Beetroot!

Beetroot is one of those vegetables that just screams summer (and Christmas!) for me. Mum always grabs a whole bunch of them and makes up a big bowl of pickled beetroots to have on hamburgers, in salads and on sandwiches and I have recently noticed them in some of the markets here.

I gave mum a call the other day and asked her how to make pickled beetroot and she said it was super easy;
wash the beets, cook the beets, pickle the beets then eat the beets. How easy! So off I went!

Pickled Beetroot
Beetrooots - whole
Vinegar
Water
Sugar
Peppercorns
Bayleaf

Put beets in a pot of water (whole) and simmer until soft - depending on the size of your beetroots, this can take between 30min and 1.5 hours! But be patient, they will become soft.

Remove from hot water and immerse in cold water to cool them. Once cool, strip the skin from the beets. This is really easy as the skin will just slide off.

Slice the beets into rounds as thick as you desire - thick, thin, slices or strips - whatever takes your fancy! I like to do it in rounds as it sits better on the sandwich.

 Place the slices into your container (i chose a plastic container, but you can use a glass one - basically just make sure its water-tight) and you will cover with your pickling mix. You take the vinegar, water, sugar, bayleaves and peppercorns and boil them up in a pot - taste it to make sure it tastes ok. I usually do 1 part vinegar, 3-4 parts water and sugar to taste.  Once this is cooled pour it over the beets so they are covered and then pop it in the fridge.

In a couple of days you can open up the container and taste the beets. Ohhhhh my they were good! Perfect for a summers day salad. Yummo

Salad Concept

Nimmanhaemin Road Soi 13,
Chiang Mai 50200

 Fresh tasty salads, smoothie & coffee


The Salad Concept is a shiny, fresh light on the horizon of rice and stir-fries and was a welcome find for us.  Back home, salad is served with most meals - fresh crispy lettuce, juicy tomatoes, crunchy carrot and celery eaten without a heavy or spicy sauce. Most salads here in Thailand include meat, chilli and/or fish sauce so the cravings for bland vegetables can be quite high at times.

Salad concept is a lot like Sumo Salad or other salad bars back home - you have your little bit of paper that you choose your ingredients and the staff make your salad to order.  YUMMMM! And the best thing about the salads is that they are GINORMOUS. I can rarely make it through one!




Highlights
Fetta Cheese
Radish
Celery
Pineapple soda drink
Fresh Salmon & Bacon

Tom Yum Soup

Tom Yum is a staple soup here in Thailand and it is deeeelish! The most commonly eaten variety is Tom Yum Goong (Tom Yum Soup with Prawn/Shrimp)  but it can be made with any meat or even tofu if you are vege. It is totally one of the easiest soups you will ever make and its fresh, firey and sour and good for the soul too.

Ingredients:

1 x lemongrass stalk
1 x chilli
1 x kaffir lime leaf
1-2 pieces of coriander
1/4 tomato
1 mushroom (I usually add more tho!)
I small red-onion or shallot
prawns/chicken
Water
Chilli Jam Paste

1. Bruise the lemongrass and chop into inch long pieces - put into the pot with the water.
2. Bruise the chilli and chop into smaller pieces if you like your soup spicy. If not, add the chilli whole to the soup.
3. Remove the hard stem from the kaffir lime leaf and then tear remaining leaf into pieces and add to the water with the chopped shallot.
4. Bring water to the boil and add mushrooms that have been quartered and the tomato that has been chopped into chunks.
5. Add meat and chilli jam paste and cook until meat is done - 5 min or so.

Eat! yum yum!!

Fern Forest Cafe

Singharaj Soi 4
Chiang Mai


Cakes, Coffee, Snacks

Its not often that I find a dessert that I really like, especially over here. The cakes tend to be tasteless, covered in this weird white cream and small creatures made of "icing". And then there are the Thai desserts which are a bit better - coconut sticky rice or steamed coconut sweets. Very tasty but not the thing to cure a sweet-craving I have found.

This was all truth until we came across Fern Forest Cafe one day. Mick and I were looking for a nice spot for a coffee shake instead of going to our usual spots and we tried this place. Its cute, away from a main road and it has the best cakes in the WHOLE of Chiang Mai. And I am not exaggerating when I say that! Definitely worth checking out with that someone special...and you can also buy whole cakes for birthdays/parties/anything!

Highlights
White Chocolate Cheesecake
Banoffee Pie
Bacon & Cheese Quiche

M Italian Cuisine

M Italian Cuisine
Soi 3, Suthep Road (past Canal Road), Chiang Mai

Pizza, pasta, cocktails, desserts


If you are after simple, authentic and delicious food, this is a great spot to know about. Especially if you dont want to pay crazy prices for it! This restaurant is located down a soi in a cute little garden. The staff are polite and unobtrusive, the food is always great and there is enough privacy for a romantic night.

Meals come in under 200 baht for mains (steak, pork, chicken, fish) - all which are served with a sauce of choice on the side and a piece of bread - pasta dishes and pizza a little less. They do great cocktails for really cheap - 40-70baht and have now got dessert specials too.

Highlights
Pork chop with peppercorn sauce
Lasagne
Salmon with pesto sauce
Beef steak with blue cheese sauce

Salsa Kitchen

Salsa Kitchen

Huay Kaew Road (across from Shell Station), Chiang Mai

www.thesalsakitchen.com

Fajitas,enchiladas, mexican dips and corn chips.
Free WiFi


The Salsa Kitchen is a bit of an institution in Chiang Mai. Especially for the expats. It serves HUGE plates of Mexican and Caribbean dishes (like the size you would get back home) such as enchiladas, tacos, fajitas, ribs plus really good margaritas. Its a cosy spot with plenty of seats inside where there is also aircon, plus seats outside for those who are content to breath the car fumes.


The platters are a great option, but probably best shared between two. You get a choice of 3 items, such as an enchilada, burrito, taco, quesadilla and a chimichanga (veg/chicken/pork or beef) and its served with salad and salsa. Coming in under 190 baht per platter its great value and only big eaters will be able to finish. Also worth a mention is the margarita and sangria jugs which at a smidge over 300 baht, very good value and enough to get most people giggly.


Highlighs
Pork Chimichanga
Chilli Cheese Dip
Smoked Pork Ribs
Vegetarian Taco
Margaritas

Shan Noodle Shop 999 (Yangon)

Shan Noodle Shop 999

130B, 34th Street, Yangon

Shan noodle soups, salads and other Burmese specialities

This is a small, hole in the wall noodle shop that is heaven. The creamy tastes and friendly staff are great and the food is really yum.

I was introduced to the incredible tasting Shan tofu noodle soup last year in Chiang Mai and i am a HUGE fan of it. being able to eat it in Burma was great - it was creamier, tastier and heartier than the one I had in Chiang Mai especially with the pickled veges on the top of the soup.

Highlights
Creamy tofu soup - Hsan Hkauk Swè
Noodle Salads
Fried tofu fritters - Hpu Gyaw

T-Smile Cafe

T-Smile Cafe
Singharat Soi 3, Chiang Mai

Thai food, fruit shakes, breakfast,cocktails
Free WiFi

TSmile is a great little cafe inside the old city in Chiang Mai run by two great girls, Tikky and Joy. The food is always fresh and the service is fast and sweet.

Meals come in under 40 baht and fruit shakes/coffee shakes are a steal at 25 baht. They do takeaway and have a specials menu too. Keep an eye out for their "Food Parties" - Tikky and Joy cook up a feast and serve it buffet style for less than 100 baht! YUM.

Its not a place frequented by many backpackers as its in a different part of town, but it has a lot of regulars - both thai and farang alike.


Highlights:
Pad See Ew
Crispy Morning Glory Salad
Laab
Black Egg Salad
Coffee Shakes

BBQ Madness

Thai BBQ - Moogataw

Today is the first day of seeing rains drizzle all day over Chiang Mai and its been wonderful to sit back and enjoy it. This week has been pretty busy with farwells, dinners and openings.

Farewells to Courtney - you'll be missed! She's pictured here with Nong :)

Courtney was over volunteering through an organisation called Cultural Canvas Thailand (CCT) who i would not recommend anyone go through. Firstly, the fees she had to pay to be a volunteer through them were absolutely mental. 3 weeks volunteering and she had to pay $1900 - not including the costs of her flights. Of that, Freedom House got a measly $100. She was not happy at all with the service of the organisation and the final nail in the coffin would have been when she was leaving and the arranged transport to the airport didn't arrive when it was supposed to so she had to jump in a tuk tuk. Anywho, Courtney is a 27 yr old gal from Coffs Harbour who's the mum to a 4 year old who was able to be looked after by her family while she was away. She def missed him but also was going to miss the Chiang Mai lifestyle. So farwell! Keep in touch ;)

We also did some pretty great dinners this week - Seafood at the Anudan markets, northern thailand specialties at Riverside (Pic on the left from Riverside with Lisa, Nong, Or and Nick in the front & of course Courtney, Mick and I in the back) and then last night, the most awesome of all dinners - Thai BBQ. Holy moley. This shit was insane! We were going out for a final farwell dinner for Courtney - Mick, myself, Nong and Courtney - and got recommended to head to this place that was out of this world!


Firstly, the four of us jumped into a SongTao to this spot called "Hillside Condo 4". From there we wandered down this dark laneway that was illuminated by fluorescent lights into darkness. Once the laneway was over, it opened into this massive dirt area - most likely a car park or just a large area of nothing. We could hear this noise- children playing, the rumble of many voices. And the smells of delicious foods getting cooked.

When we walked into the open air venue, i was absolutely dumbfounded. I have never seen a place like this before. As large as...2 football fields, the size of a Bunnings, but open at the sides and packed to the rafters with people. Row after row of wooden tables and benches, all with little cookers on them - like a hot pot with a bbq in the centre. And the noise of people talking, clanging, singing (there was a stage with a performer on it) all going at the same time.


**blogger is being silly so will finish this later**
***For some reason i can't upload pics - will get mick to fix the internet for me later***

and continuing...

In the centre of the room there were these tables dividing the room. And stretching across the width of the room was container after container of all sorts of meat, vegetables, seafood, salads, desserts (the weird asian style ones) that were getting consumed at a great rate. INSANE!! Never have i seen a buffet of such magnitude. Quite impressive.

We all grabbed our little plates and stacked them up with all sorts of tasty delights with Nong getting the mysterious ones to tempt us, though she couldnt actually tell us what they were. LOL. I believe most of the unknown items were made from seafood or tofu. But who really knows! We were quite the site too - 3 foreigners amongst a sea of locals, but thats got to be a good sign.

The food, was so good. It was like hotpot but better. Nong had these little pieces of pure fat that had been cut into cubes. It was actual animal fat. Gelatinous, proteiney. Revolting but required. this was places at the top of the curved plate to grease up the rest of the grill plate for cooking.Prawns, pork, chicken, beef all cooked on the grill while the soupy goodness got the run off from the grill and was stacked full of vermicelli noodles, morning glory, mushrooms etc.

After about 2 hours of continuous eating and cooking, we all looked up from our dirtied plates to realise that we were one of say 5 other tables that were left. Somehow, without us noticing, the whole place had consumed, and left...

We skulled the last of our Leo's and headed out - all up the bill for 4 of us came to 840 baht. How much is that you ask? Just shy of $30. SO GOOD!!!

Would definitely do again. And visitors - im looking at you Becy/Sean/Sara and you Bonnie/Tom and also you Mum/A.Helen/Claud...we will be taking you there.

Seafood in Chiang Mai

I never used to be a big fan of seafood which must have been quite a pain for my parents as we grew up beside the sea in a coastal town in NSW Australia. But these days I LOVE seafood, of most varieties.

One of Mick and my favourite seafood varieties to consume is the mud crab (right) and we can't go to any of the seafood places here in CM without ordering one.
Most of the places seem bewildered at the fact that we just want the crab steamed, on its own, without sauce. A very popular style here is with either a curry egg sauce or with a spicy noodle which are both nice but I do wonder if the crabs they use for those sort of dishes tend to be the old crabs.

The BBQ fish (left) is also an excellent choice if you are ordering seafood here. The fish is opened up flat and grilled to perfection and I am pretty sure that they also baste it with soy so it comes out absolutely incredibly juicy and succulent.

Oysters here are out of this world (see right). They are not only massive, bigger than any oyster you will ever see, but they are packed with flavour and so delicate too. They are served with a range of condiments that you eat with the oyster all at the same time - you get oyster with some chilli jam, fried shallots, lime and a special dipping sauce made with chilli, lime juice, garlic and fish sauce. You then cram it all in your mouth and it is amazing! Follow it with a nibble of the green leaf thing that you can see on the plate and you will be amazed.

BBQ prawns, curries, salads and stir fries also feature heavily on the menu and we are trying to work our way through the menu at our favourite seafood spots. YUM!

Burmese Food

Burmese food is an interesting mix of influences from China, India, Thailand and Malaysia and yet is so unique. Curries, stir fries, noodle soups and rice dishes all feature heavily but in a very different way to other countries.

Burma is made up of a number of distinct states which include Karen, Shan and Burma itself and the cuisine is different in each state.

A very common dish that you find served here is Morning Glory with Garlic. This is served with pretty much every rice meal and is high in iron and very flavoursome. A lot of locals will eat this dish for breakfast along with some plain rice and a smidge of curry. Quite different to our breakfasts! This dish is also found all across Thailand but the difference is that in Thailand, it is usually littered with spicy birds eye chilli's that really wake you up.

Burmese curries are quite different from the coconut heavy dishes of Thailand and are probably closer to those of India. They are often cooked early in the day and let to sit with a thick layer of oil to preserve them. As a traveller, this is quite scary as we all know the rules about eating things that are hot! so if you order a curry, ask them to heat it up (Most Burmese can speak some English as it used to be an English colony!). The curries are very delicious, hearty and not at all spicy, so for those who fear the fire of an indian curry, you will be safe eating a Burmese one!

Street Food of Burma

Burma is an interesting country filled with such a variety of foods - some delicious, some not so delicious. It is incredibly different to the firey and fresh tastes of Thailand so we found ourselves really craving chilli and fresh vegetables.

One type of food that is very popular but as a traveller, i could not touch if you paid me, was the street food. In Thailand and Malaysia, I was more than happy to delve in and eat whatever was being cooked on the side of the road (sometimes with not such good reprocussions!) but it was always tasty. In Burma, however, most of the street food leaves a lot to be desired. For example, most of the food cooked on the street is offal - thats right, the guts of a beast! Whether thats intestines, heart, liver or brain, it is consumed here. And its cheap!

There are some indian influences also with Roti a very common sweet street food, but these are also found widely across Thailand and Malaysia

Chiang Mai Feasts

Chiang Mai is full of awesome places to eat and yummy mysterious things to consume. And considering I'm a bit of a foodie, its quite fantastic to be staying in this place for a while. However, looking around and all that food, i am concerned i'll be a fatty by the time i get back! Ahhh, i'll worry about that later ;)

The markets near our pad sell curries and rice and all sorts of delicious things in bags for ~25 baht, under $1.00. And although you may not be quite sure of what you're getting aside from "Chicken" or "Pork", the girl who works in the cafe, Nong, seems quite happy to go and get us things to try.
Som Tam - aka Papaya Salad (see right) - is really yum salad made with papya (obviously), chillis, beans, fish sauce, peanuts and sometimes dried baby prawns too. This one we had in a restaurant on chayaphum road, but you can buy it from stalls on the street and pretty much any hole in the wall place for around 25 baht.

Larb is also really common around here - its basically minced meat of some kind, fried with basil and chillis and i'm sure other stuff and you usually eat it with sticky rice - YUM! Mick and I first ate this in Laos last year, but apparently it is a very common dish in Northern Thailand, Burma and Laos. Hooray!



Fried rice is also available everywhere and is usually a huge serve with meat with it also.Seafood fried rice is very yummo - especially when you get the big chunks of tasty tasty mud crab in it! Again, its usually around 25-40 baht, so around $1.00. I usually can't finish a whole dish of it, so its a good thing Mick is here to clean up the plate after me!


Omeletes also feature heavily on the menus, and are a savory affair of tasty fluffy eggs with anything you like in them - we've had vegetable only ones served with sweet chilli sauce (like the picture) but also ones with seafood and a mass of bean shoots. Regardless of the type, they are very good!!


xx

Cookie and Beer Marinade Recipe

A Couple of Recipes

I really enjoy cooking, anything (except boring food) is on the menu and i like trying out new recipes. Heres a couple of my own recipes that i like to use regularly though :)

Grandmother's Cookies!
(yes, they really are from my G'Ma's recipe)
½ cup sugar
½ cup butter
1 egg
½ tsp vanilla essence
1 ½ cups self raising flour
Choc chips/walnuts etc

Preheat oven to 180 degrees
Beat sugar and butter together until it goes a pale shade of yellow/almost white
Add vanilla and egg & beat some more

Next stir in sifted flour and choc/chips etc by hand

Roll cookie dough into balls (any size you like) and then put onto tray and flatten

Cook until browned (about 15min) and then cool completely on a wire rack before storing in an airtight container.
Easy peasy!


Beer Marinade for Fajitas

INGREDIENTS
1/3 bottle beer
1/2 -3/4 fresh lime juice
small "sloosh" olive oil
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp brown sugar
dash & a bit more of worcestershire sauce (or soy sauce if no worces available)
small handful chopped coriander
dash of ground cumin

Stir together beer, lime juice, olive oil, garlic, brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce, coriander, cumin. Add meat and marinate for at least 1 hour.

I'll add some recipes along the way ;)

Sausage Roll Recipe

Another recipe for the collection ;)

Sausage Rolls
500g sausage mince (or normal mince)
1 med onion - diced
1 large carrot - grated
1 large zucchini - grated
spinach - frozen spinach or cooked fresh spinach
tomato sauce - liberal dose
mixed herbs - 1 Tbsp
chilli sauce or fresh chilli
fresh parsley - 1/3 bunch or a decent amount
1 egg
bread crumbs ~1 cup

puff pastry sheets
small amount of milk
extra bread crumbs

*mix all in together with either your hands or a spoon adding more bread crumbs as required.

the mix should be not too sloppy and not too dry/crumbly. I usually make sure that it is sticky enough to stick together and not to the bowl.

*cut pastry sheet in thirds

*put small amount of mix down the centre of the pastry strip.

*fold pastry over so that edges overlap over the meat-mix

.

*cut roll into desired length

*poke fork into pastry at top (side without edges) and dip into a little milk and then some bread crumbs. this makes them yummy and crumbly!

*cook in a 200 degree oven until they are golden brown and delicious!

Now eat and enjoy!!!