Thai cooking class

One of our favourite restaurants in Patong was Kantok, an exotically decorated oasis serving delicious Thai meals. We enjoyed dining there so much that we decided to return on the last day of our trip for a cooking lesson!

While the other chefs looked after the restaurant patrons, our chef Yuth taught us how to create some delicious Thai food.

He had all the ingredients ready to go for us!

We started off by making a spicy green papaya salad and a deep-fried tuna salad. Both were simple to prepare and tasted fresh and delicious! 

The next course was tom yam gai soup and pad thai. 

 

Then it was time for the curries. We made a red, a green and a pa-nang curry. Did I mention that we were also eating all of this food! 

It's a good thing dessert goes into a separate stomach! We had bananas cooked in coconut milk and fried bananas, both of which were really good :)

After polishing dessert off, we rolled ourselves back to the hotel for a siesta. This was probably my favourite day of the trip. I think I was really starting to miss cooking!

Phi Phi Islands

A highlight of our Thailand trip was exploring the awesome 

Phi Phi Islands.

A speed boat picked us up from the jetty and it was a quick ride out to the islands with our tour guide "Captain Jack Sparrow" and his crew. They looked after us all day, taking us to various locations for snorkelling, swimming, monkey watching and sunbathing.

It was a magical day!

Thailand holiday

I was lucky enough to have a 10 day holiday in Thailand this month! We stayed in Patong which is a tourist mecca. There were lots of shopping bargains and sunny beaches to enjoy but of course I was far more interested in the restaurants and scrumptious Thai cuisine :)

The festival of Songkram fell during our visit. We were wondering why everyone kept trying to sell us super-soakers!

The water is cleansing everything for a fresh start in the Buddhist New Year. Luckily April is Thailand's hottest month so it was quite refreshing, especially the iced water people were throwing from cars! I'm glad I wasn't riding a motorbike though, they were getting a bit wobbly at times with entire buckets being thrown at them! We ventured out onto the streets defenceless and got totally drenched :)


There were lots of food stalls set up along the beach for the day. Most of it looked delicious, these crispy fried insects... not so much.

The hotel threw a big party around the pool with a buffet dinner which we attended. We were entertained by the house band featuring some hilarious translations of western songs as well as some traditional Thai dancing. It was a good night and they decorated the pool area so beautifully!

In the garden

Our back garden has been getting a makeover these past few months and it is starting to look really awesome! The bf has been putting in a lot of effort and time to create a lovely and productive veggie patch. 

 1 of 4 raised garden beds with herbs, veggies and marigolds

Chillies, spinach and capsicums

 Beetroot

Marigolds

Sarge got a new tough boy collar. I think he likes it! Turn around Sarge...

He looks mean but is really a big softie :)

Pesto & panforte

My Dad is a master at growing herbs, he always has plenty to share with the family and even supplies a local restaurant! Lately he has had an abundance of basil, my favourite herb. My sister and I collected a huge bag of basil leaves and took them back to my place to create this delicious pesto.

We made so much that I lost track of the quantities of each ingredient so unfortunately I have no recipe. The ingredients I used are: washed and dried basil leaves, lightly toasted pinenuts, grated pecorino cheese, crushed garlic, olive oil and a little salt. We just kept tasting it and adjusting as we went along until we were happy with the balance of flavours.

Later that day I had a hankering for something sweet and decided to make this raw apricot and almond panforte that I had seen in the New Vegetarian Kitchen recipe book by Nicola Graimes. Instead of putting the mix into a slice tin and cutting it into pieces, I thought it would be fun to make little rounds in my silicone mini muffin tray. After chilling for an hour they came out easily with no greasing required.

I did tweak the recipe a bit so here is my adapted version:

1/4 cup blanched almonds

1/4 cup toasted hazelnuts

1/2 cup wholegrain raw oats

2 Tbslp pumpkin seeds

2 Tblsp sunflower seeds

1 cup dried apricots

3/4 cup raisins

5 Tblsp orange juice

2 Tblsp cacao powder

2 Tblsp dark choc chips or cacao nibs

2 tsp cinnamon 

1 small pinch cayenne pepper

Process the nuts, oats and seeds in the food processor briefly until the larger nuts are in small chunks. Put into a bowl and add the cacao powder and choc chips/nibs. Process the remaining ingredients to a paste. Mix all together in the bowl until well combined then press into either a lined slice tray or a silicone mini muffin tray. Chill for 1 hour before serving. They should be firm but a bit sticky and hopefully delicious!

So many veggie burgers

As you may have already noticed, I am a massive veggie burger fan! They are delicious, easy to make, perfect for lunch the next day, and readily accepted by most meat eaters. Recently I purchased Veggie Burgers Every Which Way by Lukas Volger. I am really impressed with his recipes and have decided to work my way through ALL of the burgers. I have never even come close to making all of the recipes in any of my other cookbooks, so this will be a good challenge for me! 

So far I have made the bean burger which I served with sweet potato fries and frizzled shallots, and the Thai carrot burger which is pictured below. I thought they turned out really well!

The addition of some plain Greek yoghurt and a splash a sweet chilli sauce gave them the wow factor!

The author has an excellent blog with loads of recipes, including the one for this burger. Click here to get the recipe and check out his blog! I am tempted to buy his other cookbook too despite my already huge collection :)

Kalamunda farmers' market

For the past couple of Sunday mornings we have been to the Kalamunda farmers' market. There are lots of fruit and vegetable stalls, potted plants, homemade cakes and other treats, seafood, meat, eggs and some takeaway food stalls. Last Sunday I bought the most deliciously ripe figs which I stuffed with goats cheese and grilled as part of a special birthday lunch for my dad (sorry, no photo!). Today the fig man was sadly absent but we did manage to score some plants such as: passionfruit, chilli, eggplant (including a tomato lookalike heirloom variety and a Lebanese style purple one), and a couple more herbs. We also got some fruit and veggies to hopefully turn into something delicious next week.

These peaches are from the markets a few weeks back. Thanks for taking this great photo for me mum! Unfortunately my camera battery has died, so there are no new ones from today's trip. We are working hard in the sunshine setting up some new garden beds this afternoon. No need to hit the gym tonight!