Essentials of Thai

Always looking to expand my skill set - especially in the kitchen - I embarked on a lesson in Thai cooking with some friends last week.

With a dry (yet funny) and intense instructor, we were given a brief history of Thai cuisine and culture, the run-down on what we'll be making (and some tips for the recipes) and were sent to work.

Broken into groups of six, each tackled about four different dishes with occasional demonstrations from the instructor (such as how to de-gill a fish, how to cut a mango, how to work with Lemongrass, etc). I picked up a few good pointers and the class was especially helpful with de-mystifying this exotic style of food. While there are a bunch of special ingredients needed, like Palm Sugar, etc. etc., the preperation is quite simple and user friendly. There is a lot of prep work (which is my favorite) and we spent a good amount of time preparing our mise en place.

We made a plethora of  dishes including:

Steamed Fish with a Tamarind Sauce

 

Summer Rolls

Green Thai Curry with Chicken

Chicken Satay (with peanut sauce)

Green Papaya Salad

Pad Thai

Hot-and-Sour Prawn Soup

We also made Sticky Rice with Mango and Tapioca Pudding with Coconut (but I didn't snap pics of those).

By 10 p.m. we were ready to eat, and boy were we hungry after handling the food and smelling the amazing aromas. We all sat down for a "family meal" and enjoyed all of our creations!

Donut Peaches

Back from the blogging hiatus, as I’m re-adjusting to civilization, after an amazing week in Jamaica. There will be posts to come with pictures and stories, but for now, please enjoy the beauty of the donut (or Saturn) peach.

I Grabbed just a few of these babies from the New Amsterdam Market on Sunday, and after enjoying them last night, I wish I had more. Sweet, but not tart; ripe, but not mealy; they were a perfect evening snack. While I don’t need a Top 10 to want to eat them, I did find some interesting facts to share, thanks to Mother Earth News.

1. They taste better than other peaches. They're sweeter, with almond overtones.
2. They are lower in acid than other peaches.
3. The pit doesn't cling to the flesh, so it's easy to pop out with your thumb.
4. The fruit's thin, red skin has little or no fuzz, so it doesn't have to be peeled.
5. Their small size lends itself to being eaten out of hand.
6. The frost-hardy, highly pest- and disease-resistant trees are easy to grow in most areas.
7. You can count on Saturn peach trees to produce an abundant harvest up to twice as many peaches as other varieties.
8. The trees bloom earlier in the spring than other varieties, and put on an absolutely spectacular show of pink blossoms.
9. Most of the nursery stock is now grafted to dwarf roots, making easy work of pruning and harvesting.
10. By planting a rarer variety of peach, you are helping to preserve biodiversity and maintain diverse seed stocks for generations to come.

I’m heading to pick up CSA tonight and if they’re part of the harvest, I will be oh-so-happy!