Destination: Southeast Asia

Last night I made a laksa, which is a spicy soup made in Southeast Asia. I could call it a curry too, because instead of laksa paste, I used green curry paste since the recipe recommended it. Anytime you mix curry paste, coconut milk, lime juice and fish sauce, wonderful things happen. The flavors blend into a delicious mixture. I love the pungent smell of curry paste while it is frying in the pan...  It makes me feel adventurous  even though all I am doing is just frying some curry paste that I scooped from a jar bought at the store. Now, if I made the curry paste myself, which really sounds like a great idea, then I could see where that sense of adventure is coming from.

The laksa recipe, from What To Cook & How To Cook It, is very simple. Chop, chop, fry a little, stir in some stuff, bring to simmer, season. Done. I did make a slight alteration. Instead of scallions (Whole Food only had conventional) and bean sprouts (not liked by my people), I chopped a zucchini and it was really a quite good substitution, although I can see how scallions would really enhance the flavor of the dish. The soup is served with rice noodles, and I used mai fun brown rice noodles. Since the broth was so tasty, I ended up mainly drinking it while skipping on the noodles, veggies, shitake mushrooms and shrimp. Then I went to bed hungry...

Destination: Spain

After three days of Holiday food, I craved something much simpler and yet nutritious. Something that can be eaten hot, with a spoon. Last night, while I was going through 1080 Recipes, I came across Lentejas Guisadas (Lentil Stew - recipe 227). A quick check of my pantry confirmed that I had all the necessary ingredients. I also added half a chopped potato and some diced ham to the stew, and we really loved it. I served it with brown basmati rice. My husband went as far as saying that it was the best lentil soup I made to date. Even my daughter ate a bowlful, after lacing it with only minimal amount of Parmesan cheese.



While browsing through the book, I also came across Ensaladilla Rusa (Russian Salad - recipe 21). Now this particular salad is something I grew up on. We call it Ruska salata (Croatian), and it is a staple salad for any larger celebration, especially New Year. There are many small variations to it. My mom used to make it with boiled ham, peas, carrots, cucumbers and potatos. Sometime she would also add boiled parsnip, which I would try to pick out of it. If you look at the picture aove, you can guess that it was a fairly futile effort. The French salad has all the same ingredients minus the ham, so in my book it was less liked. The salad calls for a significant amount of mayo, so I've never made it for my family until today. Instead of using pure mayo, I mixed half quantity plain fat-free yogurt and half quantity Ojai Lemonaise Light mayo (which is the most amazing mayo I've ever tried). The salad was light yet very creamy. I served it with some whole wheat flat bread.