Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Mission Declutter..

Tonight I will try to declutter the way I have been reading to do. They suggest that you take everything out of the room and put into a couple piles. Throw away, give away and stay piles...

I am hoping that this will help me really look at everything and see if i can make our place more organized. So I am going to work on my closet first in the master bedroom. This is the smallest space plus i can do this and watch tv at the same time.. (or at least when i am outside of the closet i can hear when i am in there.) no matter how often i clean this area it doesn't look cleaned out. i wonder if it has to do with the fact that i share with M too.

So mission declutter is to make it so that i can clean out our home and organize. also to stage our place to look a lot nicer and sell-able.

Monday, February 08, 2010

Recipe: Tom Yum

Must attempt to make this year..

Recipe: Tom Yum (Tom Yum Goong)

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups shrimp stock
10-12 shrimp or 8 oz (head-on and shell-on but chop the eyes part off. Devein if you wish)
3 tablespoons lime juice
6 bird’s eyes chilies (pounded)
3 slices galangal
6 kaffir lime leaves (bruised)
2 tablespoons nam prik pao (Thai roasted chili paste)
2 teaspoons fish sauce or to taste
1 stalk lemongrass (use the white part only, pounded with a cleaver)
6 canned straw mushrooms / fresh oyster mushrooms / fresh or canned button mushrooms

Method:

In a pot, bring 3 cups of water to boil. Then add a big handful of shrimp/prawn heads. Boil the shrimp head until the water turns slightly orange in color. Press the shrimp heads with spatula to extract the “goodies” from their heads. Let the stock reduce to slightly more than 2 1/2 cups. Drain the shrimp stock and discard the shrimp heads.

Add lemongrass, galangal, kaffir lime leaves, bird’s eye chilies, mushrooms, nam prik bao to the shrimp stock and bring it to boil. Add in the shrimp and fish sauce. Lastly, add the lime juice (if you add lime juice too early, the soup might turn bitter). Boil until the shrimps are cooked, dish out and serve hot.

Cook’s Note:

You can use also chicken, a combination of chicken plus shrimp, or seafood combination (shrimp, squid, scallops, green-lipped mussels) for tom yum soup. It’s really up to you, but the most popular tom yum is tom yum goong, goong means prawns.

Thanks to: