Chiang Mai

With the beaches that Thailand has in the south, it's probably a little hard for tourists to find the motivation to make it up north.  And let's not lie--Thailand's transportation system is brutal.  I'd would have to claim that little hindrance as the least favorite part of my trip--it's just not quick and simple to get around there.  How, I ask in all seriousness, can a few hundred kilimeters from Bangkok to Phrae actually take 11 hours by train?  This spoiled little American girl said "enough of that" and booked a flight from Chiang Mai to Bangkok for my flight out.  Sometimes you have just have to pay for a little sanity.

But in the end it's worth it--I love Chiang Mai.  About a zillion times more than Bangkok really.  It's colorful, full of flowers and beautful blvds, and it's even a degree or two cooler than Bangkok.  When the outside temperature is hot enough to actually boil your allergy eye drops so they burn your eyes when you put them in, every degree counts.

Enough of the drama and on to Chiang Mai...the kiddos are awfully cute....

The wats are awfully gold....

and the tourists are awfully sweaty (but happy)...

The Chiang Mai Night Market is a shopper's dream with an energy that makes you want to hang out there even if you don't have any shopping to do.   Or if you are one of those crazies who doesn't think that  shopping is the best cardio you can get a massage for the crazy price of $5 an hour.  Yay for Chiang Mai.

Blossom Home

When I worked in nonprofit, I had the opportunity to work with so many churches and organizations filled with people who have such amazing hearts for others.  With so many worthy causes out there, it's often very hard to decide where to stake your support.  One conversation with Karla who heads up LightBridge International, and the choice was a bit easier. 

LightBridge International is an amazing organization caring for orphans and refugees in Southeast Asia.   While orphans and Thailand immediately grabbed my heart, it's the people I've encountered at LightBridge that made it different.  It's hard not to notice how much they genuinely care for the children in the program.  It was a done deal after that and I've been sponsoring two little gents for the past few years. One of the great disappointments of my trip to Thailand last was that I never coordinated a trip to the orphanage itself.  How bad is that?  This trip to Thailand I made it a priority--my only request to my family was that I visit the kids.  The staff at Lightbridge rocked at helping get it coordinated and last week, I finally met these little ones.  It was one of the absolute top highlights of the trip.

At first they were a little shy and hesitant of the woman who brought a large rented van with her entire family to the orphanage....

But when your little spirits are so sweet, it doesn't take long to warm up to strangers

The one photo op that I completely missed?  Me with my sponsor boys.  Seriously, you would think I would remember something as important as that.  But I did capture them individually and with each other... 

The visit was bittersweet in that it was entirely way too short.  I would never have imagined how much time I would actually want to spend with them.  I wished as we left that I'd scheduled and planned days with them so I could just talk to them and hear from them about their everyday lives and dreams.  That obviously warrants a trip back sometime in the future.

Thai Basil

By the time you read this I will be fleeing the country on my vaca. No crazy singing to my cat this year before I leave. Instead, in honor of my trip, I leave a little tribute to one of my favorite Thai cooking ingredients...Thai basil.

Similar in appearance to the "other basil," with a bit of purple twist, but different as day and night when it comes to flavor.  I can't articulate it except to say I love it.  Others have described it as having similarities to anise and did not like it.  I don't think it tastes like licorice, but I also don't happen to hate anise. It's the perfect ingredient for making making an otherwise dull stirfry, kind of fancy.

I started with a bit of galangal stir-fried in spoonful of coconut oil.  Galangal is another ingredient with a similarity to a more recognized one (ginger), but like Thai basil, it has it's own little flavor twist.

Toss some chicken in with the galangal and cook through.  When almost completely cooked, add 1/2 cup sliced basil leaves and 1 clove of minced garlic.  Remove from pan when completely cooked through.

Add a couple of cups of sliced veggies (I used asparagus and bok choy), some red bird chilies if you are feeling fiesty, and cook until the veggies are tender crisp.  Add the chicken back in and add a few dashes of soy sauc and a few dashes of Thai fish sauce. Easy peasy and full of Thai basil goodness.

Easter

How's that for intriguing and well thought out title?  But sometimes, it just is what it is.  And why try to be cute and clever, when there is other cuteness to gaze upon? 

Peanut says "Peace out peeps" 

Hope your Easters were fabulous.

Cookbook # 64 The Olive and the Caper

Happy Easter!!!

Oh Greece. I keep saying this will be my next trip and something else always comes along. How can you pass on a country where “your nose takes in the aroma of aged olive groves and the perfume of caper blossoms?” That’s just seduction at its finest.  

Greece, where something as simple as an egg cooked in extreme olive oil entices the senses….

This cookbook is as much an adventure for the eyes as it is for the foodie. While the photos are few and far between, the ones that are present are enough to make this girl kick herself for not having planned that trip to Greece yet. Sad.

The recipes are not so bad either…eggplant a bazillion different ways, cardamom in everything—including your veggies, beet tzatziki, and of course a bit of baklava. It’s definitely good stuff if you skip over the few recipes that involve the words “1 lb of lamb innards” or marinated lamb’s livers. That is of course unless you are an innards kind of person.

My recipe of choice this year was one that I’d actually planned last year but something about my vacation prevented it. This year though, I was all over the Greek Easter Bread recipe. It’s a sweeter, enriched bread recipe and the addition of cardamom makes the entire kitchen smell quite exotic. If you haven’t tried cardamom, it’s tough to explain. Some say it’s like a cinnamon clove spice, but truthfully, I think it smells exactly like a henna tattoo—but tastier.

The dough is braided up Challah style right before you add the red hard boiled eggs. Or pink in my case. Having an aversion to red dye #45, I attempted coloring these eggs with the help of a good friend.

I can’t explain my love affair with beets—they are just so absolutely perfect. Oui?

And the bright red water from the steamer always made me wonder what I could dye with it. The answer is eggs apparently. I kind of like the pink better than the bright red of the food coloring.

And really, grownups shouldn't have all the easter fun.  Take a bit (2 cups) of whole grain oatmeal , milk and organic coconut and ruin it all with half a stick of butter, 3/4 cup of sugar and 1/2 a cup of cocoa.  Cook together on stove and then form into bird's nests and let cool. Then fill the nests with malted milk "eggs" and Peeps to look over the eggs in the nests.  Don't pretend you didn't eat peeps.  As my Dad says, "Peeps are the candy you left in your easter basket until the rest was gone.  Then you ate the Peeps, because, well, they were still candy." 

 

 

Greek Easter Bread

adapted from The Olive and the Caper

6 cups of flour

1.5 tablespoons of active dry yeast
1/2 cup of melted butter
1/2 cup of sugar
3 eggs
1/2 tablespoon of mahlab (or ground cardamom)
 1/2 cup of water
2-3 pieces of mastic, crushed with 1/4 teaspoon of sugar (or grated peel of 1 orange)
3/4 cup of lukewarm milk
3/4 teaspoon of sea salt
egg wash - 1 egg lightly beaten with 1 tablespoon of water
blanched sliced almonds (optional)

hard boiled dyed red eggs (optional)

Preparation:

Dissolve the yeast in lukewarm milk. Add a few spoonfuls of flour to make a paste. Cover and set aside in a warm place to rise.

In a bowl, combine 2.5 cups of the flour and salt, and add melted butter. Boil mahlab (mahlepi) in 1 cup of water, strain, and add the liquid to the flour.

Add the eggs, mastic, sugar, and the risen yeast mixture. On a floured surface or in a mixer, knead the mixture well, adding in remaining flour until it becomes a malleable dough, about 15-20 minutes (or 10 minutes with a mixer). Cover and allow to rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk (1 1/2 - 2 hours).

Divide dough into thirds and shape into ropes, each about 15 inches long. Braid s 3 ropes to form loaves, tucking ends in underneath the loaves. For the traditional Easter loaf, tuck one or more red eggs (choose eggs that have no cracks) into the braids.

Place the loaves on greased cookie sheets or baking pans, cover, and allow to rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk. Brush with egg wash and sprinkle with almonds.

Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes or until golden brown. (Tap on the bottom; they should sound hollow.) Cool for 5 minutes, then move to racks to cool completely.

The Beauty of Chia

For a while I was on a quest to incorporate chia seeds into everything. Sure you can just grab a spoonful and quickly down it with a glass of water before it expands to 9 times its original size in your mouth. Or you can throw some into your yogurt and fruit in the morning. But those things are too obvious—no adventure in that.

The problem is that the chia baking experiments have had as many disasters as successes. Actually probably more disasters as I tried to figure out the ratio and the textures. The chia brownies I tried were just plain weird…like brownie jello jigglers. Seriously.
Every once and awhile, there’s the recipe that makes you think it was worth all of the effort, like Blueberry Bran Muffins…with chia. Oh happiness indeed. My office often orders meals if we have early meetings or lunch meetings. Whenever they picked up brekkie at My Favorite Muffin, there was always a berry bran muffin in there for me. It didn’t feel all that healthy though. I’m thinking that when the oil drips off the muffin when you take a bite, there’s probably a bit of it in there. This experiment was an attempt to come up with a less greasy version. Should muffins really be considered “greasy?”


Bran. What can I say about bran? Truthfully, I think it has gotten a bad rap. A bowl of oat bran for brekkie is about 10 times better than a bowl of oatmeal. It’s all the scrumptiousness of oatmeal without that oatmeal slime. Healthy and tasty--what could be better?
 
Throw in some other whole grain flours and seeds, and this muffin was definitely grainy. It was perfectly moist and fabulous coming out of the oven. Here’s the secret of chia though. While most baked goods get drier as time goes on, chia in baked goods causes them to get increasingly mushier. You don’t want to leave these laying around for more than a day.
 

Blueberry Bran Muffins

1 cup oat bran
1 cup wheat bran
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 Tbsp baking soda
2 TBSP ground flax seed
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
2 cups buttermilk
¾ cup chia gel (3/4 cup water with 1 tbsp ground chia seeds—stir and let sit for 15 minutes)
2 eggs
1 pint blueberries washed and tossed in flour to coat.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees and line muffin tins with paper liners.
Combine all dry ingredients and whisk.
Combine wet ingredients and whisk.
Add wet ingredients and mix until just combined, taking care to not over mix.
Spoon into liners filling to about ¾ full.
Bake for 15 minutes or until tester inserted into muffin comes out clean.
Remove from oven and cool slightly.


My coworker has even joined the chia bandwagon. She whipped up this genius salad dressing and passed on the recipe. Chia is magic.  Truly.
 

½ cup chia gel (1/2 cup water with 2 tsps of chia seed. Stir and let sit 15 minutes)

Add ¼ cup olive oil, 1 tsp lime juice and 1/3-1/2 cup vinegar (to taste) along with 1-2 minced garlic cloves.
Add 1 tsp mustard and about a teaspoon of dried herbs…I used tarragon and basil.

Then you just go crazy with the immersion blender. Dressing keeps for up to 2 weeks in the refrigerator.