Food Minia

Usually when I get an avocado in my Boston Organics delivery, I just hope that I'll be able to figure out how to use it before it gets overripe.  But this time I knew exactly what to do with it; I was going to attempt an avocado rose!  I had first discovered these a few weeks ago thanks to a post on Food52 on the trend taking over Instagram. To make one, slice an avocado in half.  You want a ripe avocado, but not one that is so soft it'll be hard to manipulate without smushing. Remove the pit, then carefully peel away the skin.  See that little bit of flesh left on the skin below?  It ended up being the only blemish on my rose.  =( Place on half cut side down on a cutting board and slice the avocado thinly.  It helps to use a paring knife since it has less surface area to stick to the avocado than a chef's knife (which I found out the hard way). Start shifting the slices diagonally. Try to make as long of a chain as you can make without breaking it. ...

I got to go to Bangkok for a meeting last week and went a day early so I could explore the city a bit on my own first.  Besides visiting the temples, enjoying the view and drinks at Sky Bar, shopping at Siam Paragon, and getting massages for 270 baht ($7.50!) an hour, I also took a cooking class at the Silom Thai Cooking School .  I chose a Sunday morning class because I liked the proposed menu:  tom yum soup, green papaya salad, pad thai, massaman curry, and mango sticky rice . The class was very well organized;  first we took a bus to a wet market to pick up the ingredients and then we walked to the classroom which had three different sections:  one for food prep, one for cooking, and one for eating.  Most of the ingredients that we used were already pre-measured for us, so there was only a minimum of chopping and stir frying but enough that we felt like we were actually cooking!  We also got a go at the enormous mortar and pestle to make the papaya ...

Arguably the most famous Thai dish of them all, Pad Thai is a favourite in both Thailand and abroad. Its ribbons of rice noodles that are stir fried with soy sauce, egg, vegetables and meat. Typically, this is a dish that is sold by street vendors or in pad thai shops. This particular version uses chicken but this can easily be substituted with prawns, tofu or pork. The dish is usually made with 'pad thai' tofu which is hard tofu that is coloured bright yellow on the outside with tumeric. Peanuts and mung beans are add a delicious depth to the flavour of the pad thai and also provide extra nutrients and are high in vitamins too. Cooking Time - 10 minutes Preparation time - 10 minutes Serves 2 Ingredients 2 Tbsp vegetable oil 1 Tbsp fish sauce 1 tsp soy sauce 1 tsp sugar 150g chicken 2 garlic cloves 2 small red chilli's (optional) 100g rice noodles 1 egg 1 small carrot 1 lime small handful mung beans 1 Tbsp crushed peanuts 3 – 4 garlic chives 1 – 2 shallots 1 piece choy su...