Sweet Potato and Red Curry Soup with Rice and Kale

I might as well just call this blog Whisk, Stir, and Blend: A Blog About Making Food from Isa Does It: Amazingly Easy, Wildly Delicious Vegan Recipes for Every Day of the Week. I'm not ashamed - she's been keeping me well fed for the last few weeks. Here's a hearty soup with some Thai flavours for the cold, winter days: Sweet Potato and Red Curry Soup with Rice and Kale (p. 34).

Get your big soup pot ready. Heat some olive oil, and sauté 1 diced onion for about 5 minutes. Add three minced garlic cloves and 1 Tbsp mined fresh ginger, cook for about 1 minute. Add 3/4 cup basmati rice, 6 cups vegetable broth (I used salt-free chicken stock because the store was sold out of veggie stock! Seriously!) and salt and pepper. Cover and bring to a boil.

While it's coming up to a boil, get the veggies ready: clean and stem one bunch of kale (the recipe calls for purple kale - I don't think I've ever seen it so regular it is) and peel and dice two medium sweet potatoes into 1/2" chunks. Once the stock is boiling, turn it down to a simmer and stir in 2 Tbsp red curry paste (add more if you like it spicy). Throw in the kale and sweet potato. Cover and simmer for about 15 minutes, until the potatoes are cooked.

Add 1 can coconut milk (YUM), 3 Tbsp fresh lime juice and 1 Tbsp agave nectar (use honey if you don't have any). Serve with lots of cilantro and sriracha and enjoy! It's a lovely recipe when you're in the mood for a warming bowl of soup. It doesn't have a protein so you could add one if you want a more complete meal (like tofu, beans, chicken or whatever) but it doesn't really need it - it has a lot of different textures going on. It's creamy and flavourful and not too spicy. A nice way to use red curry paste other than making straight-up curry.

Coconut Soba Noodles with Ginger Veggies

This Coconut Soba Noodles with Ginger Kale recipe from Vegetarian Times (Sept. 2013) pretty much had everything I love. Coconut milk? Check. Cilantro? Check. Soba noodles, lime, jalapeno, ginger? Check. I also liked it because it wasn't a curry - which is pretty much the only thing I make with coconut milk. I am also the proud owner of a (mini) food processor, so I can now make sauces that involve pureeing things! Fabulous.

The sauce base is a green paste made up of pureeing the following ingredients: 1 cup cilantro, 6 chopped garlic cloves, 1 chopped jalapeno, 1 Tbsp freshly grated ginger, 1 tsp turmeric (I used curry powder) and 1 tsp oil. So easy - I have to make more recipes like this! Heat a small pot on the stove. Add the paste and saute for 30 seconds, then whisk in 1 can coconut milk and 1/2 cup water. Simmer 15 minutes without boiling. Then stir in 2 Tbsp lime juice and some salt and pepper.

Heat a large pan on the stove. Add 1/4 cup thinly sliced fresh ginger and 3 smashed garlic cloves, cook 1 minute. I added a handful of baby greens and one sliced red pepper (in place of the kale) with a dash of soy sauce and a dash of water. Cook until ready to eat! Meanwhile, cook 6 oz soba noodles. I found it easiest just to mix everything together in the pan by adding the noodles and sauce in with the kale. Remove the smashed garlic cloves first, though. Next time I'll probably just mince them up and throw them in - I like garlic!

Top with more cilantro and peanuts (or other roasted nuts) and voila - a giant bowl of thai comfort food. As the photo shows it was quite liquidy, since the coconut milk is really only heated through. It was more like a thai noodle soup. It was a little on the spicy side so if you're a wimp, only use 1/2 of the jalapeno. I would also throw in some tofu or something since it didn't have any protein. I still ate a very large amount of it though - slurping contentedly in front of the TV.

Spicy Mint Beef

Guys, this recipe was a rare one for me. Actual meat! I usually avoid cooking it, keeping my meat-eating to a minimum and mostly just at restaurants. But I had just bought some fish sauce for the first time (surprising, given the amount of thai food I eat) and I was flipping through the Food Network mag and this recipe sounded really good - especially with the mint and basil, yum. So I give you Giada de Laurentiis' Spicy Mint Beef. Made with real beef.

Of course, this special meat-buying occasion meant I wanted something good - so I went with Rowe Farms, all organic etc. Might as well splurge on the fancy stuff. First into a large pan was 4 minced garlic cloves and 2-3 minced thai chiles. Now, I wasn't sure what 'thai chiles' were, the shop had tiny red ones and jalapeno-length red ones. I went with the larger ones, they weren't that spicy, so I assume the smaller ones are hotter. Cook those about 1 minute. I cut about one pound of steak intro strips and fried those for two minutes to mostly cook them. This recipe comes together very quickly - but there's a lot of chopping to do first.

Next I threw in 1 chopped green pepper and 3 sliced shallots, and cooked 1 minute. I mixed the sauce in a small bowl: 1/4 cup fish sauce, 1/4 cup soy sauce, 1/4 cup honey (the soy sauce and honey replaced her original ingredients - 2 Tbsp each sweet soy sauce and black soy sauce. It was printed in the magazine so I went with it), and 2 Tbsp Chinese chili-garlic sauce (what I had, though she calls for chili paste in oil). Add sauce to pan, bring to a boil and cook about 2-3 minutes so everything is nice and cooked and saucy. Remove from heat, stir in 1 cup basil leaves and 1 cup mint leaves.

I served it on brown rice. And you know what? It was fabulous! Amazing! Super salty but in a delicious way. I needed ice cream afterwards. It tasted like a restaurant dish. The fish sauce, man, it makes all the difference. I even made it again the next night with tofu and ... still awesome. The mix of salty, spicy, sweet, the umami of the fish sauce (which smells terrible in the bottle, but obviously works!), the mint and basil, it all combined into loveliness. We gobbled it up. Maybe a little less soy sauce/fish sauce next time, though. Not a low-sodium dinner, but the perfect way to show off my thai skillz.

Thai Sloppy Joes

So this dinner pretty much put two of my favourite things together. 1) lentil sloppy joes - I've already written about those here, and 2) thai flavours. I took the recipe from the LCBO Food and Drink magazine, substituting the beef with lentils. Note on the link: I couldn't direct link to the recipe, so you'll have to look up the Summer 2012 issue and scroll through. Don't ask me why.

For the lentils, I boiled 1.5 cups in 4 cups of water for about 20 min. Then in a large pan, I got started on the sauce. I threw in one chopped onion, 3 minced garlic cloves, 1/2 jalapeno, and 1-2 Tbsp Thai green curry paste and let them cook for a few minutes. Then I added in a can of diced tomatoes, 1/4 cup ketchup and 1/4 cup cilantro, and cooked about 5 more minutes. Time to add 1 Tbsp lime juice to finish it up.

I was a bit worried because it wasn't very saucy - I used green lentils so it didn't really have the same mushy consistency as when I use red lentils. It also wasn't very spicy, so I added in red pepper flakes and grated in lots of ginger for more flavour. I was also looking forward to making an Asian slaw to put on top, unlike my other sloppy joes. The dressing consisted of 3 Tbsp oil, 1/2 tsp lime zest, 1 Tbsp each lime juice and sesame oil, 1/2 tsp each soy sauce and sugar, 3 sliced green onions and some cilantro, mixed with coleslaw mix from a bag - normally I avoid these bagged salads but the coleslaw one is cheap and with a tangy Asian-inspired dressing like this one, I went through the bag in a few days.

Finish by putting big spoonfuls of delicious, thai-flavoured lentil mixture onto toasted buns and top with the zippy Asian slaw. I didn't even attempt to eat this as an actual sandwich. It was really tasty but I wanted even more flavour from the lentil mix - more spiciness, more ginger or thai paste. I'll double everything next time and see where that takes me. If anything it's a good way to get lentils and cabbage in your diet!

Grapefruit-Soba Noodle Salad

My sister, knowing my love of peanuty-cilantro flavours, sent me a link to this Grapefruit-Soba Noodle Salad with Spicy Peanut Sauce from Vegetarian Times. A perfect meal for me - one big saucy mess of carbs, protein and veg. One bowl/pot meals are the best! And I should eat more grapefruit.

I mixed the sauce first - all the usual ingredients. Rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, agave nectar, toasted sesame oil. I doubled the peanut butter to 4 Tbsp, because PB is amazing. I didn't have chili oil and I didn't feel like mincing some garlic so I substituted 1 tsp of sriracha. It was quite vinegary, and thinner than I usually make it, but I suppose the point of the recipe was a nice, light lunch.

I fried up half a block of tofu in a pan, then fried/warmed up a couple of green onions and 1 red pepper so they wouldn't be completely raw. Alas, no radishes, though maybe I should start buying them... but I don't remember if I like them! I also boiled the snow peas for two minutes as the recipe suggested but I would shorten that time - even after only two minutes they were quite soft.

I love that the official name for cutting citrus fruit is supreming. It's just cutting off the skin with a paring knife and then cutting each individual segment out, avoiding all the white bitter pith. The citrus cut through the peanut butter and (faint) spice nicely when it was all mixed together. Delicious despite my lack of cilantro and sesame seeds, the suggested garnishes. If I had a longer lunch break at work I would definitely bring cold noodle salads. Easy to make with any veggies you have lying around your fridge!

Thai Yellow Curry with Shrimp

I received an awesome gift from my sister for Christmas: three cans of what she claimed were the best thai curry pastes you can buy in Ottawa (and I presume Toronto as well). I'd only ever used the little glass Thai Kitchen jars so I was excited to try something new. I was inspired by the January issue of Bon Appetit magazine's Thai Chicken Curry recipe and went to work.

In a large pan, I heated up some oil and put about 3/4 of the can in to cook for a minute or two. Then I threw in an onion, two carrots, and one green pepper, and stir-fried those for about 10 minutes.

Then I added one can of coconut milk (not the light stuff either - the full fat kind) and 1 cup of water, and let it simmer and mix for about 7-8 minutes. Then I threw in some broccoli and continued cooking for about 6-7 minutes. I was craving veggies, obviously! Actually that's one of my pet peeves when ordering thai curries at restaurants - they usually don't include any vegetables, so you're stuck with meat or tofu, sauce, and white rice. Not the most healthy meal... but sooo good.

Lastly I threw in a pound of tiger shrimp I had bought on sale (of course) and cooked for 3-4 minutes - the shrimp was already cooked so it just needed heating. I served the curry over some brown rice, and wished I had some cilantro for garnish. It was really good - the thai paste definitely was better than the stuff I'd been using. It tasted like eating in a restaurant, seriously. We went back for seconds - it didn't last long. Who needs The Friendly Thai when you can make your own?

Cold Rolls

Pssst... here's a secret: Sometimes I don't feel like cooking! Yes, it's true. Sometimes when I get home late from work, mostly on the days when Mike's working late, I make a very simple dinner for myself: cold rolls, aka fresh rolls. While I often think of them just as vehicles to eat large amounts of peanut butter and sriracha hot sauce, they are healthy (well, as long as sodium's okay!), easy, versatile and fast. I eat them pretty much every week.

For protein I usually go for tofu, and if I'm smart the night before, I'll cut some up and place them in a 'marinade' of lemon juice and pepper. It makes the tofu a little tangy, and really good. Alternately I use those little flavoured tuna cans (I buy them on sale, and man are they ever convenient) in thai chili flavour, or lemon pepper, or peanut satay. Whoever thought of those is a marketing genius. I've also used cold chicken on the rare occasion we buy rotisserie chickens.

Next up are the veggies: usually chopped bell peppers, and matchstick carrots and cucumbers. Bean sprouts if I'm feeling fancy (and can finish a whole bag in two days before they turn slimy). Cilantro is delicious but I rarely buy it just for rolls. And I always add dabs of (natural) peanut butter. Then it's time to roll! The rice paper package says to soak towels and place them between the papers (blah blah blah) but really you can just run the paper under the tap and let it sit for a minute while you assemble the roll. They'll become sticky and malleable.

Assemble, cut into halves, eat while dipping into hot sauce. Delish! While it's not the healthiest dinner (the rice papers are full of salt, as is my beloved sriracha) I figure the large amount of raw veggies balances everything out.

This is my go-to dinner when Mike works nights, which means I also eat it while watching my guilty pleasure TV shows. I happily chomp down while sitting at my laptop with Gossip Girl, Glee and Grey's Anatomy. Happy times.

Pumpkin-Peanut Curry Pasta

When the weather gets colder and the cans of pumpkin show up on store shelves, this is my go-to recipe. It's a slightly random mix of delicious ingredients that makes a hearty pasta dinner. I have been making it for a couple years, so I almost laughed out loud when I had to google the recipe for this post. The picture for Rachael Ray's Pumpkin-Peanut Curry Noodles with Five-Spice Seared Scallops and Shrimp recipe looked nothing like mine! I had forgotten the original featured scallops and shrimp. Oh well. And before you discount the recipe because it's from Rachael Ray, it's a very un-Rachael Ray recipe. It's not Italian or sandwich-based, and the finishing touch isn't a pound of cheese grated on top. Trust me on this one.

First in the pan is lots of garlic and ginger (grated from frozen), followed by bell peppers (I had both red and green for colour) and red pepper flakes. I usually throw in carrots as well. Then I push the vegetables to one side and start on the sauce: a couple of large spoonfuls of (natural) peanut butter melted, then whisked with tamari/soy sauce, pumpkin puree and curry paste. Seems Rachael Ray uses Patak's Indian curry paste - I've been using thai red curry paste this whole time. I'm sure it's good with both! And when she says it will be thick, it is:

Luckily by this time there should be a pot of whole wheat pasta boiling away on your stovetop, so it's easy to ladle in some starchy pasta water to thin it out. Hmmm, seems she also strangely uses spaghetti. I've always used penne or rotini - much better for thick, chunky pasta sauces.

The resulting meal is really good - peanut and curry are fabulous together and the pumpkin just pulls everything together in a nice thick sauce. Usually when I'm cooking with thai curry paste it's for soup, or actual thai curry, so this pasta dish is something a little different. And other than buying the can of pumpkin, I usually have everything else in the house. Try it with the seafood toppers if you want, but I don't think there's a need.

Chickpea and Greens Curry Soup

It was a Monday, my day off, and I wanted to make an easy dinner for the hubs and I before going to see a movie (Pitch Perfect). I had picked up a can of coconut milk and wanted to make a soup with it, so I dug out this Chickpea and Greens Curry Soup recipe from Vegetarian Times, made a few alterations and voila, an easy dinner.

As good as all the spices looked that were listed in the recipe, I went the lazy route and just used a couple tablespoons of thai green curry paste. Those little jars are amazing, last forever, and are totally worth the money. Threw in some onion and spinach - I had been looking for kale but our Sobey's is not always very good at having it in stock, and besides a large bag of spinach is cheaper. I threw in the rest of the ingredients - a can of lite coconut milk, 3 cups chicken stock, 1 cup water, a can of chickpeas and one chopped tomato (for acidity, I assume). I also added some extra vegetables - bell peppers and carrots.

While it was very flavourful from the curry paste, it needed a bit more heat, so I also added in some harissa for extra spice. To make it a more complete meal, I cooked some rice noodles to add in. I have tried to add rice noodles to soup, and learned the hard way that they tend to soak up all the broth, so I boiled them separately, placed them in the bowl and spooned the soup over them. Finished with some cilantro, skipping the yogurt due to not having any. Super easy and quick - just be warned, it does splatter a little while you're slurping up those noodles!