Holiday Break

It has come to my realization that with the holidays, my trip to London, and my upcoming trips to Copenhagen, Amsterdam, and northern Jutland (north part of Denmark) I really just don’t have time to focus on the blog right now.  So I am taking December off, and will resume posting after the new year.  I hope everyone has a happy holiday season =]

London

Sorry about the lack of posts; I was in London and forgot to leave a post saying I’d be gone for a long weekend =/

Had fun though, so that’s good.  I’ll write up a proper post tomorrow when I have more time.  Chicken noodle soup or homemade enchiladas.  Both are recipes I’ve been meaning to type up and keep forgetting about.  =]

-Ariel

Simple Curry Soup

This one was requested by my host parents last night and paired fabulously tonight with the leftover salad from last night. Anyway before making the soup I googled half a dozen recipes and most of them seemed a bit ridiculous, so I combined the two that looked the best and simplified the process a bit to create a rich, healthy, flavorful soup that will come together in about half an hours time and only uses one pot (why do so many recipes out there require you make such a mess?  So unnecessary…)

Simple Curry Soup

Ingredients:

• 4dl/2cups chicken or vegetable broth/water and bouillon cube
• 1 standard size (14ish oz) can of coconut milk
• 1 heaping tbsp of Thai curry paste (I prefer red.  Use your favorite.  Also, use more for a hotter dish)
• 1 tbsp fish sauce, soy sauce, and/or sugar (use one, use two, use all.  It’s all good.)
• A handful of fresh coriander leaves/cilantro
• Half a lime (for juice)
• 1 tbsp fresh grated ginger
• Vegetables (I used 2 garlic cloves, 1 zucchini, 2 carrots, 1 red onion, and 1 large red pepper.)
• Feel free to add meat.  I didn’t but any kind, particularly fish or chicken (imo) would be fine.
• A couple tbsps olive oil

Cook:

1. Chop all veggies.
2. In a large pot pour enough olive oil in to sautee all the veggies and the curry paste.  If using meat, cook that too.
3. Add broth, coconut milk, fish sauce, soy sauce, sugar, ginger, and lime juice.  Stir until flavors blend (10 minutes or so.)
4. Stir in coriander right before serving.

Thats it.  Super easy, filling, and so warm on a freezing cold night like tonight is.  MMm.

-Ariel

Cranberry-Dijon Salad Dressing

Alright, so I’ll be honest with you- I didn’t measure anything while I was making this today.  I remembered having an amazing salad once with this dressing on it so I decided to see if I could recreate something like it.  We haven’t had dinner yet (it’s only barely 1pm) but I was bored enough to start the dressing now.  Plus, if I screwed up, I wanted time to find other things to make for dinner.  Luckily it tastes really good.  I’m excited.  I’m going to try to write the recipe below, but please keep in mind that all measurements are approximations and its way more important to do things to taste.  =]

Cranberry-Dijon Salad Dressing

Ingredients:

• Fresh cranberries (a few handfuls, maybe 2 cups/4dl?)
• 1 tbsp dijon mustard (this I did measure!)
• White wine vinegar (probably about 1dl/0.5cup)
• White wine (probably about 2dl/1 cup)
• Olive oil (a couple tbsps)
• Water (to bring to desired consistency.  Though I left mine pretty thick, I like the creamy texture.)

Cook:

1. Put a couple tbsps olive oil in a small sauce pan and put on high heat.
2. Add cranberries and put the lid on.  The cranberries will sorta ‘pop’ like popcorn, so you don’t want that oil splashing onto you.  When the popping stops lower heat and mash with a potato masher.
3. At medium heat add wine, vinegar, and mustard.  Stir in more olive oil if desired.  Blend together.  Add water if desired.

This can be refrigerated for about a week.  I’m making a chopped salad for it tonight with grilled chicken, turkey bacon, almonds, leeks, apples, a red onion, mushrooms, cranberries and parmesan cheese.  Should be good =]

-Ariel

Linkage

I know I usually only post feminist-related links, but today isn’t Friday and I feel like posting some a little more blog-related.  So here are some other things I’ve been reading recently:

Cook:

• Paula Deens cheese-stuffed mushrooms. Its recipes like these that  make me wish half my host family weren’t on a diet.
• The great debate: which direction is best to cut a sandwich? Ah, NPR.  You make me smile.
• Talk about deliciously elaborate Christmas dishes. The Christmas rocky road at the bottom looks particularly delicious.

Hook:

• The patterns at Monster Crochet make me feel lazy and/or untalented/uncreative.
• Look at how cute the squirrel is! And other things.
• Ignoring the poinsettia on last weeks post (I don’t like poinsettias,) this blog is also pretty cool.

Book:

• From Sweet: “Three Lyric Essays“
• From Sunsets and Silencers: “The Trouble with Dream Interpretation” and “Words for This”
• From Sugar House Review: “Our Last Christmas Eve,” “What Any Stone Can Tell You,” “Side Effects May Include,” “Handling Your Audio Media,” “Sinflower,” and “But in Chinese Yellow Is Erotic”