Susan in FL

Sigh. If I don't post, I get PMs asking me to. If I do, I get PMs or, in this case, posts like this. Ta ever so, folks. It's been a slice. edit: Oh, I just mean I'll not post in this thread as this has gone on since the thread began. All of which I have tried to answer, but I just don't have the time oe inclination. I'll still irritate you elsewhere, in other threads. See you there. ← Many of us are huge fans of yours and find your dinner posts an immense source of inspiration. I hope someday to put flavors together like you do, Jinmyo. I really hope that you will reconsider. For those of you unaware, Jinmyo performs her kitchen magic at what I think she has referred to as a private club. ← Posts like Flapjackwilly's irritate me because I resent the implication that Jinmyo or anyone else would post something they did not cook or eat. So I don't blame you for deciding not to post here anymore Jinmyo, but I too hope that you will reconsider. I echo the sentiments expressed by your other fans about your kitchen magic!

I don't like the photo, but I managed to get it to load on Russ's computer. This was last night's dinner of chicken thighs with a Greek style lentil salad. I'm ready to throw my computer and my camera out the window and buy new, but my check book is not ready. Tonight's dinner was London Broil with Cherry-Balsamic Sauce, Potato and Parmesan Cake, and kale with EVOO and garlic. About the roast beef and broccoli salad I described upthread, I forgot to mention that the dressing was creamy horseradish, and delicious. Here's the recipe.

Welcome to the bandwagon! It is awesome food, isn't it! Nice post.

Incredibly good food in these posts! Daniel, nice Thai... Did you make up your peanut sauce or follow a recipe? Satay is on my "list." I've had camera trouble with loading my photos, but I got this shot of a beef and broccoli salad using some of our left-over roast.

Oh my! I had seen this thread listed, but never looked at it before. I decided to take a look this morning because it's our first cold day. They are predicting a week of winter weather and it's supposed to get back to 70 next Monday. So anyway, it was 44 degrees when I got up, so I thought I can join in with you all, and get some dinner ideas for the week, and then I read the first post... How easily I do forget that it is so cold in other parts of the world! Nevertheless, thanks for the good cold weather food ideas. I'll be following the topic this week.

This was pretty good. I think it turned out OK for the first try, with supermarket coconut milk. I wasn't sure how creamy the consistency should be, since I reduced the recipe. It sat for quite a while and absorbed a lot of the liquid. (Millenium Barleywine was a good match!)

Tonight we continued with our Thai Cooking at Home journey, along with football of course.

I'm learning a lot about coconut milk, coconut cream, the separation, etc. I finally caught on to the fact that the liquid in a fresh coconut is not the milk or cream, but rather that comes from a pressing of the meat. Thanks for the continuing links, too. One of our recipes for tonight came from Kasma Loha-unchit's site. We made Basil Shrimp by using her recipe for Spicy Basil Chicken, since there was a boatload sale of fresh local shrimp yesterday. It was delicious. We also had a larb-like dish, Lao Style Beef Salad, recipe from ImportFood.com. It was good, but not outstanding. Russ said it just tasted like hamburger with lime juice, but with the condiments and some extra fish sauce and some of the all-purpose table sauce I made a week ago, it was fine. I cooked a lot of sticky rice and as before, I like that waaay too much. I am still amazed that I like something so much which has no salt or anything added to it. I think I was meant to be born Asian. Tonight we served the sticky rice from a soup tureen, so it didn't dry out as quickly. Still to come is the coconut sticky rice with mangoes for dessert. I decided to make due with the supermarket brand of canned coconut milk, since I haven't yet sought out the recommended brands. I figured there is something to be said for our first experience to be the inferior quality brands... that way we will really appreciate it when we have good stuff. Another thing that I have learned from these Thai cooking adventures is that fish sauce is good. I had only had horrible stinky stuff before, until we bought a bottle from one of the local Thai markets. We ran out of it tonight. I'll report back on dessert.

Clearly I have issues here. I am struggling with this. And what's worse, I have to make a decision about the canned-cream-of-soup before I can find my way to a meeting. I'll sleep on it. But what if I can't sleep because of the conflictual emotions I'm feeling? ...oh my, it looks like canned cream of mushroom soup leads to Ambien dependency. Patti, thanks for the potato salad tip. That's the sort of thing I wondered about.

It's time! I am reviving this thread because my mother-in-law is now in Florida for her annual visit, and she and my sister-in-law are coming next weekend for the long-awaited shrimp etouffee dinner. Any last minute suggestions for me? I'll take all the help I can get; I want to keep up the reputation with my husband's family as a good cook. I am undecided about the can of soup in the Delta woman's recipe. I've distained cooking with canned cream-of soups for a long time, and I've had success with making roux... but if it tastes best with that in it... ??? I just don't know. I'm undecided about tomatoes, too. I think I'll go with good Jasmine rice, and I'll serve salad and crusty bread. Is there anything else that will round this out as a traditional meal? All advice is welcomed!

Like Elie, I'm catching up and posting some of our dinners from the past week. BTW Elie, those meals looked sooooo good. Our two weeks of clear days in the 80's seem to be over, and we've had a few days of rain. Even though it hasn't been cold, we've taken advantage of the opportunity to cook as though it has been. One night this week we had boneless pork chops; pan roasted apples, shallots, and prunes; and polenta with roasted garlic and mascarpone. Since Russ has been working on losing weight, we have cut back on portions and he's not taking seconds, or once in a while, we try some lower calorie recipes if it's one of those nights he wants quantity. Another night we had this "Creamy Asparagus Soup," which truly suprised us. We're used to putting cream in creamy soups. This had nonfat milk and nonfat sour cream. It tasted good! After the soup, I had a roast beef sandwich, and he had a little bit of roast beef with lettuce, tomato, onion, and horseradish with no bread. Last night I made up a braised rabbit dish, and a pancetta-shiitake mushroom sauce with a bouquet garni and just a touch of Dijon added to the pot, served with fettucine and peas and Rioja. Success! Tonight is Thai. The sticky rice has been soaking since last night.

Ahhh, sorry about that. Yes. Even though that was part of the selection given to us by Lloyd, it has always been one of our favorites. In fact, we have bought it by the case. It is delicious. Wish we could partake with you and Johnnybird!

That soup looks awesome! What a cool idea.

All week I looked forward to settling down to read this thread and all the links more thoroughly! It contains wonderful information. It is especially helpful and interesting to read your first-hand experience, Snowangel-Susan, and the info from your friend Gordon. Kasma Loha-unchit's site is one I will certainlly frequent. I was just reading through the brands she recommends and making a list for when my current supply is diminishing. However, before that shopping I will need to try some canned coconut cream. For our last dinner, we used the liquid from a fresh coconut. Do any of you use fresh? Is canned actually preferable? Fifi, I understand what you mean about making a particular dish several times to get the hang of the balance of flavors. I did that with Larb and we talked about needing to do it with a couple of these new-to-us dishes. Upon your recommendation, I want to try Chicken Coconut Soup soon, at home and/or in restaurants. About the Asian markets in our area, I was surprised. These mentions of coconut are reminding me that coconut has been one of very, very few foods that I have always disliked, so I need to incorporate that into my cooking carefully. I was amazed when I took a little drink from the inside of the coconut, and thought it tasted good! I don't yet like the meat of the coconut, though. We have some very ripe mangoes on hand and I want to make the mango and sticky rice dessert if they haven't gotten over-ripe. I intended to use them this week, but work was too busy this week to do much of anything else. I have not experimented with any Thai noodle dishes, but I certainly want to. Please share any of your favorite recipes. I have eaten Pad Thai out a few times, and learned that apparently there are as many different recipes for that dish as there are cooks. So in that regard, I'm not sure where to begin. I have found two Asian markets in our area and was very pleasantly surprised to find everything we were looking for. Once my husband went in to one looking for Kaffir lime leaves. She was out of them in her store and so she picked a few off of her own plant and gave them to him. That made a very good impression! What is Thai Tea? I'm wondering if I saw it served in a Thai restaurant I recently found, and if so, I wonder if it was typical... it looked like a glass of iced tea with whipped cream on top? Peanutgirl, how did your larbing go? Now I'm on my way to the eGCI course.

I'm thrilled that you're blogging, especially after our recent trip to Europe which included London... before which I wouldn't have had any idea of where Brighton is! Thanks. Cheers!

Same here, thanks Jaymes. I'll give those tips a try next time.

I'm loving all this good information, and hopefully will get back after work this evening to post more specific comments. Looking forward to following everyone's progress in Thai cooking... thanks...

So far it hasn't been possible for me, either. I suck at searches on eG. I just can't seem to enter the right words to find what I want among the many search results, and then I'm too lazy to read through them all to look for what I wanted to find. I love this shrimp! Thank you both for reminding me of it again... it's been a while since I made it last time.

This is a great topic and I hope these good ideas will help you, Dougery, so you can fully enjoy this time! I must say I don't know how you all with young children do it. I don't know how I did it, back in the day! I remember when my now-26 year-old was an infant, thinking that I might never leisurely cook a nice dinner and sit down and relax and enjoy eating it ever again in my life. We made use of that automatic swing thing almost every night at dinner time. It seems he never fell asleep when it was time for us to cook or eat. But somehow we all do it. I wasn't even as good a cook then as I am now, nor the good cooks that all of you are, and it was hard. I am impressed by all of you. And like Anna, I will use some of the ideas for times my life is extra busy for other reasons now.

We have developed quite an interest in cooking Thai at home, and are still very much in the learning stages. After discovering Larb Laab Larp, and larbing in general at eG, I quickly became eager to extend beyond. I shopped locally and online and bought a supply of Thai ingredients and the traditional pot and steaming basket to make sticky rice. We had a pretty good experience with our dinner on Monday night. I have easily become hooked on preparing both sticky rice and Jasmine rice "authentically." Naturally I am now eager to discuss this with you who are more experienced with Thai cuisine or who are also learning. What are some of your favorite recipes or ways that you fix certain dishes? Do you have good cookbooks or web sites to recommend? I adore my Hot Sour Salty Sweet book, and so far have gotten all my recipes and ideas from that book, eG, the Thai Recipes Kitchen from ImportFood.com, and the Temple of Thai website. And a couple of specific questions... I wasn't thrilled with the red curry paste I made from scratch. Is there a brand you recommend? Even though we don't care for firey hot flavor, should I purchase fresh and/or whole dried Thai/birdseye chile peppers and use them in small amounts? I wondered if by not using them I am sacrificing a flavor I should try to become accustomed to. I do have a supply of ground dried Thai chilis and I've been throwing pinches in. We love the flavor of fresh galanga, kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass, and of course Thai basil.

I put my Dobies in the dishwasher.

That sounds good, JRT and... love that photo!

We used our new Thai pot and steaming basket, and made sticky rice for the first time tonight. Mmmm good! The cooking methods for this and the Jasmine rice are giving me a different appreciation of rice. Before this Thai cooking spree that I've been on, I had never soaked or even rinsed rice before. Note the fancy presentation, the cheese cloth it was wrapped in for steaming. I also made Red Chicken Curry with peas and the red curry paste to go in that (however, it didn't turn out very red in color), Thai Stir-fried Cabbage, Northern Thai Sausage, and Vietnamese Must-have Table Sauce. What I could have made a meal on was the finger food... forming the sticky rice into balls and dipping it into the Vietnamese Sauce. That could be addicting!

Thanks for the Flens photo, B. All this is making me wish for more. You know you got it right when those are the sentiments... Tonight I threw together pasta and salad with stuff on hand. The pasta sauce was based on pancetta and mushrooms, and a Pinot Noir matched up nicely. Nice ending to a cloudless day that made it to the 80's... Bathing suit weather for walking on the beach! Life is good.

Behemoth, cool! I look forward to the photo. Octaveman, welcome to this thread. Your food sounds good. I wish I could attend a Gilroy Garlic Festival! Tonight we had a first course salad, which is unusual for us. We almost always eat salad after the main course. This had some smoked salmon, fried goat cheese, toasted (I burnt them) pine nuts, and olives, and it just seemed like something to eat first. Main course was what I sometimes call Steak Diane Wellington, a Steak Diane -type sauce with individual beef Wellingtons; baked potatoes, first rubbed with olive oil and coarse sea salt; asparagus tips; and roasted cauliflower. Wine was a Penfolds Thomas Hyland Cabernet.