Books Books Books: Simple Thai Food by Leela Punyaratabandhu

I'm finally getting back into the book reviewing! I'm excited and hopefully you are too! Here goes my first book review back from my time off. :P

When I was in high school, we had a foreign exchange student come and visit from Thailand. Until then, I had never really been exposed to the Thai culture, all I knew was they had elephants and spicy food. My foreign exchange brother, as my sister and I called him, had a dream of someday opening his own restaurant, which of course led to him cooking for us once or twice. He also found a delicious restaurant in Milwaukee where we ended up going several times throughout his stay that served authentic Thai food. I think it was at that point that I fell in love with Thai cuisine. Nearly eight years later, this cookbook has fully renewed that love for Thai food.

Leela Punyaratabandhu has done an amazing job with bringing out the beauty and subtle complexity that Thai food offers. As soon as I opened the book, I was struck by the colorful pictures and ended up paging through the book first just to see the bright colors of the food that I could not wait to cook in my own kitchen. Her descriptions of each dish at the start were funny and felt homey at the same time, with a friendly voice to the narrations and optional American alternatives that make each dish more available to those of us unable to order completely authentic ingredients.

As with many different authentic cuisine books, some of the ingredients were a bit more on the pricy side, so for people on a limited budget it is a bit more difficult. It also is not a cookbook that is friendly towards certain dietary restrictions, just as a forewarning. Another thought to be noted is that this cookbook is not for those looking for a quick meal; the recipes are complicated and require several ingredients that most households would not normally have in order to attain the unique Thai flavors. However, the aroma that filled my apartment as I tried my hand at Leela's recipes is one that will bring your friends and neighbors knocking to try a taste.

I hope that you get the opportunity to try out some of these recipes, which I will be posting a few of my own vegetarian alterations as well as possibly some chicken recipes as soon as I get my act together.

Love,
Sara :)

I received this book for free from Blogging for Books for this review.

Spicy Thai Noodles

It's been a while since I've had the time to sit down and make a meal. Since moving, my apartment mate, Morgan, and I have found ourselves in a bit of a conundrum. We have quite different work schedules which lead her to leave the apartment by 6:45am and get back after school gets out, but due to her early morning she is in bed pretty early (by my standards). I, on the other hand, get done with work much later and by the time I get home Morgan is getting ready for bed. Suffice to say, we hardly ever eat dinner together.

However, this month we are home together for dinner two nights during the week, which is awesome! This lead us to think about making food, which is something that I enjoy doing (when time permits) and she enjoys as well. So, what did we do this past Tuesday night? Wine and cooking! It was great!

We found this recipe on Pinterest (as do so many people) and connected to a clog called A Small Snippet. It's pretty cool, and we used this recipe with a few adjustments of our own, so enjoy!

Ingredients:
1 box linguine pasta (we used whole grain cause it's yummy)
1 tbsp. crushed red pepper flakes (unless you are actually Thai, I would not recommend adding more than that, it's quite spicy!)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup sesame oil
6 tbsp. honey
6 tbsp. soy sauce
toppings (we used carrots, but couldn't find peanuts at our grocery store...fail)

Directions:
1. Cook noodles according to directions until al dente. Drain.
2. Heat both oils and crushed red pepper over medium heat un a small pan for about 2 minutes. During this time the red pepper will infuse into your oil mixture making it hotter. After, make sure to strain out the red pepper flakes, you can leave a few more in if you want some extra heat, but that's kinda crazy.
3. Into your oil mixture, whisk in your honey and soy sauce.
4. Toss mixture together with the noodles and refrigerate.
5. Slice up your carrot or peanuts or whatever topping(s) you have chosen.

They will keep for a few days, you can eat them cold or warm, and serve with milk and enjoy!

I had to add in a picture with our glasses because I think they are super fun and cute with the polka dots :)

What did you guys think? Worth trying? I think for sure! What types of food should we try next?
Also, as a hint, red wine does not really go with spicy food, so make sure to have milk with these noodles to help with the spicy-ness.

Love,
Sara :)