive lengths. Serve immediately. Pass the remaining dressing at the table.

Makes 4 to 6 servings.

YUMMY!!!!

Who has captivated your heart?

Like most Holidays, Valentines Day arrives packed with memories and emotions that can easily cause me to become too melancholy. So I decided to use the Holiday to celebrate God's heart for the Nations. I invited some friends to my home for a special evening, we decorate Valentines Day cookies! Actually, it was just a wonderful excuse to gather some amazing women together for the purpose of building relationships! It turned out to be quite an international event.

My guests were varied in ages from 23 to 60 years and had differing economic backgrounds, ancestors, cultures and languages. Most of them had never met each other until that night. One of the women just arrived in the USA three months ago and is still learning English. What a great joy to see these beautiful women from Buddhist, Muslim, Orthodox, Christian and non-Christian worldviews, interacting together as if they had known each other for years.

Valentines Day is all about LOVE. This year I was blessed to have Syrian, Armenian, Burmese, Assyrian, Jewish, European and American women all laughing and sharing stories together in my kitchen! What a great opportunity to love people with the love of Jesus. Building friendships and creating fun memories turned out to be a perfect way to celebrate Valentines Day. God’s heart is for all the Nations and lucky for us, He continues to place plenty of internationals right on our doorsteps! These are people who God cares about and He expects us to be kind and gracious to them. Will they know we are Christians by our love? As followers of Jesus, we are called to LOVE people with the supernatural, irresistible love of our Heavenly Father!

Pad Thai for everyone!

Preparing and enjoying food is very important to the people of Thailand. Meals are social. I thought it was interesting that although eating is considered a high social value, many Thai people do not have kitchens, especially true for those who live in apartments. They eat with their neighbors at small food stands or purchase food at the local street vendors.

One of the PIONEERS team members has been working hard to develop friendships with key people in the Ubon community. She does this by teaching English classes in private homes. One of those wonderful relationships resulted in a personal invitation to the family's restaurant for a private cooking lesson. Our group of four were treated to an afternoon of learning to prepare an authentic dish called Pad Thai.

I love to cook, so it was fun to help in the preparation (lots of chopping and slicing!) and then in the cooking of our own portions. We did this with the assistance and supervision of the restaurant owner. She was very encouraging and patient with us. Luckily we didn't burn down her kitchen!

While I was in Thailand, I dined on everything from (UFOs- Un-identified Food Objects!) at the neighborhood street vendors, to lovely meals prepared like this at our friend's restaurant. What a treat! Our Hostess even showed us how to encase the Pad Thai noodles and vegetables in a very thin egg omelet for a pretty presentation.

Pad Thai Ingredience
1/2 lb. dried thin gkuay dtiow or rice noodles (also known as ban pho to the Vietnamese)
3 Tbs. fish sauce, to taste
3 or more Tbs. tamarind juice the thickness of fruit concentrate, to taste
2 Tbs. palm or coconut sugar, to taste
4 Tbs. peanut oil
1/3 lb. fresh shrimp, shelled, deveined and butterflied
3/4 cup firm pressed tofu, cut into thin strips about an inch long, half an inch wide and a quarter inch thick

4-5 cloves garlic, finely chopped
3 shallots, thinly sliced (or substitute with half a medium onion)
1/4 cup small dried shrimp
1/4 cup chopped sweetened salted radish
2-3 tsp. ground dried red chillies, to desired hotness
3 eggs
3 cups fresh bean sprouts
1 cup garlic chives, cut into 1 1/2-inch-long segments (optional)

Pad Thai Garnish
2/3 cup chopped unsalted roasted peanuts
1 lime, cut into small wedges
A few short cilantro sprigs
4 green onions - trim off root tip and half of green leaves and place in a glass with white end in cold water to crisp (optional)

Now What?

Soak the dried rice noodles in cool or lukewarm tap water for 40 minutes to one hour, or until the noodles are limp but still firm to the touch. (If you are using fresh noodles it will only take a few seconds in boiling water) While the noodles are soaking, mix the fish sauce with the tamarind juice and palm sugar; stir well to melt the sugar. Taste and adjust flavors to the desired combination of salty, sour and sweet. Prepare the remaining ingredients as instructed.

When the noodles have softened, drain and set aside. Heat a wok over high heat until it is smoking hot. (Note: If your wok is small, do the stir-frying in two batches. The recipe may also be halved to serve two.) Add 2 teaspoons of oil and quickly stir-fry the shrimp until they turn pink and are almost cooked through. Salt lightly with a sprinkling of fish sauce and remove them from the wok.

Swirl in the remaining oil, save for 1 teaspoon, to coat the wok surface and wait 20 to 30 seconds for it to heat. Add the tofu, frying 1 to 2 minutes, or until the pieces turn golden. Add garlic and stir-fry with the tofu for 15 to 20 seconds. Follow with the sliced shallots and cook another 15 seconds. Then add the dried shrimp, sweetened salted radish and ground dried chillies. Stir and heat through a few seconds.

Add the noodles and toss well with the ingredients in the wok. Stir-fry 1 to 2 minutes and when most of the noodles has changed texture and softened, push the mass up along one side of the wok. Add the teaspoon of oil to the cleared area, crack the eggs onto it and scramble lightly. When the eggs have set, cut into small chunks with the spatula and toss them in with the noodles.

Add the sweet-and-sour seasoning mixture. Stir well to evenly coat noodles. If the noodles are still too firm to your liking, sprinkle 1 to 2 tablespoons of water over them to help cook. Taste and adjust flavors as needed to your liking by adding more fish sauce or tamarind juice; if the noodles are not sweet enough, sprinkle in a small amount of granulated sugar.

When the noodles are cooked to your liking, toss in 2 of the 3 cups of bean sprouts and the garlic chives (if using). Sprinkle with half the chopped peanuts and return the shrimp to the wok. Stir and when the vegetables are partially wilted, transfer to a serving platter, or dish onto individual serving-size plates, and garnish with the remaining bean sprouts and chopped peanuts, the lime wedges, cilantro and green onions.

How many will this serve?

Serves 4 for lunch or dinner. Squeeze lime juice over each portion before eating and enjoy!

Traditional Cuisine - Issan Style

While in Ubon, a PIONEERS team member took me to meet her friends in a little village. We sat outside on bamboo mats high off the ground and enjoyed a lovely traditional lunch of black sticky rice and fresh greens. For a special treat our host also prepared a dessert for us. It was really very tasty, especially the bowl that looks like cold split pea soup. It was sort of an egg and palm sugar, steamed sweet custard? ...and yes...those are flies landing in and on everything.

Can You Guess What These Are?

DEEP FRIED OREOS!

My Friends and I decided to try one of these interesting little treats while we were at the Shelby County Fair. The oroes were okay, but not as amazingly delicious as we expected. It was still fun trying something different!

These are crispy Ribbon Fries. They are potatoes that have been peeled and cut in such a way that they all remain connected together like a long chain or ribbon. They are served with vinagar, salt and pepper or with ranch dressing. Wash them down with a cherry-lime-aid, an RC cola or a cold Cherrie-Wine! By the way, Cherrie-Wine isn't wine at all, it's more like a cherrie coke.

Now that I have your attention, have you ever heard of deep fried candy Bars? I hadn't either. Snickers or Milky Ways seem to be the favorites. How do I know? I was so amazed, I started interviewing people who were standing in line for one of these crazy treats.

Move over COTTON CANDY and CORN DOGS, it's time for more adventurous "County Fair Cuisine". How about a Deep Fried TWINKIE? Maybe you would prefer a giant frozen cheese cake triangle dipped in chocolate, or a mountian of deep fried PICKLES! Don't worry we didn't eat all these crazy foods. We did however enjoy watching others dine on their deep fried delicacies.

Seeing is believing
Southerns will fry anything, even pickles! As I said earlier, you do not have to travel to exotic international countries to experience unusual, culturally unique foods.

At least now I have a better understanding as to why 65% of the US population has become overweight......she says, as she ties the laces of her jogging shoes!