Mellys Kickass Thai Soup!

Today i fancied a Thai flavoured soup so i made one up!
I used these ingredients but as with any soup you can adjust the amounts according to your taste
2 chicken stock cubes
2 heaped tea spoons of chopped garlic
2 heaped teaspoons of fresh grated ginger
1 onion chopped finely
lots of fresh chopped mushrooms
a handful of dried mushrooms - soaked for 30 minutes in a jug of boiled water from the kettle i used about a litre to add with the soup later
2 carrots - i used 3 small ones chopped into batons
1 tablespoon Thai fish sauce
few drops of lemon juice
bunch of fresh coriander chopped
1 dried lemon-grass stick (or a 2 teaspoons of fresh if you prefer)
1/2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tbsp sesame oil
1 pack of creamed coconut (or you can use canned coconut milk)
and a tiny bit of Thai green curry paste... the stuff i use is so spicy i divided it up into ice cube trays to freeze, i used about half a portion

this soup is all down to taste and whatever you have available i had a lot of mushrooms and not much else, but this soup was very tasty you can make this soup up using anything really just change the quantities of liquid if you want to make more :)

heat both types of oil in a saucepan then add the onions stir and let cook on a low-medium heat depending on how much of a rush you are! until they are soft ( i like my onions cooked slowly on a low heat but that's just my preference) then add the carrots and the chopped mushrooms and stir i tend to turn the heat up at this point to help the carrots along the way after a minute or so i added in the garlic and ginger just after the carrots to prevent them from burning or over cooking.

I then added the dried mushrooms along with the litre of water they had been soaking in i think this adds depth to the flavour of the soup i then add two crumbled up stock cubes into the saucepan stir this all together and then add the fish sauce and lemon juice and the coconut and stir again i then added the Thai curry paste and let simmer until the veg was soft i then added chopped coriander (a lot of it!) at the final moment of cooking

The result is one huge saucepan of kick ass Thai soup very tasty pretty healthy and uses ingredients that i pretty have in the store cupboard i do cheat i use jars or garlic ginger and lemon-grass when i have it
i probably added a bit more boiled water to the soup as i do like to make lots but you can do that according to taste and how much veg you have used.

Christmas Baking!

The last few weeks have been busy for me amidst learning to drive I've been getting into the Christmas spirit and decorating the tree and baking some Christmas treats

I have baked during  my days off ...
party cheese twists
peppermint creams
sausage rolls
Parmesan and Gruyère Allumettes

I also squeezed in some festive photography cos i know my blog is lacking photographs and I've been slack at updating it so i shall be adding more photographs :)