A few weeks ago my pal Katie told me about how she was attempting to make a friend an ice cream cake with his favorite ice cream, Ben & Jerry’s Coffee Heath Bar Crunch. I thought that sounded ambitious and delicious, I am a faithful Ben & Jerry’s addict ever since Will made me share a pint with him our first week of dating, destroying my veganism with 16 ounces of dairy heaven. But Katie decided the whole cake thing was not her jam, so being the cookie master she is (I’ve eaten many of her delicious creations) she figured out a way to turn it into a cookie recipe.

I didn’t try one of hers, but after she posted the recipe on her blog, I decided to be the hero at a friend’s birthday in Joshua Tree over the weekend. I don’t really know these friends well, and winning people over with baked goods is my go-to move. Once people were well liquored up, sunstroked and full of desert magic happiness (real thing that happens) – I busted the cookies out of the fridge to the cheers and tears of my fellow party goers (ok maybe not that dramatic but people were pretty excited). They were a hit, but I only got to eat one of them, so naturally I had to make them again this week for a care package I’m sending to a friend. And save half for us, duh. Guys, these cookies are a flippin’ revelation. I would dare to say they rival the most popular blog post I’ve ever posted recipe, and they are so much easier. BUT! They are not for the faint of heart – they are very sweet, and if you don’t like toffee, keep on movin’ (literally, we can’t be friends,this is awkward.)

Let’s do this thing. But before you start I must give you a few tips: cook them nice and big (I put 9 on a pan), and store them in the fridge because they are 100x more delicious out of the fridge.

Espresso Toffee Crunch Cookies by Katie Wilson
(adapted from Ambitious Kitchen’s brown butter cookies, which are life changing)
you’ll need…
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 T instant espresso powder (you can add slightly more at the end for a heavier coffee flavor)
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt (this is adjusted, as I always have salted butter on hand. If you use unsalted, up to 1/2 tsp)
2 sticks butter, browned and cooled (see instructions below)
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1 egg plus 1 yolk
1 T greek yogurt
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup milk chocolate chips
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
3/4 cup toffee pieces (you want these)
directions…
First, brown your butter: heat slowly in a pan over medium heat. Whisk as you go and watch carefully. After a few minutes, the butter will foam and then recede, turning a carmel brown color. It will smell sort of nutty. Don’t let it burn, but be sure it’s actually browned (not just melted) – when you pour it out of the pan and into a bowl to cool, it should be a rich, burnt sienna color. Let the butter fully cool before you start – 20 minutes on the counter should do it.
Meanwhile, mix together all your dry ingredients (flour, espresso powder, baking soda and salt). In a separate bowl, combine your brown butter and sugars thoroughly. Add the egg, yolk, yogurt, and vanilla and stir until smooth. Gradually mix in your dry ingredients about 1/2 cup at a time. Stir in the toffee bits and chocolate chips until evenly distributed. Taste liberally. Add more espresso powder if you’re into that sort of thing, but be sure to mix well.
Stick the whole shebang in the fridge for at least an hour. Preheat the oven to 375. Roll loosely rounded balls of dough (make sure you get all those chocolate chips in there – sometimes I’ll dot the tops with a few extra) and drop 2-3 inches apart on your pan. Bake for 8-10 minutes. The cookies should look slightly undercooked in the middle, but they will set up within a few minutes of removing from the oven.
Enjoy!

Recipe: Coffee Heath Bar Crunch Cookies is a post from: For Me, For You

Recently I had this salad from Cookbook (thanks, Ali!) that lingered in my mind for weeks. Couscous with chickpeas, roasted beets and bitter frisee. I was particularly excited because I’m very picky about beets and we’re always getting them in our CSA. I did a little digging on ye ol’ internets to see if any recipes out there were similar until I decided on one to try. Not only did it work out once, but I’ve made it three times since – sometimes as a side, sometimes as a main dish when I’m feeling particularly in need of a healthful meal.

This recipe uses quinoa instead of couscous, which is great because I try to eat as little wheat as possible as my body prefers it. And with the exception of the quinoa and chickpeas, I used all veggies from our CSA, so no frisee for me, but the greens used in this recipe can be substituted for really anything – this recipe I worked with called for spinach and I’ve used kale, chard and arugula. Also, the first time I made this I used a little bit of sweet potato as I had one little guy on hand. It’s delicious but not necessary. The recipe I found also includes oranges, which I think is the biggest winner in this salad. We had just been sent these incredible sweet pink Cara Cara oranges in the CSA the first time I made this that made the salad downright pretty. But regular navel or mandarins are great as well.

Let’s get to it:

Quinoa Salad with Roasted Beets, Chick Peas and Orange
adapted from Gluten Free Goddess
3 cups cooked quinoa
2 beets, peeled and quartered
optional: 1 small sweet potato
Olive oil
Sea salt
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup fresh squeezed orange juice
2 teaspoons tamari or soy sauce
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar or rice vinegar
1 tablespoon honey or agave
1 cup drained rinsed chick peas
2 big handfuls of dark greens – spinach, kale, chard, frisee, arugula, etc. (I sauté the kale or chard a bit first)
Sea salt and ground pepper, to taste
1 fresh orange, peeled, trimmed, cut into bite sized pieces

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 375ºF. Toss the beets (and sweet potato if you’ve using it) with olive oil and sea salt and spread on a baking sheet. Bake until tender – roughly 30-40 minutes. While the beets are baking, make your quinoa. 2 cups of water to 1 cup of quinoa on the stove or rice cooker.

To make the dressing, combine the olive oil, orange juice, tamari/soy sauce, vinegar, and honey/agave in a small bowl or measuring cup and whisk. Set aside.

Combine the warm, cooked quinoa in a mixing bowl with the chick peas and greens. Pour in the salad dressing and toss lightly. Season with sea salt and pepper, to taste.

Gently add in the roasted beets and orange pieces. The beets will stain everything red if you mix too vigorously!

Optional: top with slivered almonds or goat cheese.

Photo by Kate Miss, taken with a Mamiya 645AF with Kodak Portra 160 film. 

Recipe: Quinoa Salad with Roasted Beets, Chick Peas and Orange is a post from: For Me, For You

I recently made a boozy cider for Work/Shop and got so many recipe requests that I decided to sit down and share it with the internet, as it makes the perfect holiday party drink. Or a just hanging out alone drink. No judgement. I also thought I’d round up the drink recipes I’ve shared over the past couple years as they are all party-ready.

Boozy Cider
Props to The Boys Club for inspiring this one. You can follow their original cider recipe (at the bottom of the page) for a totally handmade cider if you’re feeling ambitious.
This recipe was very off-the-cuff since I had to make a huge amount and didn’t have a recipe for a huge amount. If you’re not up for interpreting recipes or being intuitive/casual about ingredients, it’s not for you. It all fit in a 3 Liter air pot.
100oz of unfiltered apple juice (I used roughly 1 1/2 64 oz jugs)
6 cinnamon sticks
3 tbsp all spice
1 tbsp whole cloves
1 tbsp grated nutmeg
1-2 tbsp freshly grated ginger
2 tsp cardamon pods (you could use grated instead)
1/2 C – 3/4 C maple syrup (the real stuff, please) alt: brown sugar or agave
peel of half a lemon (I used Meyer, my preference)

Combine all of the ingredients in a large stock pot. Bring to a low boil and let boil for roughly 30 minutes. It’s going to smell delicious and you will be full of the holiday spirit. Turn the heat down and let it simmer for at least 1 hour. Add the maple syrup and lemon peel and let it simmer for another 30 minutes. Turn the heat off and let it cool. Strain into another container (this is temporary) using cheesecloth and/or a fine mesh sieve. Rinse the pot out and return the liquid to it.

This is where you could stop if you have kids/pregnant ladies/Mormons who want to drink this. If not, pour bourbon, whiskey, or rum in to taste. I would guess that I used about 3 cups, but don’t quote me on that. If you add too much and realize all of your guests are going to have alcohol poisoning by the end of the evening, add more apple juice (always good to have extra on hand). I used Makers Mark, fyi. Add more sweetener if necessary. Reheat to a non-mouth burning temperature. Serve straight from the pot with a ladle or if transporting, use an air pot.

Other delicious drinks from my recipe stash:

The Bella Donna
Cardamom Fashioned
Herbal Lady
Maple Sour (my #1 go-to)

And because the Rosemary Lemonade Gin Slushes are amazing, but not cold-weather appropriate, revised to be a non-slush drink:
2 oz gin
juice of half a lemon (preferably meyer if you can get one)
1/2 oz rosemary simple syrup (recipe in the link above)
Shake with ice in a cocktail shaker, pour into a glass. Garnish with a rosemary sprig if you have people to impress. (Who doesn’t?)

Happy holidays, everyone! Stay tuned this week for a very exciting Weekly Music post.

Holiday Drink Recipes is a post from: For Me, For You

I recently discover this magical thing that has always been right under my nose. Or rather, just right above my feet. My broiler. The broiler has always been a mysterious place where crumbs go to evaporate and seemed like setting my oven knob to it would be akin to putting the Enterprise into warp drive and I was not prepared for the risk. But a month or so ago I bought some Korean bbq ribs at Trader Joe’s (affectionally known as “meat wang” in our home due to the lovely shape it comes in) and the instructions called for you to grill it. I was like, oh heck no, how can I grill this sans grill in this apartment? So I googled “grilling alternatives”, and that was the moment I dove head first into wonderful world of the broiler. Here are some awesome things about it:

1. Easy. You may tell me that you are a terrible cook and don’t want to attempt this, but it’s so easy you can hardly take credit for making the meal happen. Most things just need to be tossed in a bit of olive oil and put in for a few minutes. Done. SO fast.

2. It very closely mimics the taste of the grill. Obviously you’re not going to get that great charcoal taste, but it will char and sear things very similarly. Vegetables, particularly red peppers, get all kinds of amazing after being broiled. Because it cooks it so quickly, meat is so delicious and moist broiled if you get comfortable with the fact that it cooks quick and don’t overcompensate.

3. So far I haven’t found much of anything that isn’t delicious after being broiled. If you can grill it, you can broil it. I’m obsessed and rarely make a meal lately without broiling at least one thing.

So let’s move on with a recipe, shall we?

Broiled Salmon + Asparagus with Feta + Rosemary Peaches

Salmon
Fresh salmon – cut into servings
marinade of equal parts: <— you can use any marinade you like, but this is my go-to
lemon juice (orange juice is also good)
soy sauce
olive oil
1/2 part honey or maple syrup

Mix the marinade in a bowl/dish/tupperware container and place the fish flesh down inside. You want enough marinade so it’s sitting in a puddle of it, but it doesn’t need to be covered and drowning. Let it sit for at least 15 minutes, or go crazy and let it marinade for hours in the fridge.

Asparagus
Toss desired amount of asparagus with oil and sea salt.  Set aside.

Rosemary Peaches
Slice peaches into eighths. Toss with olive oil and a sprinkling of fresh rosemary.

For this recipe, I like to take a piece of aluminum foil and roll four sides up so you have a little “pan” to set the food in. If we were cooking juicy meats, don’t use foil – you want the meat juice to be able to drip down into the pan below so that the flame does not catch it on fire. If your broiler pan is gross and used from whoever owned it before you (apartment renters, etc) – give it a good scrub before hand. For this recipe you can make separate foil pans for each or one big one, whatever you want . They take different cooking times so separate might be the easiest, but a bit more wasteful.

Set your broiler pan on the middle rack. It should be about 3 inches or so from the pan to the top of the broiler. Turn the broiler on for a minute or so. Place the fish in for a few minutes, check on it and if it has a nice seared top, add the peaches. When it’s almost done, add the asparagus, which only needs about 2 minutes – depending on your preference. Just keep an eye on things and know that opening the door up 800 times is no big deal – the flame is cooking things so letting the heat escape doesn’t matter. Some people even leave it open, but I find that nuts. Poke everything/cut the fish in half to see how it’s doing if you’re unsure. Eventually after broiling everything known to man you’ll start to get a sense of how long things take.

When the asparagus is done, toss it with some feta. I put the peaches on a bead of baby greens that were tossed in virgin olive oil and lemon juice. Heavenly.

Special note: the broiler is SUPER HOT, duh. Please be careful if you are accident prone. Oven mits at all times, even putting things on the broiler pan as it heats under the flame in seconds.

Recipe: Just broil it! is a post from: For Me, For You

Last week during office day (in which Jessica works in my apartment, super helpful for productivity), Sara of Matchbox Kitchen stopped by and brought us a cake. Sara is an amazing baker, if you are not aware, and apparently the downside (??!) to being a baker is that you end up eating everything you bake. Ok, I get that, it probably starts to get ridiculous after a while. I told her that Jessica and I would gladly help her eat things as that’s what friends are for. It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it. I told her she could force cake upon us if I could take photos of her pretty cake. Deal. She came over on a gloomy afternoon and when she pulled that perfect beauty out of the box, it lit up the room and there was definitely lots of ohhhhhs and ahhhhs.

The slow reveal.

Sara shares:

—-

I just keep making cakes to practice different recipes, techniques, and flavor combinations. It is a simple vanilla cake with a light lemon cream filling, covered in vanilla swiss meringue buttercream. The lemon cream is one of my favorite things because it’s similar to a lemon curd but mounted with more butter to give it a lighter, smoother flavor and texture. 

Sara used this cake recipe.

A Visit From Sara of Matchbox Kitchen is a post from: For Me, For You

I’ve been on a bit of a whiskey kick lately, which I am prone to do from time to time, particularly in stressful periods of my life. That sounds more pathetic than I mean it to, but nothing helps you unwind like a delicious beverage at the end of the day – obviously a time-tested tradition. I’m such a lady about whiskey, however, and need a lot of sweet and sour things to accompany it. My favorite is still the Maple Sour, and recently I tweeted a photo of that delicious beverage I was enjoying and Marta suggested I’d like the Bella Donna at Villains in downtown LA. A quick google search and I had the delicious looking recipe in my paws – a trip to the farmers market and I had blood oranges, mint, and blackberries ready for this party in my mouth. I don’t have shaved ice or the patience for somehow creating such a thing – I thought about using my blender to make crushed ice – but good god, the recipe seemed a little bit of a stretch for me anyway. In hindsight I think I’d spring for that, and I’ll tell you why in a minute.

Ok, here’t the original recipe, posted on blogdowntown:

The Bella Donna of Villains Tavern
Created by Dave Whitton

Ingredients:

• 2 oz Maker’s Mark
• 2 dashes Peychaud’s bitters
• ½ oz fresh squeezed orange juice
• ½ oz fresh squeezed lemon juice
• ½ oz simple syrup
• fresh mint
• fresh black berries
• shaved ice
• cubed ice

Directions:

In a tin: Add Makers, bitters, Orange juice, lemon juice, simple syrup with ice. Shake vigorously. In a bucket glass, add a bundle of fresh mint and top with ice. Note: a smack with the hand will “open the mint oils up”. Strain ingredients from tin into glass and top with a bed of shaved ice. Top with a gramble (a muddled pool) of black berries. Sip and say ahhh.

Drink Recipe: Bella Donna is a post from: For Me, For You

Boy have I been cooking lately. Between our overflowing CSA box and us trying to cut down on eating things that come out of a box at home in an effort to be healthier to get Will back to normal, I have been making so many meals at home and getting creative. My latest love is cauliflower. Historically it has not been my favorite as my only memory of eating cauliflower as a kid was smeared in melted cheese (the only way my family seems to eat vegetables). But these days I love it roasted with a bit of curry powder, blended in a soup, and as of late, mashed. So here are two of my favorite recipes. I only have a photo of the soup as I was too busy stuffing the mashed stuff in my face to take a photo. But it looks mostly like mashed potatoes but less thick. I imagine that if you have kids it might be an excellent way to get them to eat a vegetable that’s healthier than a potato.

Cauliflower and Leek Soup

1 head of cauliflower, chopped
1/2 cup leeks, chopped
1/2 an onion, chopped (any kind works, I used red above which is why that soup looks a bit darker)
a chunk of fennel, chopped (about a 2″ piece) – this is optional, I only use it when I have it on hand
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
4 cups of stock
1-2 tbsp fresh parsley
2 tbsp ghee, butter, or whatever cooking fat you like to use
2 strips of thick bacon – optional

Melt cooking fat in a large soup pot, add onions, garlic and fennel. Cook until soft, add leeks and cauliflower, stir. Cook for five minutes – the looks should soften up and the cauliflower will have some color to it. Add stock, stir and bring to a boil. Keep at a medium boil until you can press the back of a spoon against a piece of cauliflower and it gives pretty easily. Stir in the parsley and let the soup cool. While it’s cooling, cook your bacon strips if you’ve using it. I like them left a little fattier for this. When they’re done, chop them into small pieces and set aside. Blend the soup in a blender or with an immersion blender. Add bacon and stir.

Mashed Cauliflower
This is pretty simple and the ingredient amounts depends on how much you want to make. Chop the cauliflower and boil or steam it until it’s tender and you can easily push a fork through it. Drain the water and add either ghee, butter, or olive oil. I like to add a bit of minced garlic, sea salt and pepper. The best way to make these is to use an immersion blender, but you could use a regular blender as well. Blend until smooth. Fresh parsley is a great addition if you have it. If you eat meat, this goes really beautifully with pork chops.

A few people have asked me recently on twitter/instagram what ghee is and where they can get it. You can read all the details here and you can buy it at health food stores, or make it at home yourself. Personally I just buy a big thing of it at Whole Foods because it’s not that expensive. I’m crazy about it, as is Heidi Swanson, if you need a better endorsement.

Cauliflower Love is a post from: For Me, For You

Last night Lisa and I attended the LA Food Swap that I’d previously mentioned. To say that I got really into it is an understatement. I seriously became obsessed with making my trade offerings (flavored simple syrup, more on that in a minute), my life consumed by it for the past week. I was crazed by trying to find the right sized jars, the perfect organic ingredients, designing the perfect labels. Was it worth it? Probably not to the point of my obsession. I should have not spent so much time on it in hindsight, but damn, it was pretty fun. It also makes me giddy picturing someone loving and using my syrup at home.

How the swap works is that you bring anything homemade, home grown, or foraged and set up at a table (this one was held at Reform School in Silver Lake), then you mingle with other swappers, testing their goods, and then write your name down at their table letting them know you want to swap with them. Then everyone pounces on what they want to swap. It’s a bit awkward turning people down – I’m on a restrictive diet right now so I was aiming for savory goods and home grown stuff and I didn’t get a lot of my first picks, which was a bummer (wherever you are, spicy pickle girl, I want your pickles, dammit). But by the end there are no hard feelings and you feel pretty awesome if you have a popular item. I imagine that I would feel like crap if no one wanted to swap with me, but I don’t think I noticed anyone with no swaps – everything was so good there. The lighting was really harsh in there and did not make for the prettiest photos, but you can see them all here on flickr. I swapped for: walnut + almond + amaretto milk, grapefruits, oranges, chai tea mix, caramelized red onion relish, limoncello, chai tea jelly, and pickled carrots.

I talked A LOT about the swap on twitter, and was told that I must share recipes. So now I’m going to share what I made, how you can make it, and what to make it with (I included hang tags with the syrup with these recipes). I’m a huge fan of flavored simple syrups because they turn a boring gin and soda into mixologist-worthy gem. And I have to give credit to the girl who started me on this kick, Mrs. Kelly Carambula. She is the patron saint of flavored simple syrup and if I ever doubted an idea – “could cardamom be used in a syrup?” – I’d do a search on her blog and be assured that since she’d done it before, it would be a winner. She originally gave me a jar of rosemary ginger syrup years ago and I never forgot its deliciousness. So, thank you Kelly for your syrupspiration (sorry, I’m such a nerd). Onward!

1. Earl Grey Lavender Syrup
yields a little less than 3 cups of syrup and keeps in the fridge for about two weeks
2 cups water
2 cups sugar – I recommend using natural cane sugar, like sugar in the raw, because it yields a much more caramel-y syrup. I made one batch with regular and it was definitely inferior!
2 bag of earl grey tea (my favorite is Market Spice)
A few sprigs of fresh lavender (you can make it with dried as well – about 1 cup or so – I haven’t tried this so don’t take my word on it)

Boil your water, turn off the heat and steep the tea for roughly five minutes. Discard tea bags and turn the heat back on, bringing to a light boil. Add sugar, stir until dissolved. Add lavender and turn down heat and simmer for roughly 15 minutes. You can do a pretty accurate test just smelling the pot to see if it’s done, but very carefully spoon a tiny bit out and let it completely cool and test to see if the lavender is strong enough for your taste. Once it’s done, discard the lavender and let the syrup cool just a bit before pouring into heat safe jars. If you let it completely cool it will get really thick and might be a pain to put into the jars.

Cocktail Recipe:

Herbal Lady
1 1/2 oz gin (preferably Hendricks or something similar)
1/2 oz citrus juice (lemon, orange, or grapefruit)
1/2 oz earl grey lavender syrup
seltzer (optional)

Place ingredients in cocktail shaker full of ice. Shake the devil out of it and strain into a small cocktail glass. Top with seltzer if it’s too strong for your taste.
Makes one cocktail

2. Rosemary Ginger Syrup
yields a little less than 3 cups of syrup and keeps in the fridge for about two weeks
2 cups water
2 cups natural cane sugar (like sugar in the raw)
A few sprigs of fresh rosemary (don’t use dried)
2″ chunk of fresh ginger, peeled and chopped

Boil water, add sugar and stir until dissolved. Turn heat down and add rosemary and ginger, simmer for 20-30 minutes. Discard the rosemary and let the syrup cool just a bit before straining the syrup into heat safe jars.

Cocktail Recipe:

Rosemary Ginger Lemonade Slushes (this might look familiar)
2 cups of ice
1/2 cup of gin or vodka
Juice of 2 lemons (preferably Meyer if you can get ‘em)
2 oz of rosemary ginger simple syrup

Fill a blender with all the ingredients and blend until the ice is smooth. Pour into glasses and garnish with rosemary sprigs if you’re trying to impress someone with your hostess skills.
Makes two cocktails. Or one, you lush.

3. Meyer Lemon Cardamom Syrup
yields a little less than 3 cups of syrup and keeps in the fridge for about two weeks
2 cups water
2 cups natural cane sugar (like sugar in the raw)
Peel of 1 Meyer lemon (if you can’t find Meyers I think this would still be damn good with regular, or, no lemon at all)
1 tablespoon of decorticated cardamom (this is what I used) or about 20 whole cardamom pods

Boil water, add sugar and stir until dissolved. Turn heat down and add lemon peel and cardamom, simmer for 30 minutes or more (this is one you really have to test because it depends on the cardamom you’re using). Let the syrup cool just a bit before straining the syrup into heat safe jars.

Cocktail Recipe:

Cardamom Fashioned
2 oz whiskey
1/2 oz Meyer lemon cardamom syrup
2 dashes angostura bitters
lemon or orange peel
Seltzer (optional)

Combine whiskey, Meyer lemon cardamom syrup, bitters and ice in a glass. Stir until cold. Garnish with citrus peel. Top with seltzer if it’s too strong for your taste.
Makes one cocktail

Other ideas for any of the syrups:
Add to lemonade
Drizzle on top of vanilla ice cream
Drizzle on pancakes
Pour on top of crushed iced for homemade snocones
Add to hot or iced tea
Add to champagne
Any of the syrups work beautifully with the first recipe for the earl grey syrup. My favorite cocktail to make, by far.

LA Food Swap + Simple Syrup Recipes is a post from: For Me, For You

A break from being wordless for some soup, because I said so. We’re having slightly lower temperatures, soup is the only thing Will seems to be able to eat lately, and I just got a crazzzy load of veggies from the CSA I just signed up for. I’ve made this soup a lot lately with varying ingredients, as that’s the beauty of it (and most soups), and they’re all amazing. I started with Heidi Swanson’s Big Curry Noodle Pot recipe from Super Natural Cooking and have experimented from there, and this is my final recipe that I usually use now. It’s pretty similar to Heidi’s, just more brothy as we realized that was our favorite part. The broth, oh, the broth. Plus I load mine with way more stuff.

Thai Curry Soup
makes 2-4 servings

The broth:

1/2 of a yellow onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1 Tbsp oil or butter
3 tsp red curry paste
1/2 can coconut milk
3 1/2 cups vegetable or chicken broth
1 tsp ground turmeric (note: I just use curry powder as it has turmeric in it and dang, spices are expensive and I may as well use this up.)
1/2 tsp ground ginger or fresh minced
1 Tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp brown sugar
juice of 1/2 a lime or whole, taste test how you like it.

The guts of the soup, optional ideas:

Udon or rice noodles – 4 – 6 oz or so (I guess this stuff, guys)
broccoli or broccolini
carrots
spinach
various chards
green onions
peppers
chicken
shrimp
tofu

optional garnishes:
toasted cashews
toasted peanuts
cilantro, chopped
shallots, slivered
red pepper flakes

Let’s get started. Heat oil or butter over medium heat. Add onions and garlic. Cook until onions are translucent and soft, but not brown. If you’re using fresh ginger, add now and cook for a minute. Add curry paste and stir/mash it up until its evenly incorporated and fragrant. Add coconut milk, broth, turmeric, soy sauce and sugar. Stir for a minute and then add your veggies. If you’re using spinach and/or green onions, wait until the other fillings have cooked as they only take a minute or two to cook. Simmer until cooked, then add your protein and noodles, if using. Carefully fold ingredients and cook for a minute or two longer. Add lime juice to taste and red pepper flakes if you want it to be hotter. Dish up and garnish!

Proof of aforementioned crazzzy load of veggies from the CSA I just signed up for. They gave me extra and I was like, whoooa, please stop I won’t eat all of this!

Thai Curry Soup is a post from: For Me, For You

Ask and you shall receive. So many of you emailed or commented asking for the recipe for the rosemary gin lemonade slushes that I mentioned in Bits Of My Weekend that I thought a post was in order. The idea of the recipe was inspired part by Kelly’s recipe for herby lemon cocktails and her recipes for slushes she posted this summer. I thought I’d combine the ideas and use gin instead of vodka because I’m not a fan of vodka (but I think it would still be delicious, gin is just a more versatile purchase for us.) They’re a little bit of work (well, time) if you don’t have the syrup already made, but they are so worth it.

Rosemary Lemonade Gin Slushes – makes 2
(I realized this was a more accurate title for the drink than the former)
I’m famous for guessing ingredient measurements, so don’t take these too seriously

2 cups of ice
1/2 cup of gin (this makes a STRONG drink, the way we like ‘em, but you could use less)
juice of 2 lemons (meyer lemons would be stellar for this if they were in season)
1-2oz of rosemary simple syrup, depending on how sweet you like them

Fill a blender with all the ingredients and blend, until the ice is smooth. Pour into glasses and garnish with rosemary sprig if you’re trying to impress someone with your hostess skills.

Rosemary simple syrup
makes about 1 1/2 cups (way more than you need, but you’ll have more ready for later boozing!)

1 cup water
1 cup sugar
2 sprigs of rosemary

Stir water and sugar until disolved over medium heat. Add rosemary and simmer for about 30 minutes. Remove rosemary. Let syrup cool before using. Store extra in the refrigerator.

Rosemary Lemonade Gin Slushes is a post from: For Me, For You