Going Domestic

how hot is it in bangkok?

So hot that today my Dream Whip wouldn't whip up! I just could not keep the bowl, milk, and Dream Whip powder cold enough, even with the air-conditioning on in my kitchen (thus, I am not sure that my batch of fudgesicles will have the right texture). I also haven't had cold running water in two days. The sun is so strong right now that it heats the pipes and all we get is lukewarm. It's so weird. 

I've lived here for nearly three years, and the heat still manages to get the best of me. Sigh. 

busy in the kitchen

Monday is an unofficial Soup Day around here. Because Madeline usually has a swim class in the afternoon, after school, I don't have a lot of time to put dinner together, so I've taken to making a batch of soup for dinner earlier in the day. Usually, I make pumpkin soup or the Martian Soup recipe from Whining and Dining, and sometimes it's split pea soup (always trying to find a recipe as delicious as the soup from Belbin's). Today I tried something different - this recipe for Sausage and Bean soup. I just used the stove top, not a crock pot, and it turned out really well. 

A couple of weeks ago, I figured out a way to re-purpose the Betty Crocker white cake mix that a friend leaving Thailand had bequeathed to me - the Oreo Cupcake recipe from the Cake Mix Doctor's cupcake book, which is reproduced here. I'm not really a fan of cupcakes or cake mixes, but this recipe was a fabulous choice to make for my daughter's kindergarten class. They were very yummy, though the chocolate frosting with Oreo crumbs on top looks really brown. 

imposing sanctions

This afternoon I noticed that Villa Market received another shipment of Dr. Pepper, otherwise known as The Bestest Soft Drink in the Whole Wide World. The other three times it's been stocked, this deprived little ex-pat happily bought half a dozen cans (at an embarrassing 48 baht/can) and slowly doled it out to myself. 

But this time, I am going to be good and forgo the Dr. Pepper and what's probably a dozen teaspoons of sugar and artificial flavours and colours per can. If I'm going to drink something not-so-good for me, it's going to be a chai latte. If I can only find cardamom in Bangkok ...

round tripping ramekins

made a round-trip
Originally uploaded by goingdomestic

I ordered two pieces of ceramic bakeware from the Le Creuset line awhile back (my beloved blue Emile Henry is getting hard to find), and I was really suprised to see that they were made in Thailand. Is there a Le Creuset factory outlet somewhere here that I've been missing? Maybe I can afford one of their dutch ovens afterall (they're about $350 at the Central department stores) ...

I had sort of forgot about the made-in-Thailand element until I opened one of my Christmas gifts last week and discovered a pair of blue ramekins from a department store in London called John Lewis. It was a really thoughtful gifts, as I've stupidly broken two of my four Emile Henry ones in the last three months. Chris said that he comtemplated purchasing the Le Creuset ramekins, but figured that it was sort of ridiculous to bring something that was made in Thailand back to Thailand, picked out the lovely blue John Lewis-brand ones instead.

Side note: John Lewis has an entire "ramekin" category on their website, which is sort of interesting! And they have heart-shaped ones from Le Creuset! Cute! 

what else can I say but yum?

Peppermint Bark - Teacher Gifts 2009
Originally uploaded by goingdomestic

This year, I discovered Paula Deen. I've never seen her on television, but ever since one of my dear friends introduced me to her banana pudding recipe, I've found myself drawn to her recipes. When I got an urge to make split pea soup and jambalya, it was with a hope that there would be a Paula Deen recipe to lead me in the right direction.

My original plan for holiday gifts for Madeline's teachers was to make a batch of maple cinnamon spiced almonds, but I realized with a few days to spare that the nut-free snack requirement probably would apply on campus, so I needed an alternative plan. Our little grocery store had a good supply of candy canes, and last year I used them to top brownies. This year, I wanted something even simpler to make, so I grabbed a few baking bars of white chocolate to go with my box of candy canes, and went home to google recipes. And found this Paula Deen one.

So yummy.

favourite things in my kitchen

1. These little ceramic birds. Chris and Madeline gave them to me; they were found at a Thai handicraft sale. They fit really well on the shallow shelf above our kitchen sink.
2. The artwork on my fridge. Amid the clutter of too many kitschy magnets and the calendar, there are some things that Madeline made that I think were really sweet. 
   My measuring spoons. I was very skeptical about these inexpensive magnetic plastic spoons bearing the name of A Celebrity Chef, but I am infatuated with them now. They still nest together and stay together in a drawer without me having to unhook them from each other when I want to use one of them. 
   The big heavy knife block. There are very few things on our wedding registry that Chris and I actually cared about, but this was one of them. 
   Tea towels from Williams-Sonoma. Pretentious, I know, but they do the job so much better than the other ones we have. 

   I don't really like the kitchen that we have in our apartment here, but these are the things that I have positive thoughts and feelings for. 

an auspicious day

It was back in 2002, if I recall correctly, that Chris came home from work one evening with a Diablo Cake from the Brulee Patisserie. I can't remember if I was thrilled that he came bearing dessert or annoyed that he spent a lot of money on a cake. It could have gone either way. It turned out to be the most delicious cake that I have ever eaten, so it all turned out okay. I've spent the past seven years trying to figure out what flavours it was that made the cake so fabulous. I did manage to do a little detective work - I know that Rosemary, the chef, used a flourless chocolate cake for the base, and at least one of the fillings was whipped ganache, and it was topped with a ganache-based chocolate glaze. I actually have her recipe for plain chocolate versions of all three. Chris requested a Diablo Cake to celebrate his 39th birthday, and even though I wasn't sure if he was serious, I took up the challenge. My best guess about what elevated this cake above ordinary chocolate was copious amounts of cinnamon and maybe a bit of cayenne. I finished up my version yesterday, and it's not as good at the cake at Brulee (which I've blogged about an embarrassing number of times), but it's still a pretty tasty rendition. I have some ideas on how to tweak the recipe for next time, if there is a next time ... 

 

The other cool thing about today was that Chris decided that his birthday was a good reason to give his day job the shaft and take a guided tour of Bangkok's Chinatown with me. It was supposed to be a "historical" tour, but I have to say that what I learned was a different history than what I was expecting. Our guide took us to a coffee shop where men has been gathering to talk about work/life/etc. for the past eighty years. We ate lunch at a noodle joint that had been around for sixty years. We enjoyed bowls of a warm ginger broth with crunchy bits of deep-fried bread and tofu floating in it (sadly, my camera battery died, so I have no photos of any of this). Seeing as BKK is home to about three thousand Buddhist temples, we also visited a few of them, and our guide tried his best to contrast the Chinese variation of Buddhism to the type of Buddhism that prevails in Thailand. It was a very hot but fun day, but I finally got to ride in a tuk-tuk, and our guide from the Smiling Albino was a very gracious host.

monday in the kitchen

whipped ganache
Originally uploaded by goingdomestic

This morning, I whipped the (slightly lumpy) ganache that I made on Saturday afternoon. I am so impressed that it worked, because I checked it all weekend long as it refridgerated, waiting for it to DO SOMETHING. I realized on Sunday night that it probably wasn't supposed to do something aside from chilling. Small error, though - the grocery store had their semi-sweet chocolate chips mixed in with milk chocolate* ones. I grabbed what I thought were three bags of semi-sweet, not realizing that only the top bag was that variety. So, this is milk chocolate ganache. Not what I really wanted, but on the bright side, I have tons of chips leftover for banana bread and cookies. 

* I have what I believe to be a good excuse for my ignorant grab of chocolate chips - I have never ever seen chips in any other variety than semi-sweet in Bangkok. Ever. This discovery is rather exciting!

Also, I did some prep for tonight's ginger chicken, and I tried the "chop onions while wearing swim goggles" trick that I think I read about on Not Martha years ago. It's brilliant! I chopped my onion with dry eyes, though everything had a slight hint of blue, due to the tinting on my daughter's swim goggles that I'd borrowed.

Thanksgiving Monday in the Kitchen

Today is Thankgiving Day in Canada, and I feel right at home this Monday, recycling the leftover turkey into sandwiches and stock for turkey soup. I am not going to lie and pretend that Chris and I managed to find a large fresh turkey and somehow jam it into our teeny-tiny oven; instead the JW Marriott is happy to sell roasted turkeys to Bangkok residents who cannot imagine a festive dinner without a yummy bird. Chris made cranberry sauce, stuffed mushrooms, and a pan of roasted vegetables, his friends brought a salad and two desserts, and I cleaned up. This was yesterday, b/c it's surely a Canadian tradition to celebrate a day early, on Sunday.

I followed the stock-making instructions from an issue of Everyday Food from 2004, but let pot simmer on the stove for a few extra hours. Somehow, I forgot that I have pages of stock-making instructions and notes from a cooking class I took in 2003 at the Cookbook Company in Calgary. Tomorrow I will throw in more onion, celery, carrot, barley, corn, and cubed turkey for soup for dinner. 

I also whipped up a half-recipe of the Cook's Illustrated Carrot Cake (done as muffins) today as there is a birthday in our household this week. This recipe is the first one that I've used the food processor for so much - shredding the carrots (so quick!) and also for creating a emulsion with sugar, eggs, and oil. I never really change the attachments on my food processor, so figuring out how to set up the grating blade was an embarrassing struggle ...

yes, that is a pumpkin

Pumpkin Soup: The "Before" Photo
Originally uploaded by goingdomestic

I generally do not like eating vegetables from the squash family. This is based on the handful of occasions when I have been called upon to feign a liking for butternut squash. Thus, I was not all that enthusiastic about pumpkin unless it was followed by the word "cheesecake".

Alas, I was served pumpkin soup no less than three times on our holiday in Australia a couple of weeks ago, and I absolutely loved it. So yummy! I read through a couple of pages of Google results until stumbling upon this recipe, which seemed to be the one that I was looking for! I made a couple of modifications, like using a little more veggie stock and pumpkin, and omitting the sour cream, and the next time I make this I will add the celery at the same time as a the onions. It turned out wonderfully.

The only misstep was lifting my handblender out of the pot of soup before I was finished de-pressing the power button because my otherwise stylish blue tee is now speckled with pumpkin soup. I am not sure that I read that part in the recipe ...