Spicy Coconut Curry with Poached Salmon

William and I are notoriously terrible at coming up with ideas for dinner, but lately we have both been craving soup.  If someone just suggests "soup" to me, my first thoughts are of vegetable or chicken soup:  two American classics that I would really rather pass on.  Sure they're fine, and I know a lot of people would think I'm blasphemous for saying that, but when I want soup, like soul-satisfying, curled-up-in-a-blanket, serve-me-a-mixing-bowl-full-of-that soup, I want Asian soup every time.

 Usually I want the Vietnamese classic pho when I have a soup craving, but I don't personally have the patience to roast beef bones in my oven for 5 hours.  Thai curry, on the other hand, can be made in under 30 minutes and with minimal ingredients (yes, I'm basically Rachel Ray), and it is ridiculously satisfying.  Follow the recipe, but then taste away.  Keep out your lime, fish sauce, sugar, and cayenne, and play around with the curry until you love it--and trust me, you will!

Spicy Coconut Curry with Poached Salmon
-1 inch of peeled ginger
-4 cloves of garlic
-3 Thai chilies
-zest and juice of 1 lime
-1 stalk of lemongrass (softer inside part only)
-1 Tbsp canola oil
-2 cans coconut milk
-2 tsp fish sauce
-2 tsp sugar (palm sugar is best; I used turbinado; I've also made it with white--use what you have!)
-1/2 lb salmon, cut into large-ish bite sized pieces for re-heatability purposes
-cilantro and scallions for garnish
-rice for serving

Combine the ginger, garlic, chilies, lime zest and juice, lemongrass, and canola oil in a food processor and blend until a paste is formed.

Add this paste into a sauce pan and cook over medium high heat until very fragrant--this will make your kitchen smell absolutely insane!

Pour in the coconut milk, fish sauce, and sugar, and let everything simmer together for a while.  This is also the time to adjust the seasoning to your liking.

When the curry is all balanced out, reduce the heat to medium low and add the salmon.  Allow this to simmer very gently until the salmon is just cooked through, about 5 minutes.  Serve over rice, topped with chopped cilantro and scallions.  Such a comforting meal!

Tips:
-Don't use low fat coconut milk!  All of the spices and aromatics in this dish need a little fat to cling onto and make their way to your palate.  Plus you will be avoiding several sketchy ingredients like guar gum and carrageenan that are used in the low fat kind.
-Make sure you have extra lime, fish sauce,  sugar, and even a little cayenne on hand when balancing out the curry.  This is a great recipe for getting to know your palate, and as long as you just add a little at a time, you certainly aren't going to mess it up.
-Curry tastes better the next day, so make extra! 

Feeling Like a Kid Again

With school cancelled for snow, I am happily holed up in my apartment, feeling like a kiddo. Fortunately ABC Family agrees with me that Christmas classics like Home Alone should be played until spring. But without our moms around to make a kid-worthy meal, William and I had to fend for ourselves. And what did we decide to eat while watching Kevin's crazy antics? Creamy tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches!

Creamy Tomato Soup
In a Dutch oven, roast one large can of whole tomatoes (juice reserved for later use) and half of a large white onion sliced for 30 minutes at 415 degrees. In the last few minutes of roasting, throw in 3 crushed garlic cloves. Remove pot from oven and place on eye of stove set on medium high heat. Add the reserved tomato juice, a little chicken stock, and a touch of heavy cream or coconut milk if you love William and don't want to make him sick. Blend the whole thing in food processor and season to taste.

This really was delicious!! Roasting the tomatoes and onions adds so much rich caramelized flavor to a very simple soup.

Mississippi Inspired

I seriously can't tell you how much I loved being in the Deep South over the holidays. A lot of my time was spent in Apalachicola with William's family, where we essentially lived on these...

But spending a little time in Hattiesburg always leaves me craving more creole food in my life! My mom sent me back up to Boone with 2 pounds of Camelia red kidney beans, the cream of the crop when it comes to making red beans and rice. I followed John Besh's recipe and added some sausage (really, John, what were you thinking?) and ended up with the biggest, most delicious pot of creole comfort food you've ever seen. We ate it for days and have enough in the freezer to feed a Cajun army (I think recipe could easily serve 20).

Italian Wedding Soup

Tonight I made the simplest and most delicious soup ever.  Ever.  I'm not a big soup person, but as a child I became addicted to my mom's Italian wedding soup.  It's flavorful and rich and the perfect comfort food when it's starting to get cold outside.  I tweaked the recipe a little bit to make it celiac friendly (obviously I can't have the noodles!), but now the recipe is healthier than ever.

Italian Wedding Soup

• 2 Italian bratwurst (make sure they're not made with beer)
• 1/2 tsp. ground dried thyme
• 1 tsp.  ground cayenne pepper
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup caramelized onions (recipe below)
• 1 15 oz. can cannellini beans
• 3 1/2 cups chicken broth
• 1 cup water
• 4 big hand-fulls of fresh baby spinach (I hear you can't use frozen, but I don't believe it.)

 Remove the casings from the bratwurst, and add the sausage to a large pot.  Cook thoroughly and add thyme, cayenne pepper, garlic, caramelized onions, and beans.  Cook for 1-2 more minutes before adding the chicken stock and water.  Bring the soup up to a simmer, add the spinach, and let it just wilt before serving.  Makes 6 servings (perfect for freezing).

Caramelized Onions

• 1 tsp. oil
• 1 large yellow onion

Slice the onion into long strips (not too thin or they will dry out).  Heat the oil in a large pan over medium high heat.  Once the oil is shimmering, add the onion and turn the heat down to medium.  Cook the onions for 30 minutes, stirring only every few minutes.  This was the hardest part for me.  I am an infamous pot stirrer.  It doesn't matter if it's my pot, William's, or my next door neighbor's, I will be there to stir it.  William says that someday this will get me shot.  I'm not sure what he means by that, but I'm taking his word for it and working on this addiction.  This is the perfect recipe to teach me not to stir, because if you do stir your onions too often, you won't get any of the lovely color.  If you notice that your onions are drying out, add a tablespoon or two of water.  Cook them down until they are soft, almost sticky, and have a full, deep color.