Laab Tuna Tod (Fried Spicy Tuna)

This is one of my most favorite Thai dishes but it's always so spicy at restaurants and so when I saw this video it was the best thing ever!  Usually it's made with pork so when the recipe used canned tuna, it was perfect since we always have cans of tuna at home.  The original recipe is from Plao Cooking, it's a Facebook page but it's mostly in Thai but the videos are so cute and easy to follow.  I didn't add all the ingredients since some ingredients I didn't like so I'll list items I did use to make these yummy fried spicy tuna dish.

Laab Tuna Tod (Fried Spicy Tuna)

2 cans canned tuna (I used Tuna chunks in spring water)

2-3 tbsp chopped red onions

1 lime

1 tbsp fish sauce

2 tbsp corn flour

2 tbsp ground toasted rice

(ingredients I left out were mint leaves and spring onions)

Another thing I add for a bit of a kick is 1 tsp of Laab Mix but if you can't find this you can just add as much chili pepper you like.

So put all these ingredients together in a bowl and then mix and shape into paddies and then fry. Serve with some jasmine rice and if you can get some seafood sauce it pairs so good!  

Sugar Cookies Success Story!!!

 Baking cookies has always been a challenge, even with the best or the world's best recipe, it usually ends with failure and lots of fish food.

Then this recipe came along and happy days!!!   Perfect from the first batch.  Cookies and icing!  I also mixed everything in a food processor and it worked out perfectly.

Kids had a fun time decorating but it was quite difficult to make them understand that frosting should not be more than the cookie itself!

Foodie Friendly

Love sharing the foodie love, here are some local Bangkok food makers and bakers that have been tried, tested and tasted!!!

Urban Pantry Personalized artisan bread and gourmet food delivery in Bangkok.  Must try their Zuni Zucchini Pickles and Cajun Pita Chips!!!

GMT Farm Fresh, delicious, clean, quality vegies.  Must try their salad dressings!!!

The Bangkok Bread Boys Yummy baked good, coffee and more.  Must try their muesli and brownies!!!
 

Pancakes....

Yes, finally a pancake recipe that actually lives up to the hype!!!  It was like some sort of sweet serendipity that I had been watching Cake Boss this past Friday evening and he was making some yummy looking pancakes!  I'm not so much of a pancake lover but my family loves them and they're easy to make in a big batch and refrigerate for the rest of the week.  

So after a bunch of literally deflated supposedly "the best" recipes, finally the Cake Boss delivered.

Fluffy Pancakes for Sure!!!

Makes around 7-8 nice sized pancakes/about 2 dozen mini pancakes (we like doing these)

  

2 1/2 cups of flour (all purpose flour)

2 BIG pinches of granulated sugar (I did about 1 to 1 1/2 tablespoons...this is really up to your sweet tooth)

4 teaspoons baking powder (the magical ingredient I believe)

Scant 1 teaspoon fine sea salt (go ahead and live life!  Put an actual teaspoon!) 

2 large eggs

4 tablespoons of butter melted and slightly cooled (yes cooled, you will be making some custard if you put it in hot or warm, I suggest melting in microwave and popping in freezer for a minute or until cool)

2 cups of milk (I will be trying a batch with rice milk and let your know)

The original recipe that I searched on the web didn't have the directions but my pancakes turned out pretty perfect so I will stick to what I did. 

Whisk the eggs in a good sized bowl and add milk, melted butter, sugar, salt, baking powder and flour, yep all in the same bowl!!  Stir until all the flour bits are gone but I still leave the batter just a little lumpy.

Take a laddle or spoon since this batter is slightly thick and drop your pancakes into a nonstick pan and do as you do in cooking pancakes!  Hope this recipe works out for you!!!! 

Valentine's Day Treats

Happy Valentine's Day!!  Just wanted to share what I did for my kids' classmates this year.  Used a basic sugar cookie recipe, supposedly the best sugar cookie recipe but I'm still searching so if you have one please share.  The cookies weren't that bad, the kids loved them but who doesn't love a cookie?  

Well I wanted to share that I used a small rubber stamp with the word "LOVE" to stamp the cookies and it worked out actually nice.  Will have to try some other stamps and share how they turned out again!  Also, food coloring, LOVE Wilton's food coloring gel, totally recommend for any baking treats.  It doesn't stain and the colors really are very rich.

 ***  Please ignore the burnt looking ones, they were from the first batch! 

Cool Finds: Sprinkles at Top's

Was at Top's Supermarket the other day and saw these sprinkles, 

were also priced really good too.

Easter Craft: Salt Dough Egg Magnet

I wanted an egg painting craft but didn't want to do eggs eggs since I wouldn't know what to do with two dozen boiled eggs.  I also wanted a craft that the kids can take home and keep as a memento.  So I thought of salt dough egg magnets that the kids can paint and I would modpodge and glue a magnet on.  

It was a big hit, not just the kiddies but also the mommies!  Only thing I wished I had used pastel colors but they still look cool!  Best of all, it was really easy to prep.  I used this dough recipe from Busy Bee Kids Crafts but you can also take a look at this old post I did too for more details.  The salt dough recipes are a bit different and I can't really decide yet which one I like but the one from Busy Bee Kids Crafts was easier to dry and bake.  Maybe it's the high salt content?  Well all you do is roll the dough out flat to less than a quarter of an inch thickness and use any oval/circle cookie cutter to cut out and then mould to egg shape.  I used a small glass since my cookie cutters were too big.  Then I let them air dry over night (this also cuz I did them last minute late at night and so I was lazy didn't want to bake them right then) and then in the morning put them in the oven for about 20 minutes at the lowest temp.  It will still need to air dry after painting them since they do soften up again.  Also, we used acrylic paints to paint the eggs, will post a pic of the magnet once finished!

Thainie Tip: Easy Cheap iPad Wrap

Wanted to share this tip for those that might use their iPad in the kitchen.  I was following a recipe from Pinterest (again) but flour and other seasonings were attacking my iPad and so I thought about plastic wrap.  Oh holy kitchen gods!!!!  It actually works with the plastic wrap on!!!  Also helps if you have greasy hands but need to scroll the recipe.  Might consider wrapping it permanently for my kids! 

Thainie Treats: Easter Egg Cakes

One more Easter tutorial for a quick and easy treat for the kids to decorate and get hyper from!  This came about only because I'm honestly scared of boiling eggs.  I just cannot ever get it right, so I chickened out and thought of making cake in the shape of eggs and also getting a chance to try my hand at making fondant (have been watching a little too much Cake Boss lately and was inspired).  So I searched making fondant on the web and it turns out it's not that hard.  Here's the recipe I used for making marshmallow fondant.   And here's the step by step:

- Start with the egg,  this you can make by baking any cake if you have time or I just bought some S&P butter cake (sort of like Sara Lee but this is cheaper, it was 2 for 1 and it taste just the same)

- Empty the cakes into a big bowl and mush with a potato masher until crumbly

- Use a couple spoons of icing to bind and make it easier to shape/mold

-  Shape cake into egg shapes (turns out the butter cake was really easy to shape and mold) and when you finish making your egg cakes, put them in the fridge 

- If you've made your fondant already, you can take it out, I like to use a cutting board wrapped in plastic wrap for easy clean up, put a little powdered sugar on board and place the amount of fondant you need and roll flat

- Wrap your egg cakes up --sorta like wontons--- this was my first time but I found the fondant really easy to work with just as long as you keep powdering them with powdered sugar

- And hopefully you get egg-looking cakes!  You can either mix your own paints by using food coloring and powdered sugar, pretty much all experimental since I'm not really sure how the end product will look like but another decorating alternative is adding sprinkles or colored icing?   This is definitely a sugar overload treat, so maybe once the egg cakes are done, note to myself...don't give the whole egg for them to eat all at once!

So now just have to see if the kiddies like them?!  Will post finished decorated eggs, stay tuned!