Red Thai Curry Sauce...Soup

I'm one of those people who orders the same things at restaurants I frequent. It's not like I don't like new things but when I go to a place with a huge menu or a bunch of things I can't picture, the default setting kicks in. For example, I'm a huge fan of pad Thai. Granted, it varies from place to place but that is my tried and true go-to for Thai restaurants. Even though I've tried my friends' dishes and they're amazing (and usually in a pineapple), my stomach has been conditioned to get pad Thai.

Pretty simple ingredients 

Well it turns out that I rather like Thai food or at least making some of it. Nothing super fancy, just some spicy Thai eggplant, spicy noodles (to be perfected), and now Thai curry sauce--or in my case soup. 

I came across this recipe during the summer as I longed for cooler days with fall leaves and a cozy blanket. To me, the picture was a bowl of soup, perfect for the fall/winter season. So I gathered my ingredients and set about making this Thai dish. I decided to pass on having quinoa as a side but this would be great over any grain. 

Sneak peak at the final product

As I read through the recipe, I realized that this sounded more like a sauce for chicken and rice but nevertheless, I was adamant in my soup endeavor. 

This literally took 15 minutes to make. Mushrooms and peppers are sautéed in olive oil while the coconut milk is brought to a boil. My coconut milk was making all kinds of freaky bubbling noises but it worked out.

This is called multi-tasking

Fish sauce, curry paste and brown sugar are added to the boiling coconut milk, followed by the vegetables. This soup/sauce can be completed here by seasoning with some basil and any additional spices you desire. The recipe calls for lemon grass but ironically, I skipped this (I couldn't find any, okay?). I decided to add some diced chicken for some added protein (plus it was already cooked and sitting in my fridge). I let this mixture simmer with some basil leaves before serving.

Those bubbles were crazy noisy

When I purchased the ingredients, I bought two peppers instead of the required one because the peppers fit together like puzzle pieces. This is probably from being crushed together in a truck but I couldn't pass up poetic peppers. I also bought the basil in a plastic container but tried to smell it anyways. No luck. When I stand in the produce section I try to be all fancy and know what the heck I'm looking for in fresh vegetables besides a lack of mold. Farmers markets are much more satisfying for smelling fresh produce and hand picking basil. In my dizzy daydreams, I'll have an herb box one day. But them I remember my brown thumb so maybe there are just more farmers markets in my future.

We were meant to be together 

The soup came out very well and if it were to be used as a sauce, I would reduce the amount of coconut milk or only use the creamiest part, much like with the fish curry where we initially separate the milk. I also found my curry paste to be a bit bland so added some cayenne pepper for some added kick.

Snuggle up with this soup and a blanket, winter is coming.

The final product

Pecan Pumpkin Scones

This is Halloween, this is Halloween, everybody scream!! I didn't think I was such a Halloween person until I had all these opportunities to dress up and decorations to hang! Now my home is a spooky insane asylum (the sign on the door says so) and so far I have had 3 costumes. I guess that makes up for the years in college when I was lame and did nothing for Halloween.

Look at the packed sugar, so packed

Last year, I made some Halloween themed treats. This year, I will still be making spooky treats but not until the weekend. So to celebrate Halloween the adult way, I made pecan pumpkin scones. Scones are serious business and therefore appropriate for the office. 

I'm so bad at crumbly the butter but I guess it worked out 

Now you might be thinking to yourself "Seriously, you just made pecan pumpkin bread. How different could this be?"  Very. Very different. For one, totally different consistency. For another, this has icing on it and it's browned butter icing. Fancy. Pants. And I'm rocking this whole pecan't convert thing.

Crushed pecans

Sometimes I find scones to be very dry and crumbly. For some reason I have always like the idea of them but in reality, usually they require a nice latte to dip them in for some moisture. These stayed nice and soft and are almost like puffy cookies. Some people even mistook them for cookies and who am I to correct them? Whatever makes you happy. I think one day I will try to make them healthy like the other scones I've made (from Health magazine so it's truly healthy).

The glaze for these scones may become one of my go-to icings. Normally when I glaze scones, the glaze comes out too thin and just runs off but this brown butter icing was actually thick enough but still wasn't like frosting. A lovely balance for scones. 

Scones make my utensils happy--or the utensils make me happy

When you're a kid, you know which houses give out the best treats. Who has the king size candy bars, who gives out healthy stuff (avoid those houses) and even who gives out sodas (true story). Everyone knows that my desk has the treats. Granted I sit near the kitchen and it's prime strolling real estate but still, gone like hot cakes! Or like delicious scones. 

The only pretty scones, the rest had glaze smeared everywhere

Apple Muffins

Mondays are rough, muffins make them better. As previously mentioned, I have a boat load of apples to cool with--and by boatload I mean a bushel. I've found that it's much easier to pass off individually wrapped baked goods onto people than ask that they slice a piece and grab a fork. It's all in the packaging. And thus, with the abundance of apples and psychological experiment conducted, muffin Mondays have returned! At least for this week.

Two cups of apples, at your service 

I hadn't actually made apple muffins before and my usual suspects were full of other muffin varieties. So I took to the interwebs and came across this recipe from King Arthur's flour. Of course this means the recipe called for King Arthur's flour but I'm not picky. However, it did call for both wheat and white all-purpose flours and being the overly stocked pantry that it is, I had a bag of wheat flour chillin and gathering dust.

Ready to mix in the flour!

If I were a true baker and not a faker baker, I would have added some oats and maybe some cranberries to make a cran-apple muffin. But alas, I'm a faker baker and don't know what adding oats would do to the muffin chemistry. Would it be awkward? Would oats be left out? Would it just taste too healthy? These mysteries will remain unsolved for the time being.

Quite the arm workout, mixing everything together

I did however elect not to sprinkle brown sugar on top of the muffins. Partially because I didn't think it was necessary and partially out of laziness. This decision resulted in worrying for 20 minutes that they wouldn't be sweet enough, that I had somehow disrupted the space-time continuum of baking! Again, this did not happen (not that I know of) and the muffins turned out well.

Yield: 12 muffins--false

They were squishy and apply and not too dry. Coffee cake muffins are delicious but sometimes are too crumbly. Not so with these apple puppies. Personally I believe that the Greek yogurt helped to keep them moist (sorry, I know people hate that word) and I hear that's a secret to good sweet breads. One day I will learn to chop things properly but until then, to ensure my fingers remain intact, I will continue to make chunky apple breakfast foods. For added festivity, I used Halloween cupcake wrappers-- which I bought last year on sale after Halloween. Paper doesn't go bad!

Happy Halloween! 

It's cool, muffin Mondays made my day and hopefully a few others as well.

Muffin Monday!

Apple Sharlotka

Last weekend I was finally able to go apple picking! I don't know why I get so excited about apple picking, it wasn't something I did as a kid or have nostalgia for. In fact, the one time I remember going apple picking as a kid was with my brother's Boy Scouts troop and I got stung by a wasp--in my ear. You would think that would deter me from ever apple picking again.

But now that I'm older, and still afraid of wasps, I realize that it's really just a good fall activity to enjoy with friends (yes, very cheesy sentiment). This year apple picking became even more grown up with the addition of wine tasting. Super classy wine tasting apple picking combination. At this particular location, although they were out of cider donuts (the horror!), there were great views of the fall foliage and an abundance of apple varieties. So we purchased our bushel (not to be confused with a peck or a hug around the neck) bags and ventured out to fill the bag with different apples.

After illegally climbing some trees and jumping for the best apples, we left with all kinds of fruits and wines. Lucky for me, last weekend was a three-day weekend. Hallelujah no Monday!! It's like it doesn't exist! Bring on the Netflix and baking. Except when I went to make something of the apple variety I discovered that a) I did not want to make apple crisp again but wanted something new and b) I was feeling very lazy about my baking. Obviously I had to make something but what was simple and would take like 5 minutes?

I scoured the usual sites and consulted my cookbooks and finally came across something so simple, I wondered if it could possibly be real. Apple Sharlotka (fancy in name, simple in making), compliments of Smitten Kitchen, is literally chopped up apples with flour, sugar, eggs and spices. So simple!

After chopping up the apples and dumping them into a spring form pan, you simply mix the remaining ingredients together to form a thick goo that you pour over the apples. Make sure you spread the goo around so the apples are coated. I also added some cinnamon and nutmeg to the apples and tossed them prior to pouring the goo, just for some added zest. In retrospect, I would have added pumpkin pie spice from Joy the Baker.

After less than half an hour, fall was in the house! This was a little difficult to get out of the pan, despite the spring form part and non-stick part. It was kind of like an apple sponge cake and was nice and sticky.

Here's the thing about apple picking though: you always gets more apples than you expect and recipes always require fewer than you would think. So 6-7 apples later and I still have 9-10 to go. More apple treats to come!

Pecan Pumpkin Bread

As some of you may know, as recently as last year, I was a pecan't convert. I became a fan of pecans which opened up a whole world of crunchy, delicious baking opportunities. This includes pecan pumpkin bread, and as an added twist, it's vegan friendly! I'm not sure that vegan should be alarming to anyone, nothing like sugar free (jokes, sugar free things taste pretty good usually) and yet I decided to get people's opinions before sharing that it was vegan.

Being a vegan recipe was pretty convenient as I didn't have much butter left in my fridge. It's also excellent that one batch makes two loaves: one for work and one for my own consumption.  Using only one small can of pumpkin and festive fall spices makes this bread taste like the spirit of fall. Pecan pieces, or in this case whole pecans out of laziness, add a nice crunch. During the baking process, they get slightly toasted. Honestly I hardly noticed the difference in texture that the pecans provided. Typically my issue with having nuts in breads is the texture conflict between the crunch and softness of the bread. Not so in this case.

Breads make an excellent gift: hostess or friend or visiting guest or colleague. It takes thought and time and when sent to my grandma, baked with love. Sorry folks, half of you are getting baked goods for Christmas instead of 'real' gifts. But I promise they'll be good and thoughtful.

And check it out, we got fancy with decorating the bread with pecans too! Of course I made a few adjustments. I used dark brown sugar which has more molasses than light brown sugar. I also had juuuust enough flour for this bad boy. 

Lastly, in true fall fashion, I went apple picking (and wine tasting, super classy) today! The fall foliage is coming in quite nicely and it was a beautiful day that will lead to tart and crisp treats. Stay tuned!

Recipe from Joy the Baker:

-3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

-2 cups packed light brown sugar

-2 teaspoons baking soda

-1 teaspoon baking powder 

-1 teaspoon salt

-1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg (or just nutmeg)

-1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

-1 teaspoon ground allspice

-1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

-1 (15-ounce) can pumpkin puree

-1 cup vegetable or canola oil

-1/3 cup pure maple syrup

-1/3 cup water

-1 cup chopped pecans with 8 whole ones for decoration

1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour two 8x4x3-inch loaf pans.

2. In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients (through ground cloves)

3. In a separate medium bowl, mix together the wet ingrdients (through water)

4. Add the wet and dry ingredients together. Make sure to incorporate all the ingredients and then fold in the pecans.

5. Divide the batter between the two pans. Decorate with whole pecans.

6. Bake for 1 hour or until a toothpick placed in the center comes out clean.

7. Once baked, let rest in pan for 20 minutes before inverting on cooling rack.

Serve warm with ice cream or nutella or enjoy plain!