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Happy Lunar New Year! Hello, 2013

happy lunar new year to all those who celebrate it! this year, my two fabulous cousins and i decided to take on throwing a new year lunch for our family (ahem, all 31 of them). we thought that it was time to take on the traditions of our grandparents and our parents. we cooked the main dishes: thit kho (vietnamese caramelized braised pork belly and eggs and coconut juice), curry, and soup mang cua (vietnamese asparagus crab soup). and we went crazy decorating the house with red and gold! here is a glimpse of our festivities!

Lunar New Year Lunar-New-Year-1 IMG_0336a IMG_0476a IMG_0484a Lunar-New-Year-4 IMG_0116a Lunar-New-Year-2

as you can tell, there was a ton of food (not all the dishes are even pictured here). while making/planning everything, we realized we dont know how our moms do it (every single year)! so please meet the women in our lives! strong, amazing women who we learn everything from!

IMG_0135a Lunar-New-Year-3 Lunar-New-Year-4 IMG_0152a

happy new year, from our family to yours!

By | February 13th, 2013 | Cooking, Family, Food, Holidays, Life | 3 Comments

Chiang Mai, Thailand – Part II

one of the main reasons we chose to go to thailand was because we love thai food! naturally, we took a cooking class while we were in chiang mai. we took a half day (morning 9am to 2pm) class at siam rice cooking class since it was highly rated on trip advisor. for 700 baht (US$23) you get to choose a noodle dish, a soup and a curry paste/curry.

the food was amazing! (there is still hope for me as a cook) we hung out with nancy, our pretty awesome instructor. if i could, i would hang out with her all day! she taught us about the main base ingredients in thai cooking, the food, and thai culture/traditions.

a few awesome things we learned:

  • a lot of thai dishes use the same ingredients. the addition/subtraction of certain ingredients make a different dish/type of curry!
  • thai cooking uses a lot of sugar and fish sauce! in every restaurant, you will find sugar (sweet obviously), fish sauce (salty), and chili at your table so that you can customize to your own preference.
  • it’s not that hard to make! just a lot of ingredients to get together!

before the cooking class, we were taken to the market! i dont know if you know…kyle and i love going to local markets when we travel…its our way of immersing ourselves into the city’s culture. (plus kyle used to work at a supermarket so he loves that stuff).

as you can tell, we took a bajillion photos…this is what happens when you have an awesome day (2nd favorite thing we did in thailand).

mangosteen dragon fruit IMG_8321-1 IMG_8301-1 onions! candy..lots of it beautiful flowers the market rambutan soups veggies pink eggs! IMG_8323-1 excited for the cooking class IMG_8355-1 IMG_8358-1 IMG_8384-1 IMG_8385-1 IMG_8373-1 IMG_8377-1 IMG_8386-1 IMG_8396-1 chopping chilis IMG_8404-1 IMG_8408-1 this is what happens when you make drunk noodles pad thai drunken noodles oil, fish sauce, sugar, oyster sauce ingredients IMG_8466-1 IMG_8471-1 IMG_8474-1 my chili paste! IMG_8478-1 kao soi panang curry IMG_8507-1 IMG_8510-1 hot and creamy soup sweet soup with sweet basil

what we cooked:

  • noodles – pad thai and drunken noodles
  • soup – spicy soup with sweet basil and hot and creamy soup
  • curry paste / curry – panang curry and kao soi

we highly recommend doing this when you go to thailand! email nancy! we received a little booklet with all the recipes from the day. we are hoping that we can cook some thai food at home soon! fingers crossed.

By | December 28th, 2012 | Cooking, Food, Thailand, Travel | 7 Comments