shain

Thai herbal soup with tofu, spinach, rice noodles, mushrooms. Flavored with lemongrass, makrut lime, galangal, ginger, celery, onion, fingerroot, garlic, fish sauce, soy sauce.

Basmati rice with mushroom, butter, garlic, thyme allspice, pine nuts.

Fanshu tangshui - sweet ginger "soup" with sweet potato, and in this case also chestnuts, jujubes and dry longan. A lovely dessert on a cold day.

You mash garlic and quickly mix with water and a bit of vinegar. The dilution and vinegar prevents the more pungent aroma compounds from forming. You are left with a sharp, spicy, garlicky water - but more pleasant than just adding raw garlic on top. This is common in many cuisines. "Mujdei" in Romanian. "Tatbila" is the Middle Eastern version wich uses lemon and chili along with the garlic water - often served with hummus and meats. The Chinese also have a version, which I only ever used as a noodle topping, but surely has more usages.

I forgot to mention the mushrooms (cooked in butter) which were also included. And served with red wine, of course. - 2 tbsp vinegar - 2 tbsp olive oil (not too sharp) - 1.5 tsp coco powder - a bit of brown sugar, or another sweetener Idea is because blue cheese tastes a bit like cocoa butter and somewhat cocoa (to my palate). Lentils and mushrooms have a different earthy quality that reminds me of cocoa from another angle. Hazelnuts (or usually walnuts) are natural with chocolate, and along with celery and blue cheese makes a classic lentil salad.

Some backlog photos. Roasted eggplants with tomato and feta sauce, walnuts, oregano. Greek "pickled" beans salad, with plenty of garlic, dill, vinegar, peppers some sugar, onion chili, Bread and ouzo.

Some more interesting salads from the photos backlog. Black lentils, cocoa powder vinaigrette, gorgonzola, toasted hazelnuts, celery, mint, pepper. Edit: Also pan-fried mushrooms.

Butter beans, green beans, arugula, roasted peppers, vinaigrette, boiled egg.

Romanian slow cooked beans with home made pasta with some tomato, paprika, dill, celery. Sour cream, onion in vinegar, garlic water. Beer.

More travel in Doi Inthanon national park.

Simplified preparation of Taiwanese iron eggs - baked all night long with soy sauce, sugar, peppercorns, anise, cinnamon. They are chewy and very flavorful. Grilled cheese with kimchi.

A vegetable and chickpea stew baked all night - eggs, bean curd rolls, carrots, sunchoke, browned onions, mushrooms, sweet potato, kohlrabi, eggplants. Lots of spices. Spiced rice. Almond slivers, fried shallots, sumac, yogurt, tahini sauce, schug. Veggies, pickles, olives, ouzo.

Greek pumpkin phyllo pie. Grated pumpkin, chestnuts, raisins, nutmeg. Buttery phyllo with a little bit of important salt.

Some snacking during the day. Bao with bean paste. Coconut. Tapioca pearl balls filled with dried shrimp. Fried garlic. Sweet & savory. Chewy steamed rice dough with a sweet coconut filling.

Doi Inthanon park, first track for the day.

This one guy is sitting on 4 stools, then one for the garbage bin. I can imagine some plastic stool company making a fortune.

More random food photos. Mango-orange smoothie. A fancy khanom bueang - crisp pancake with meringue and candied egg yolk. Boughts sweets for the hike on the following day. Fried egg salad. Quite nice. Chili, onion, tomatoes, greens, garlic, fish sauce and lime.

Thanks

The same wonderful lunch was elevated by a beautiful pond-side garden.

Snails in red curry with leaves. Warm fire roasted eggplant salad with onion, shrimps, eggs, holy basil, chili, Delightful fried crab in pepper sauce with chilies and garlic.

Pizza al taglio. Twice baked so it's extra crunchy. Super high hydration dough so that it doesn't dry in the process. Margarita with basil. Margarita with arugula. Roasted peppers with ricotta and mozzarella. Dessert pizza with dulce de leche and mozzarella (which was is a very tasty, but next time I won't use an al-taglio base for it, because without a rind, it was leaking all over).

No, we bought those. Found it in a Russian specialty store, but they are made in Azerbaijan IIRC. I don't have access to green walnuts - it's too hot here. We have pecans, never saw those candied, though.

Homemade blue cheese, store bought aged cheddar, wine, chestnuts, fruit, nuts, candied green walnuts, pickles. Also a sourdough rye made by our neighbor, not pictured.

Cheese is ready. Gnarly and delicious.