Spicy Thai Coconut Chicken Soup

I was so hungry the night I made this soup that I simply could not stop to take a picture of it. The next day, I pulled out the leftovers to take a picture and it looked way too close to vomit to post on here, so here is a fancier, professional photo of the recipe I was so excited to eat.

This was actually a pretty fun soup to make - I loved using ingredients like lemongrass and coconut milk, which I don't often use. I made it on a cold, damp day (aren't they all, though?) and it was warm and comforting and just spicy enough to be a little more challenging on your palate than a plain old soup.

I would definitely recommend the recipe to anyone who likes spice and coconut and thai flavors. It could be a pretty easy and quick weeknight meal, I would just recommend cooking and shredding the chicken beforehand.

Spicy Thai Coconut Chicken Soup (from Cooking Light)


2 teaspoons canola oil

• (1 cup sliced mushrooms - I didn't use mushrooms because they're disgusting, but you're free to)
• 1/2 cup chopped red bell pepper
• 4 teaspoons minced peeled fresh ginger
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 (3-inch) stalk lemongrass, halved lengthwise
• 2 teaspoons sambal oelek (ground fresh chile paste)
• 3 cups chicken stock or fat free, lower-sodium chicken broth
• 1 1/4 cups light coconut milk
• 4 teaspoons fish sauce
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 cups shredded cooked chicken breast (about 8 ounces)
• 1/2 cup green onion strips
• 3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
• 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• 
  
• Heat a Dutch oven (I used a large pot) over medium heat. Add oil to pan; swirl to coat. Add mushrooms and the next 4 ingredients (through lemongrass); cook 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add chile paste; cook 1 minute. Add Chicken Stock, coconut milk, fish sauce, and sugar; bring to a simmer. Reduce heat to low; simmer for 10 minutes. Add chicken to pan; cook 1 minute or until thoroughly heated. Discard lemongrass. Top with onions, cilantro, and juice.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

After a winter of reading lighter novels and memoirs, my literature major alarm went off, and a little guilty part of my conscience started screeching "Read a classic! Read something with substance!" So, I pulled a book off my shelf that I've been meaning to get to for some time, Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, and dove in. This is not to say that Wuthering Heights is the greatest capital-L Literature ever (not that I really care about these sorts of things too much), but it's a classic and something I felt compelled to read at least once in my life. So, I did. And now I feel sated.

Now, I think when most people think of Wuthering Heights they picture this: Heathcliffe looking crazy and dirty standing on the moors yelling "Kathy!" and Kathy standing on the moors looking mostly clean and proper yelling "Heathcliffe!"And maybe most people will also think of how Kathy and Heathcliffe are connected in their very soul and that is why their love is such a big deal blah blah blah. And this is definitely half of the story. The other half of the story is that KATHY AND HEATHCLIFFE ARE AWFUL AND EVIL AND TOTALLY F-ED UP AND NO ONE SHOULD WANT TO HAVE LOVE LIKE THEM. I mean REALLY.

Heathcliffe, right before running off with his future wife, HANGS HER KITTEN using his handkerchief. Kathy spends the majority of the novel being mean and holier-than-thou to everyone in her whole life, treating people as if they are dirt and only exist to please her. And they torture each other! Even after one of them has died! It's just awful! I kept thinking throughout the whole thing - how did this novel come to be a part of our cultural conversation when it comes to love? This is not love, this is self-centered torture.

Going off of that for a moment, can we please acknowledge how weird it is that Stephanie Meyers supposedly structured the second book in the Twilight series around showing how her hero and heroine are connected like Kathy and Heathcliffe were to each other? As is that is a good thing? Dear Stephanie Meyers, can you read? And if so, why would you ever reference this novel that is so clearly not about good love in trying to promote the worth and value of Bella and Edward's relationship? Were you trying to make your readers contemplate the self destructive and negative aspects of their relationship? I think not, given that I cannot imagine you trying to speak to your readers on a deeper level given that you struggle so much on just the surface level of your narrative. But maybe the love trainwreck that is Wuthering Heights actually fits the love trainwreck that is Twilight more than you could have predicted? ... Okay, rant over.

All that being said, I actually quite enjoyed reading Wuthering Heights. Although the main characters are awful, it's an interesting and compelling narrative that spans 30+ years, using a frame tale that consists primarily of a nurse retelling Heathcliffe's story to a new tenant of his, long after Kathy dies and things have gotten screwed up with the following generation. The framing gets a little silly and exhausting at times, as there are times when the present day gets mentioned with no purpose aside from just reminding the reader that they're getting told a story, but I enjoyed the nurse's voice and was glad she was my main point of contact with the story, as she is maybe the only likable character in the whole novel.

I'm not sure I'll ever go back to Wuthering Heights, but I'm glad that I read it, and I feel much more in the know surrounding many cultural references that stem from novel. It was an interesting deconstruction of the traditional love story, and I'd recommend if you're into the classics, and up for a slow march through 30+ years of dysfunction and revenge.

Simple Frozen Chocolate Banana "Ice Cream"

A short, simple recipe post:

I found this idea via Pinterest. Take one frozen banana, blend with 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder — then eat! This simple dessert or snack is a great alternative to ice cream for a sweet tooth like me. I would recommend adding a few ice cubes to the mixture in order to cut some of the stickyness that comes from the major textural component being bananas which soften up during the blending process even though they're frozen. Takes just a couple minutes, and is healthy and tasty!

The Most Amazing Ron Weasley-Inspired Meat Pie

This is the most fatty and the most amazing meat pie ever. I mean really. It has ground beef, sweet Italian sausage, pepperoni, and bacon (and technically ham although I took it out in my version because ham is gross). Yes, this is real life. Spoon Fork Bacon is a really wonderful food blog that I've started following since finding this meat pie on Pinterest and pretty much falling in love. You should probably take a look, as they post really tasty and beautiful looking recipes.

Probably the best thing about making this pie (aside from eating it, because let me tell you - that was downright wonderful) was that the morning I was prepping to make it, I called my mom and told her about it. She then proceeded to say "I want to make a meat pie too!" and had me send her the recipe so we could make the same savory pie at the same time two states away. So, in far Northern California, my mom made a full size "Ron Weasley's Everything But The Kitchen Sink Pie," for her and my dad to enjoy, and I made six mini pies in Washington state for me and the boyfriend. We all enjoyed the pies immensely, and if they weren't so fatty, I would make them all the time.

If you're a meat enthusiast, I would definitely take a stab at this recipe, found here. It was hearty and warm and comforting, like the best possible winter recipe. I'm sure even Ron Weasley would be sated by a couple of these little pies.

[Also, a note on the pictures: I took them on my iPhone, and then it proceeded to die after I dropped it on the floor, making it so I could turn it on but not actually transfer anything to my computer. So, these pictures are actually photos of the screen of my old iPhone showing the image. This type of picture will continue for the next few recipe posts.]


In other news, I was sick for about two weeks straight and have thus been a sedentary bump on a log. But before that, I did some good exercising, adding a couple hours of hiking and a few hours of gym time.

Stuffed Chicken Breasts and Parmesan and Roasted Garlic Couscous

Okay, so I said I'd be back and then I wasn't. But now I am again! And here comes the backlog of recipes....

I made these two recipes back in January, one very good and one really mediocre. The first one is a Stuffed Chicken Creast with Crosciutto and Goat Cheese from an old Reader's Digest cookbook that my mother gave me around the time I graduated college, and it was totally delicious. It was simple and easy, yet seemed really classy and impressive as a dish. Also, if you love goat cheese and prosciutto (and really, who doesn't?), you'll love this. I'd definitely giving this recipe a try, I've included it below.

The second recipe I made that evening was Parmesan Couscous with Roasted Garlic, Toasted Pine Nuts, and Caramelized Onions. This recipe was almost like the opposite of the first. It was not particularly simple, as you had to roast garlic, toast pine nuts, and caramelize onions all for a side dish that was quite underwhelming. The title made it sound so promising, but I was ultimately let down and thought it lacked a lot of flavor, especially given that it so many ingredients. It was fine, but I bet there are better ways to prepare a couscous side dish. If you're still interested, the recipe was found here.

Baked Chicken Breasts Stuffed with Prosciutto and Goat Cheese 

(from Reader's Digest's Kitchen Secrets)

4 Skinned and boned chicken breast halves

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

4 ounces fresh creamy goat cheese

2 ounces prosciutto or ham, coarsely chopped

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees  F. Pound chicken between sheets of plastic wrap until 1/4-inch thick. Season on both sides with salt and pepper.

In a small bowl, blend cheese and prosciutto and spread 3 tablespoons on each breast. Starting at a short end, roll up and secure with toothpicks.

Arrange chicken rolls, seam side down, in a buttered 8" x 8" x 2" ovenproof glass baking dish and bake, uncovered, until chicken is cooked through — 25 to 30 minutes.

Remove toothpicks and slice diagonally at 1/2-inch intervals. Pour pan juices over chicken and serve immediately.

Daughters of the Revolution by Carolyn Cooke

I feel very conflicted about this book. There were things about it that I loved, but just as many (if not more) things that I hated. Daughters of the Revolution was the second book I read for my book club this year (the first was A Cook's Tour), and every person in the book club hated it. In fact, everyone (except for me) actually stopped reading it at one point or another because they were just so over it, and so unwilling to waste their time finishing it. And I do understand why.

The first, and most obvious, problem with this book is that it has the worst synopsis in the history of the world. The description on the dust jacket makes it sound as though the story revolves around a character (Carole Faust, a young black woman who is admitted to an adamantly all-boys school through a clerical error) who is mentioned in about 20 of the 173 pages. It is like the publisher sent a sample chapter of this novel to the description author, and they formulated the whole description around that one 10 page chapter. If I were Carolynn Cooke, I would be furious, because the description is really a horrible representation of the novel (it doesn't even mention the two main characters!). This discrepancy was maybe the biggest problem, especially with the women in my book club, because the synopsis makes it sound like the book is really about what it means to be the first girl let into an all male school, along with gender/race politics in the late 60's and 70's. This is what the women in my book club wanted, and it is not what they got.

Daughters of the Revolution reads more like a collection of short stories circling around a set of central set of characters than a novel. The vignettes jump around in time, beginning in 1963 with the death Heck Hellman (who is husband and father to our two main characters, Mei-Mei and EV, respectively), and ending in 2005 with the death of Goddard (God) Byrd, the former headmaster of the Goode school, which Heck attended (if you can't tell, the names are symbolic in the least subtle way). Cooke's only published work outside of journals before DotR was a collection of short stories, so it makes sense that the novel takes this form.

What I did enjoy about this novel was Cooke's writing. The imagery was beautiful, and Cooke is clearly a gifted writer technically. During the portions of the novel that I enjoyed, her prose was able to transport me to a place and feeling outside of myself. Much of the novel seemed almost in a slightly surreal, dream-like state, as the chapters are narrated by different characters and the reader is forced to view the world through their somewhat distorted lenses. There were flashes of excellence, but those are not what stick in my mind.

What I did not enjoy was that the narrative did not sit together well enough, or accomplish what it seemed to want to. Now, I often like narratives split up temporally or with different narrators, so it's not that that bothered me. What ultimately bothered me was that I didn't feel like Cooke accomplished a novel that made these different times and different narrators come together as a whole. There were beautiful moments, and I could definitely see what she was hinting at and trying to get to, but I don't think that this novel ever really pulled it together. Also, there was a lot of sex and sexuality in this novel - group sex, sex with tweens, moms sleeping with their daughters' boyfriends, and more. Sexuality doesn't bother me in art as long as I can see what purpose it serves, but I just couldn't see a way in which all the sex really added to the novel. Mostly, it was just the outlet of the totally screwed up, main characters, who I never really liked. It's fine that they're screwed up, I just didn't feel like the novel actually explored the roots and effects of this dysfunction in a satisfying way. It all just seemed a little shallow to me, and I really thought there was a potential for depth, which is maybe the most upsetting thing.

So, obviously, I have a lot of feelings about this book, but I'll shut up about it now. Ultimately, I probably wouldn't recommend it unless you want to wallow in the disjointed dysfunctional sexuality of unlikeable characters for 173 pages. Which you might. I'll leave you with a quote, which is fairly representative of some of the things I didn't like about the novel: "If Pilgrim had looked up, he would have seen that EV's face expressed no particular joy or tenderness at the sight of him; she wanted more. At least I hoped she did. (I'd tried to raise a greedy, lusty girl—which EV so defiantly was, especially as a child.)"

Whoops. And I'm back.

Okay, that was a bit of a bump in my road to becoming a good blogger. For some reason I have just been the most lethargic person on the planet for the last couple weeks (meaning I pass out around 9:30 - 10 on my couch every night and don't end up even doing my laundry or washing my dishes, let alone actually blogging). This was all exacerbated by the 9 day weekend I had in late January (snow shuts down my workplace and my motivation to exercise or really do anything that isn't drinking mimosas and watching How I Met Your Mother). Also, my mom visited during the last weekend in January, so I was busy then and am now busier consistently since she brought my PUPPY (read: small but fully grown dog) to live with me! Which is just great and fantastic, but adds another thing to the list of stuff I'm more likely to pay attention to than my blog.

But ultimately, these are all just excuses. And now I'm back, attempting to get back onto track. Just because I wasn't posting doesn't mean I wasn't doing things, though! Currently on my blog to do list I have one book (soon to be two), two crafts, and eleven recipes, so these should all be (hopefully) coming out in the next couple days.

Today, though, I'll update on the exercise. Things have been a little shaky as I've fluctuated from going to the gym 4+ times per week to walking around as my only exercise all week (hello, snow week). I didn't keep great track of what I've done over the past few weeks, but I'm going to estimate that I did about 14 hours of exercise, ranging from trudging uphill in the snow to jogging at the Y while watching Toddlers and Tiaras (I know, it's awful).

So, here's to a fresh start on my new beginning, and get ready for a bunch of posts in the next couple days!