Totally Thai

I prepared for my Sunday night stirfry with a trip to the farmers market and Asian supermarket on Saturday. At the farmers market I got a daikon radish, peppers, onions, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, broccoli, Thai basil, Thai chili peppers, and cilantro.






At the Asian market, I got sugar snap peas, lemongrass, ginger, carrots, brown rice vermicelli, some rice crackers, and some awesome peanut bars. The ingredients listed for the peanut bars are peanuts, sugar, and water. They helped cool us off after our spicy dinner. The Asian market is where I buy groceries for my son. He says he doesn't want to shop for food at the local markets anymore. This market really is supermarket size and we always spend at least an hour there when we go.


So here are the veggies ready for the wok - everything from the market and some of the world's biggest zucchini, which I've eaten about 2/3 of so far!

The coconut green curry sauce recipe was given to me by a local chef. It's quick and easy:

Put 2 cloves minced garlic, 1 chopped green onion, and 2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger in a medium saucepan with 1 teaspoon sesame oil. Saute until onion is soft. Add 2 tablespoons white wine and cook off. Add 1 can lite coconut milk and 1 - 2 tablespoons green curry paste and bring to a boil. Let simmer until thickened, about 3 minutes. Add 1-2 tablespoons cilantro and salt to taste. The sauce will thicken more when you add it to the stirfry. You can make this ahead of time and it will keep in the fridge for a week.

Here's a shot of the veggies in the wok.

And here's a shot of it almost ready.

I also made a cold green salad to go with the stirfry, with lettuce, carrots, onions, zucchini, and broccoli.

I made an interesting dressing for the salad which I think came from Global Gourmet. I read that it is improper to serve a dressed salad in Thailand - let the guests serve themselves. To make the dressing, mix together 1/2 cup lime juice, 1/4 cup chopped peanuts, 2 tablespoons soy sauce (I used Bragg's), 2 tablespoons rice vinegar, 2 tablespoons palm sugar (I used agave), 1 tablespoon dried red chilis, and 1 tablespoon ground toasted rice. My dried chilis were not very hot, but I think a tablespoon of hot stuff might be too much. The dressing was very good and could even be used as a dipping sauce. It was my first time to toast rice and grind it up to put in liquid.

I also made Thai beancakes. I put the following in my miniprep: 1 can adzuki beans (drained and rinsed), some Thai basil, a 1 inch piece of lemongrass, 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro, 1 clove garlic, 1 teaspoon fresh ginger, and 1 Thai chili. Then I formed them into patties and cooked them in a nonstick skillet with no oil. It's basically a spicy black bean burger, and oh so tasty. But I could eat a bean burger in some form every night.

So here is what we sat down to!

So many healthy veggies and some spiciness to speed up the metabolism!

For a Thai style dessert I made a mango coconut loaf cake. Have you ever heard that loaf cakes should be cooled completely, then not cut and eaten, but wrapped in plastic wrap for 24 hours so they will be more flavorful and easier to slice? It's completely true! I can't decide if I like this cake or not. I did not like it Saturday. I have a loaf pan that I love because it has perfectly square corners, but it burned the corners of this cake. I thought I would have to cut off a half inch from all sides of the loaf, but on Sunday it had softened and was perfect! Oh, but it also fell while it was cooling, so it wasn't pretty. On the other hand, Chase said it was one of his favorite desserts I've made, probably because it's not terribly sweet. (He really liked Emmy's peanut blondies!) I'm not going to post the recipe tonight, but if anyone wants to take a stab at it, I'll be glad to post it later. Mango and coconut, mmmmmmmmmm.

See, I just love those pointy corners!

So we had a fun family dinner once again. Thank you again to my son for a perfect job on the stirfry. All the veggies were done just right and he was wise and brave to add in 6 Thai peppers!