Tomato Basil Soup

Another recipe where I combined two versions I found through Pinterest, and although it is summer and very hot, I made another soup for dinner. I never liked tomato basil until after college. I don't know why, but now I'll even crave it. 

This was very easy to make, so I'm glad I finally gave it a try. The first recipe I gathered ideas from was a La Madaline's copy cat and the second was from Ina Garten. Serves about 4-5. 

Ingredients:

1/2 onion diced

4 cloves garlic

Little bit of oil

4 cups diced roasted tomatoes 

About 3 tbps tomato paste 

3 cups chicken stock 

A bunch of basil (I didn't measure but other recipes say around 1/4 cup or 12 leaves)

1 cup heavy cream

1/2 stick butter 

Salt/pepper

Toppings: basil, mozzarella, croutons 

Directions: 

1) sauté diced onions in a little bit of oil in a pot, after they start to become translucent, add about 4 cloves of minced garlic and cook for about a min

2) add roasted diced tomatoes, tomato paste and chicken stock- let simmer for about 30 mins or so

3) turn off heat, add chopped basil and then use immersion blender to smooth everything out 

4) add heavy cream and butter, add salt and pepper to taste, stir over low heat until ready to serve (or turn off and put a lid on)

5) laddle into bowls, top with chopped basil, mozzarella cheese, and croutons if you want. 

Goes great with a grilled cheese or in our case, prosciutto and spinach grilled cheese. Enjoy! 

Wrapping up July & My Birthday

Other happenings in July:
1) met up with Belem again for another coffee date and then had her take my photo in front of a fun mural on the side of a gelato shop in the heights called Gelazzi. All the flavors are really good, and I'll have to go back to try their other pastries.
2) Ian turned 1! Kim and Dan had a cute donut birthday for him. I had no idea donut balloons existed, but they do, and are very cute.
3) Lindsey & Ryan have moved back from Australia and met up with us and the Smullens at D&T for their crab and shrimp boil. This was a photo meant for Brian, who was suppose to be in town, but then switched his shifts and couldn't come.
4) To end July, Claudia, Millie, and I celebrated National Cheesecake Day at the Cheesecake Factory with chocolate mousse cheesecake.

There were many different ideas for celebrating turning 30 this year. In the end, I didn't really plan anything and still had a great birthday. Ryan and I have taken a few trips this year and are trying to plan another one, so I've sort of considered those trips as our birthday celebrations. Other than the trips, I celebrated my birthday over a few days with different people, just by chance. Marisa and Kim came over the Monday before and brought yummy birthday cupcakes from Treats; Claudia met me for lunch and we went to have Japanese bbq another day; Ryan bought me some kouign amanns from Common Bond, that I have been wanting since I had my first one in Seattle; my family met us in Bellaire for a Vietnamese seafood feast including clams, lobster, and dungeness crab another day; Ryan brought me some pretty flowers; Ryan's parents met us at the Museum of Fine Arts another night since I wanted to check out some exhibits and took us to dinner; and I received some awesome surprises in the mail that I didn't expect. Thank you everyone who celebrated my birthday with me and for all the birthday wishes. So thankful to be surrounded by my wonderful family and friends.

Fredericksburg

I keep forgetting to post about Fredericksburg! Before this summer, I had never been there. In July, we went with Ryan's family for Kristen & Zach's wedding and then, the very first weekend of August, I went again for a girl's weekend with some friends from Baylor.

In July, Ryan's parents rented a ranch within 10 miles of Main Street. Most of us arrived Thursday after a visit to Salt Lick (it is on the way, how could we not stop?). Since Ryan and I arrived late that evening, we missed the chance to feed the longhorns on the property. Ryan saw a few when he took Lily out early the next morning. The ranch also had deer, llamas, peacocks, and very loud peahens. I never knew peahens sounded like that, but they sound like a woman shrieking for help. The ranch also had a wrap around porch, which was so peaceful to just sit outside in a rocking chair and not do a single thing. Friday, we went to Real Ale Brewery in Blanco and then to Kristen and Zach's pretty wedding at Marquardt Ranch. The weather turned out really beautiful that weekend. Saturday morning, we climbed Enchanted Rock, had a buffet breakfast, the Toals came up to join us, went to some vineyards, and played games I had never heard of. Sunday, on the way home, Ryan and I stopped by Jester King Brewery, which he now claims is his favorite brewery to visit in Texas. Ryan's mother wrote a better post about our trip, so feel free to check out her blog here.

In August, just two weeks later, I went to join some gra(n)dgirls for the weekend. We each live in different areas of Texas so it was nice to get together and catch up again. Rachel couldn't join us this time, but we missed her! We spent the weekend mainly just hanging out in the screened in porch, playing jumbo sequence and enjoying another random nice weather weekend this summer. Katie rented a house about a mile from Main Street, so it was nice to be close to shops, but just far away enough to be nice and quiet. I love spending time with these girls and so thankful we were able to catch up.

Fredericksburg was such a nice town for a weekend get away. It had lots of little shops and restaurants in town, breweries on the way, vineyards as you come in, fresh peach stands, and lots of ranches or houses to rent. Thank you Newmans and the gra(n)dgirls for two great weekends. I already miss the random beautiful weather we had, the wrap around porch with rocking chairs, the view, the screened in porch and actually being able to see more than maybe 10 stars at night.

Tom Kha Gai

I know I still need to post about my trips to Fredericksburg (I was just up there again this past weekend for a girl's weekend), but I am going to post this recipe instead. I combined two recipes I found through pinterest and really liked how it turned out, so I need this to remember what I did.

One of my favorite Thai soups is Tom Kha Gai. Asia Market makes my favorite that I have tried. The one I made ended up being more like the tom kha you'd find at Vieng Thai, but it was still very good. I combined the recipes from An Urban Cottage and from RasaMalasia. I primarily followed RasaMalasia's recipe more than the Urban Cottage, but with some tweaks. I couldn't find any kaffir lime leaves, which would have made this even better, or the thai chili paste, but Ryan added some chili garlic sauce to his bowl and liked the subtle spice to the soup.

Ingredients:
6 cups of chicken broth
6 slices of galangal
1 stalk of lemon grass (cut into about 3" pieces and bruised)
3-6 kaffir lime leaves (since I didn't have any, I added the zest of the limes I was going to squeeze into the soup later)
2 thai chilies (I took the seeds out)
1 tablespoon palm sugar
6 chicken tenderloins (cubed)
1 can of straw mushrooms (drained-I think mine was around 14 oz)
1 1/2 can of coconut milk
juice of 2 limes (more if you want)
around 4 tablespoons fish sauce
cilantro (topping)
lime wedges (topping)
chili paste or chili garlic sauce (add to individual bowls according to spice levels)

Directions:
1) bring chicken broth, slices of galangal, bruised lemon grass, kaffir leaves (or zest in my case) and chilies to a boil for about 30 minutes.
2) stir in the palm sugar and make sure it dissolves (if towards the end of the recipe, you find that it is too sour, you can add more palm sugar).
3) add cubed or sliced chicken until cooked through
4) add mushrooms and stir/let cook for 1-2 minutes
5) add coconut milk and stir/let cook for about 2 minutes
6) turn off and add lime juice and fish sauce
7) I like to eat mine over rice, but with lots of the broth. Laddle into bowls, over rice if you want, add cilantro, extra lime if you want, and stir in as much chili paste/sauce you'd like.

I made this when Marisa and Kim came over for dinner Monday night. Sometimes we order take out from Asia Market, but because they were closed, I tried to recreate it instead. We had edamame, pad see ew, thai tea (that did not turn out) and tom kha gai. For the pad see ew recipe, you can find that recipe from Rachel Cooks Thai. Our normal changes to the pad see ew recipe: baby broccoli or broccolini instead of Chinese broccoli and rice wine vinegar instead of white vinegar.