peanut butter pok pok

One of my favorite things is being crafty. There’s just something so satisfying in making something yourself even when you could just buy it. Usually my craftiness takes form in hand-making gifts or Halloween costumes, but occasionally I try my hand at getting crafty in the kitchen! My latest venture was home-made peanut butter!

So in Thailand, peanut butter isn’t really a thing. And I’m really not one of those huge peanut butter fanatics but since french toast is super easy to make here and bananas are abundant, I realized all I needed was some peanut butter to create perfection. But peanut butter, like I said, is really not a thing here. The closest place I found any was still a drive away (difficult for PCVs since we aren’t allowed to drive) and it was only a tiny jar and relatively super expensive. And this is why my counterpart and I decided to make our own peanut butter!! (**I really have the best counterpart. She’s always down for anything!)

So I don’t really have a recipe to share.. we just kind of winged it. But here’s what we used:

• peanuts
• liquid sugar (next time maybe use honey)
• salt
• oil

If you have a food processor, use it! If not (we did not) then try a blender. Our blender was not exactly helpful, so we mostly used a mortar and pestle (pok pok!!) to get the job done. And it kind of worked!! It’s just really chunky.. That’s a thing though, right? Anyways, it’s still delicious.

blender not accomplishing much..

pok pok

PB&B french toast

breakfast of champions

soup’s up

It’s been a while since I’ve tried a new recipe, but I figured it’s about time I test out my Thai cooking skills since I’ll be living there in a few weeks.  So I decided to try my hand at tom kha gai. It’s a tangy/spicy coconut soup! I think it’s usually made with chicken, but I altered the recipe to make it vegetarian. Here’s the recipe I followed.

Ingredients:

1 1″ piece ginger, peeled

2 stalks fresh lemon grass, tough outer layers removed

1 tbsp lime zest

1/4 cup lime juice

6 cups vegetable broth

1 package extra firm tofu

8 oz assorted mushrooms, cut into bite-size pieces

1 13.5 oz can coconut milk

2 tbsp fish sauce (or more to taste)

1 tsp sugar

chili oil, cilantro leaves (individual servings, to taste)

Preparation:

Cut lemon grass stalks into approximately 3″ segments. Peel ginger. Smash both lemon grass and ginger with the back of a knife. Toss lemon grass and ginger into a pot with your lime zest and juice and the vegetable broth. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 9 minutes. Strain out the solids from your broth and put the broth back in the pan.

the process

Cut tofu into cubes. Add to broth and bring to boil. Reduce to simmer and add mushrooms. Cook for about 10-15 minutes. Mix in coconut milk, fish sauce and sugar.

all the mushrooms

Pour into soup bowls. Serve with chili oil and cilantro.

Tom Kha Gai! Nom.

Enjoy!!