Category Archives: Cooking from scratch

National Pumpkin Month …Carving Pumpkins …

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Halloween…Dates all the way back to the ancient Celts and was known as the festival of Samhain…pronounced (Sow-in). It marks the end of the summer and the harvest and marks the beginning of the cold, dark winter…

I have many happy memories of  Harvest Festival when I was young with all the lovely produce and how the church displayed it all such lovely colours oranges, golds and browns and I loved the harvest festival hymns especially ‘ We plough the fields and scatter” such a joyous hymn.

 

Halloween also has a darker side and the ancient Celts believed that on the night of All Hallows the world and the boundaries between the living and the dead became blurred and the night of the 31st was when ghosts of the dead were thought to return to earth.

The colours of Halloween Black, Orange, Browns and Golds are beautiful with the orange symbolising Strength, endurance, harvest and autumn in contrast the Black is a symbol of death and darkness and Halloween marked those boundaries between the two.

It wasn’t until about the 1930’s that the custom of trick and treating began and it still continues to this day…

The Pumpkin features very prominently in today’s celebrations of Halloween, however, the very first Jack O ‘ Lanterns were carved out of turnips.

Did you know that the largest pumpkin recorded in 1993 was a massive 836 lb… That’s a lot of pumpkin pies…

pumpkin-2327488_1280

Pumpkins also look very pretty and some of the carvings are awesome but quite difficult to do so be careful you don’t cut yourself the incidence of accidents is very high and that includes traffic accidents where children get excited and just run/walk across the roads.

How to carve a pumpkin?

 

 

Did you know Samhainophobia is the fear of Halloween????

Enough of all this I am sure you want some recipes?? 

Pumpkin Sage Sauce…by Tori Zigler…

Ingredients:

  • 1 large onion, diced
  • 2 tablespoons of butter
  • Salt and pepper, to taste
  • A large handful of sage
  • 3 tablespoons of flour
  • 2 cups of milk
  • Grated nutmeg, to taste
  • 1 cup of pumpkin puree

Let’s Cook!

Sauté’ the onion with the butter. Add some cracked black pepper and sea salt and stir in the sage.

Sprinkle with the flour, and stir for a couple of minutes. Then add the milk and the grated nutmeg.

Once you see the sauce thickening, stir in the pumpkin puree.

When well combined, remove from the heat.

Serving suggestions: serve with pasta and cheese.

Thank you, Tori this recipe sounds delicious I can’t wait to try it…

 

 

About Carol Taylor:

Enjoying life in The Land Of Smiles I am having so much fun researching, finding new, authentic recipes both Thai and International to share with you. New recipes gleaned from those who I have met on my travels or are just passing through and stopped for a while. I hope you enjoy them.

I love shopping at the local markets, finding fresh, natural ingredients, new strange fruits and vegetable ones I have never seen or cooked with. I am generally the only European person and attract much attention and I love to try what I am offered and when I smile and say Aroy or Saab as it is here in the north I am met with much smiling.

Some of my recipes may not be in line with traditional ingredients and methods of cooking but are recipes I know and have become to love and maybe if you dare to try you will too. You will always get more than just a recipe from me as I love to research and find out what other properties the ingredients I use contain to improve our health and wellbeing.

Exciting for me hence the title of my blog, Retired No One Told Me! I am having a wonderful ride and don’t want to get off, so if you wish to follow me on my adventures, then welcome! I hope you enjoy the ride also and if it encourages you to take a step into the unknown or untried, you know you want to…….Then, I will be happy!

Carol is a contributor to the Phuket Island Writers Anthology: https://www.amazon.com/Phuket-Island-Writers-Anthology-Stories-ebook/dp/B00RU5IYNS

Connect to Carol

Blog: https://blondieaka.wordpress.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheRealCarolT
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/carol.taylor.1422

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/caroltaylor56/pins/

Thank you once again for reading this post I hope you all have a great weekend 🙂 xx

 

National Pumpkin Month…All things Halloween…

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National pumpkin moth banner

Pumpkins will soon be on every street corner and in all the stores and as it is National Pumpkin Month I am going to get into the swing with recipes, trivia and it is also the run-up to Halloween…

I also thought that maybe as y’all make the best pumpkin pies..I mean it is not a Brit thing…not where I come from anyway…Maybe you would share your best recipe for pumpkin pie???

Muffins or pies or maybe a nice latte…You need a  nice Pumpkin Spice Mix…

Here is my recipe for pumpkin spice mix ..Quick and easy you probably have all the ingredients in your store cupboard.

Pumpkin Spice Mix.

  • 4 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 2 tsp ground ginger
  • 1 tsp ground cloves
  • 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

Mix all the spices together and keep in a lidded pot and use as required for muffins, pies or a nice spiced latte…

Halloween-pumpkin

Halloween...Have you all got your porches decorated or are you still in the planning stages? I know it is big business in the US but not sure when y’all have everything out and on display…

How do you greet Trick or Treaters? Do you have ghosts and/or scarecrows and what treats do you hand out? If you are stuck for ideas a quick and easy one to do is fill some apothecary jars with bright coloured candy. It makes an eye-catching display and your guests can help themselves.

Fill old glass jars with plastic rats, toy bugs and doll heads then add a little-coloured water. Use manila tags to name your specimen – shrunken heads, poisonous tarantulas, baby rats and the like – and wrap the jar with twine and the tag.

lanterns-halloween-images

 

It is quite easy to make effective decorations from pumpkins or paper lanterns or jars.

But did you know?

The Jack ‘O’ lantern comes from an old Irish tale about a man named Stingy Jack. According to folklore, Stingy Jack was out getting drunk with the Devil when Jack convinced his drinking partner to turn himself into a coin to pay for the drinks without spending money. Jack then put the Devil, shaped like a coin, into his pocket, which also contained a silver cross that kept the Devil from transforming back. Jack promised to free the Devil as long as the Devil wouldn’t bother him for a year, and if he died, the Devil could never claim his soul. Jack tricked the Devil again later, getting him to pick a piece of fruit out of a tree and then carving a cross into the bark when the Devil was in the branches. This trick bought Jack another 10 years of devil-free living.

When Jack finally died, God decided he wasn’t fit for heaven, but the Devil had promised never to claim his soul for hell. So Jack was sent off to roam the Earth with only a burning coal for light. He put the coal into a turnip as a lantern, and Stingy Jack became “Jack of the Lantern” or “Jack O’ Lantern.” Based on this myth, the Irish carved scary faces into turnips, beets and potatoes to scare away Stingy Jack or any other spirits of the night.

Halloween Games :

Toilet Paper Mummies.

This will keep the kids amused for a while so buy some cheap loo rolls and let them wrap each other up like mummies.

Eat the doughnut(donut)

Tie doughnuts on strings and keep the wet wipes handy and watch the little darlings try to eat the doughnut…

Apple Bobbing.

apple-bobbing-halloween

A big bowl or bucket of water and some Apples always fun to watch.

Halloween themed food.

Don’t the kids just love all this spooky Halloween finger food? What is your family favourite food for Halloween…Let me have your recipes with a picture and I will feature them in a Fang-Tastic Friday post…

Today all you need is sausages and pastry strips ..This is an easy one and even the kids could do it…Just wrap the sausages as pictured by winding the pastry round and if you are really good and make your own sausages or know a good butcher even better… Some little white sweets or rice paper eyes and just cook…The kids love them.

sausage-mummies-Halloween

For the hardworking adults a Halloween Cocktail… The Black Widow Shot…

Cranberry juice and black Vodka…Yes Please!

I hope you enjoy these  posts and please if you have any tried and tested Halloween recipes I will post them and credit you so please let me have them…xxx

About Carol Taylor:

Enjoying life in The Land Of Smiles I am having so much fun researching, finding new, authentic recipes both Thai and International to share with you. New recipes gleaned from those who I have met on my travels or are just passing through and stopped for a while. I hope you enjoy them.

I love shopping at the local markets, finding fresh, natural ingredients, new strange fruits and vegetable ones I have never seen or cooked with. I am generally the only European person and attract much attention and I love to try what I am offered and when I smile and say Aroy or Saab as it is here in the north I am met with much smiling.

 

Some of my recipes may not be in line with traditional ingredients and methods of cooking but are recipes I know and have become to love and maybe if you dare to try you will too. You will always get more than just a recipe from me as I love to research and find out what other properties the ingredients I use contain to improve our health and wellbeing.

The environment is also something I am passionate about and there are now regular columns on my blog this year. It is important that we are mindful of the world we live in…

Exciting for me hence the title of my blog, Retired No One Told Me! I am having a wonderful ride and don’t want to get off, so if you wish to follow me on my adventures, then welcome! I hope you enjoy the ride also and if it encourages you to take a step into the unknown or untried, you know you want to…….Then, I will be happy!

More and more of my blogging friends have joined me on MeWe…A social media site which is fairly new and which promises much without the restrictions some other social media sites are choosing to impose on many of us…Join me if you will on  MeWe

Carol is a contributor to the Phuket Island Writers Anthology: 

Connect to Carol

Blog: 
Twitter: 

Facebook: 

Pinterest: 

Email:

Thank you once again for reading this post I hope you all have a creative week ahead xx

 

 

The Culinary Alphabet…13 terms for the letter T…

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Welcome to this month’s edition of 13 terms of food in
The Culinary Alphabet T…where I guest post over at Esme’s Salon

THE CULINARY ALPHABET T

Tea and Toast

How many times in your life have you been offered tea and toast? Maybe never but it was something which when I was growing up was a telling example of your class and status.

Drinking tea and eating toast revealed more about you than you could ever imagine…For example, the taking of sugar in your tea was seen as a definite habit of the lower classes…even just a tincy winsy tiny bit more than one spoonful and you were definitely in the lower middle class ( at best)…More than two….working class and not only that cemented your status if you added your milk first and stirred noisily…Working-class…

To the English tea also had practically magical properties and that was across all the class lines.  Headache or a skinned knee, out came the teapot. Bruised ego, bereavement or divorce, and out came the teapot.  It was the balm to soothe most ills.

Photo credit: trawets1 on VisualHunt / CC BY-NC-SA

Add toast to the equation and we really came into our own, haha

It must be cool and dry, no soggy toast and it was also a matter of class how you ate that toast. I mean if you slathered it with butter and marmalade and god forbid if it wasn’t Dundee marmalade, and then proceed to take a bite. So vulgar it was the height of bad manners.  The correct way: Take a small piece and add just a smidgen of marmalade before taking a gentile bite. That guys and gals are how Toast and Tea are taken in England, according to your class of course.

Tabasco Sauce – TABASCO®

Original Red Pepper Sauce is made with three simple ingredients and aged in oak barrels for up to three years on Avery Island, Louisiana, before bottling. The recipe originating from Edmund McIlhenny in 1868 has been used by the McIlhenny family for nearly 150 years, just aged vinegar, salt, and peppers make this versatile hot pepper sauce.

The Culinary Alphabet T

Image by iSAW Company from Pixabay

 

Are you familiar with the following The Culinary Alphabet Terms?

Tabbouleh

Traditionally served as part of a Meze in the Arab world it has fast grown in popularity in the Western world.  I do love how increased travel and the internet have broadened our Culinary World. Tabouli salad or Tabbouleh is a simple Mediterranean salad of very finely chopped vegetables, lots of fresh parsley and bulgur wheat, all tossed with lime juice and olive oil.

Tahini

Tahini is a thick paste-like sauce made from sesame seeds, with a little bit of oil mixed in to make it the right consistency, and usually not much else. Tahini is similar to peanut butter in texture: creamy, oily, and smooth, and like peanut butter is rich in calcium. Tahini is a common ingredient in many vegetarian and vegan recipes (particularly in salad dressings and homemade hummus) and it is often used in Middle Eastern cooking.

How to make your very own Tahini paste/butter, it is so quick and easy and the cost of a packet of sesame seeds is virtually pennies against the cost of a store-bought jar of tahini and no nasties.

Let’s Cook Tahini – The Culinary Alphabet T! 

Into the kitchen, just quickly toast the Sesame Seeds, then into the mini blender, 3 tbsp Olive oil, and a quick whizz, scrape down the sides, another tbsp Olive oil and another scrape, a  bit more oil and a quick whizz and viola your Tahini Paste are made.

How easy is that?

Tamarind

One of my favourite cooking ingredients I love tamarind either just eaten as a fruit or used in cooking. Available everywhere here it is very popular and healthy.  To learn more about the Tamarind tree and some recipes where Tamarind is used.
Click Here

My favourite is the young tamarind pictured here only available for a very short period but a lovely way to eat the tamarind…

young tamarind fresh from the tree

Tempura

I prefer the lightness of tempura batter and it is used often in Asian recipes.  Specially formulated tempura flour is available in worldwide supermarkets. This is generally light (low-gluten) flour, and occasionally contains leaveners such as baking powder.  Tempura is very prevalent in Japanese cookery today most of the major changes to the tempura were In the early 17th century, around the Tokyo Bay area, tempura ingredients and preparation underwent a remarkable change as the Yatai (food cart) culture gained popularity.

Making the best use of fresh seafood while preserving its delicate taste, tempura used only flour, eggs, and water as ingredients and the batter was not flavoured. As the batter was mixed minimally in cold water, it avoided the dough-like stickiness caused by the activation of wheat gluten, resulting in the crispy texture which is now characteristic of tempura. It became customary to dip tempura quickly in a sauce mixed with grated daikon just before eating it.

Tapenade

The name for a dish of pureed or finely chopped olives, capers, and olive oil.it is a lovely dip served with beautiful bread or crackers and of course a lovely glass of wine on a lovely summers evening. Quick and simple to make it can also be used as a stuffing for poultry.

To continue reading the exciting culinary terms I have found for you then click this link…  

You will then be taken to Esme’s blog where I have a regular monthly post…

About Carol Taylor:

Enjoying life in The Land Of Smiles I am having so much fun researching, finding new, authentic recipes both Thai and International to share with you. New recipes gleaned from those who I have met on my travels or are just passing through and stopped for a while. I hope you enjoy them.

I love shopping at the local markets, finding fresh, natural ingredients, new strange fruits and vegetable ones I have never seen or cooked with. I am generally the only European person and attract much attention. I love to try what I am offered and when I smile and say Aroy or Saab as it is here in the north I am met with much smiling.

Some of my recipes may not be in line with traditional ingredients and methods of cooking but are recipes I know and have become to love and maybe if you dare to try you will too. You will always get more than just a recipe from me as I love to research and find out what other properties the ingredients I use contain to improve our health and wellbeing.

The environment

This is also something I am passionate about there are now regular columns on my blog this year. It is important that we are mindful of the world we live in.  These honeybees dining on forget me knots say it all to me.

forget-me-not-257176_640

Exciting for me hence the title of my blog, Retired No One Told Me! I am having a wonderful ride and don’t want to get off, so if you wish to follow me on my adventures, then welcome! I hope you enjoy the ride also and if it encourages you to take a step into the unknown or untried, you know you want to, then, I will be happy!

MeWe

More and more of my blogging friends have joined me on MeWe. A social media site which is fairly new and which promises much without the restrictions some other social media sites are choosing to impose on many of us.  Join me if you will on MeWe

Carol is a contributor to the Phuket Island Writers Anthology 

Connect to Carol
Blog
Twitter
Facebook
Pinterest
Email

Thank you once again for reading this post I hope you are all having a lovely week xx

For more posts from Carol working her way through the Culinary Alphabet 

Smorgasbord Blog Magazine – The Food and Cookery Column with Carol Taylor – East meets West.

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Noodles/pasta …Some lovely healthy chicken meatballs and a glorious Phad Thai…Both recipes made in my own kitchen and tested …Enjoy!

Smorgasbord Blog Magazine

East meets west with Carol Taylor

I hope you are well on this Wednesday morning …Thank you for joining me @ Sally’s Blog Magazine…We are well and truly into our wet season now and everything is lush and green and yesterday I had a lovely walk in the rain…No I am not totally mad…Well I think that depends on whom you ask…ha-ha…

I am really trying hard…harder I should say to make my recipes equally tasty but healthier where I can…Although Pork is my favorite meat and is eaten a lot here as lamb is really not popular and beef is very expensive which means chicken, pork and fish are the favoured proteins here…I am trying use more chicken in my cooking than I normally do and pack it with flavor…

These chicken meatballs are packed with flavor with parmesan cheese and capers in the sauce…I have use milk instead…

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CarolCooks2…Weekly Roundup…Schooldays, Salpicon and much more

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Just in case you missed any posts this week…Or you like to do what I do and that’s snuggled down in my favourite chair and have a read…They are all here in one post so grab your favourite chair and a drink, settle down and enjoy…There are recipes, music and more…You could even add a healthy snack of popcorn, your favourite music and read…Enjoy!

lady eating popcorn-3281583_640

First up I was invited to share my schooldays over at the lovely Norah’s…I had to dig deep as my very early years apart from getting the sense of being happy I can’t remember teachers names…Obviously, that changed as I got older I hope you enjoy learning more about this (sometimes) opinionated whimsical English lady…x

Carol Taylor's thirst for learning and inquisitive mind

I have always loved this photo of me such peace and innocence on my face…

https://norahcolvin.com/2019/08/12/school-days-reminiscences-of-carol-taylor/

Monday...The official start of a new week saw lots of goods new in my weekly update of recycling and the enviroment…I do think though the single news of how a couple catered for their wedding breakfast using waste food was such a great example of how much good food is wasted when people are starving… my heart as well as being  saddened  as truly no one should starve but it also made me realise that we should all take responsibility instead of just coasting through life without a care or a thought as to HOW we are so lucky to live on this beautiful planet and how we are the caretakers and should be preserving it for future generations…Our children and our grandchildren…

wedding-invitation-3838842_640

https://carolcooks2.com/2019/08/13/the-latest-news-on-the-environment-and-recycling-13th-august/

Tuesday...The day for commonsense coupled with a healthy diet …Fads come and go and even work for a short while until we get bored and cannot face another hour of such a restricted regime…Long term they do not work…FACT…Long term…

Lips-chocolate-woman

Lips and chocolate

FACT…I have lost just over 6 stone aka 40 kilos…This last week another llb off…This is over the last 4 years with much of it over the last year…I have given it another little push the more I learn about myself and my body I adjust what I eat as I go along…But I eat normal food and I do not restrict my self I moderate my self and I have cut down a lot on m alcohol this past year which is why the boost in m weight loss…I feel so much better and have more energy…I sleep better and I still enjoy the odd sundowner just not every single evening…So please pop over and join us we are a friendly bunch…and leave your guilt at the door..It is not allowed in…We all enjoy our food…

https://carolcooks2.com/2019/08/13/eat-smart-eat-healthily-and-lose-weightno-gimmicks-just-common-sense/

Wednesdays… The day where anything goes…My day to chat to reminisce …share a short story…some music and we should all have music in our lives…A recipe or two…Last week it was National Lemon Meringue pie day and world honeybee week…as I said I share whatever I like or when something just wows me…Anything goes…x

Hammock palm trees beach

https://carolcooks2.com/2019/08/14/whimsical-wednesdays-with-carol/

Wednesday was also the day when I shared one of my friend Sally’s posts on how there are many diet plans which have been proven to cause nutritional deficiencies…Ricketts

I thought that was an age-old disease that had been eliminated years ago…Not so!

Scary but preventable and a must-read #Recommended

https://smorgasbordinvitation.wordpress.com/2019/08/14/smorgasbord-health-column-health-and-food-in-the-news-nutritional-deficiency-on-the-increase-keto-diet-industrially-manufactured-foods-lack-of-sunshine/

Thursday…Where I share my world…How I live ..my travels…traditions…x

https://carolcooks2.com/2019/08/15/life-on-the-farm-thai-potatoes-rice-and-banana-leaf-wrapped-desserts/

Thursdays also see me over @ Esme’s Salon once a month…Where I am journeying through the culinary alphabet…This month it is the letter S…Do you know what Salpicon or Salt Hoss is???

Header letter S Culinary Alphabet

There is also so much more so please pop over and say hello…Squid Salad anyone?

https://esmesalon.com/the-culinary-alphabet-the-letter-s/

Friday…Is the day where I give you a peek inside my kitchen what I cook…Last week sees us making lovely jalapeno rolls …All went fine until we cooked them…uncooked jalapeno wraps with cream cheese

We had put too much of the cream cheese and jalapeno filling in them …the fat was too hot and some split…we got crispy bits and they tasted lovely…Nice and spicy but not picture worthy so take two is today…Friday I will show the finished Jalapeno rolls in all their golden scrumptious glory…my mouth is watering already …x

https://carolcooks2.com/2019/08/16/carolcooks2-join-me-in-my-kitchen/

Saturday…Our liver…It is one of our major organs and we most certainly need to respect and care for it because without it we would not be here…Simples…

https://smorgasbordinvitation.wordpress.com/2019/08/14/smorgasbord-health-column-major-organs-and-systems-of-the-body-the-digestive-system-part-four-liver-diseases/

That concludes my week …I do hope you have enjoyed it and found something that you loved or was helpful or you just liked…I thank you for each and every one of your comments they truly make me happy…I love them…If you enjoyed something please share and spread the word…Have a great Sunday wherever you are …x

See you tomorrow with my weekly recycling and environment updates post and do I have lots of good news for you…x

About Carol Taylor:

Enjoying life in The Land Of Smiles I am having so much fun researching, finding new, authentic recipes both Thai and International to share with you. New recipes gleaned from those who I have met on my travels or are just passing through and stopped for a while. I hope you enjoy them.

I love shopping at the local markets, finding fresh, natural ingredients, new strange fruits and vegetable ones I have never seen or cooked with. I am generally the only European person and attract much attention and I love to try what I am offered and when I smile and say Aroy or Saab as it is here in the north I am met with much smiling.

Some of my recipes may not be in line with traditional ingredients and methods of cooking but are recipes I know and have become to love and maybe if you dare to try you will too. You will always get more than just a recipe from me as I love to research and find out what other properties the ingredients I use contain to improve our health and wellbeing.

The environment is also something I am passionate about and there will be more on this on my blog this year

Exciting for me hence the title of my blog, Retired No One Told Me! I am having a wonderful ride and don’t want to get off, so if you wish to follow me on my adventures, then welcome! I hope you enjoy the ride also and if it encourages you to take a step into the unknown or untried, you know you want to…….Then, I will be happy!

More and more of my blogging friends have joined me on MeWe…A social media site which is fairly new and which promises much without the restrictions some other social media sites are choosing to impose on many of us…Join me if you will on  mewe.com/i/caroltaylor3 

Carol is a contributor to the Phuket Island Writers Anthology: https://www.amazon.com/Phuket-Island-Writers-Anthology-Stories-ebook/dp/B00RU5IYNS

Connect to Carol

Blog: https://carolcooks2.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheRealCarolT
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/carol.taylor.1422

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/caroltaylor56/pins/

Thank you once again for reading this post I hope you all having  a great weekend xx

Smorgasbord Health Column – Health and Food in the News – Nutritional deficiency on the increase. Keto Diet, Industrially manufactured foods, Lack of Sunshine

2 Replies

An informative and worrying post from Sally and one we should all read and digest…Diseases and deficiencies seem to be making a comeback..Various factors are causing this…I do think that we should be taking some of the responsibility we should know or learn what our children need to be fit and healthy…Their future health and ours depends on us learning what our bodies need…This post is a good starting point with many links for you to check out…

Smorgasbord Blog Magazine

Recently, Carol Taylor and I shared a series on how to include food in your diet to avoid nutritional deficiency .. In the autumn we will be moving on from vitamins to minerals.

You can find the posts with some wonderful recipes from Carol in this directory:https://smorgasbordinvitation.wordpress.com/cook-from-scratch-to-avoid-nutritional-deficiency-with-sally-cronin-and-carol-taylor/

There have been some studies that have identified that there is an increase in nutritional deficiency in the diet and here are three articles that are worth reading.

A physician’s warning on the keto diet – Doctor Shivam Joshi

The keto diet has recently garnered much fame for its apparent ability to improve diabetes and obesity – results so impressive the Journal of the American Medical Association recently highlighted the diet and thereby christened it as something more than a low-carb craze. However, not all the evidence supports such a positive outlook, leading the diet to straddle the increasingly blurred lines…

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The Culinary Alphabet…Letter R…

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Once a month I can be found over @Esme Salon where I am going through the Culinary Alphabet which this month is the letter R…Of course, @ numero one is my favourite which is of course Rice…Please pop over and have a look I get pretty lonely over there at this time of the month…It would be great to see you there…Come and say hello and see what else apart from rice begins with the Letter R…

Header for the Culinary Alphabet Letter R

Starting with my favourite carb which is?

Rice

There are several grains called rice, which have been cultivated for thousands of years. Asian rice (Oryza sativa) is most widely known and most widely grown, with two major subspecies and over 40,000 varieties. When I first came to Thailand that is when I realized just how many different rices that there were and also colours. The main kinds of rice I cook with are Jasmine Rice, Brown Rice, Black Rice and sticky rice ( glutinous rice)…Thailand is also one of the major exporters of rice and it is the staple food for many here even the dogs eat rice…Mine will not touch dog biscuits or tinned food and many dogs here are the same…

Before I came to live in Thailand I had been on a few holidays here and liked to cook Thai food at home… Mainly it was a disaster I just couldn’t cook a bowl of nice fried rice…It was absolutely awful…

Since living here I have had a few lessons from my daughter in law as to the error of my ways and now I can make a stir fry and hold my head up amongst most Thai cooks.

I will now show you how to make the perfect fried rice

Rice must be cooked and cold so generally, if you have had rice the night before and have leftovers then it is a way to use it up.

That was my first big mistake and why I had clumpy rice which stuck to the pan and why I didn’t ever get that nice dry fried rice.

However, if you must use freshly steamed rice, just try to make sure your bowl of rice has cooled off and that it’s somewhat dried out before you get started.

Fried rice can be anything any vegetables or little bits of leftover chicken or shrimp (prawns) and you can have a bowl of lovely fried rice to go with many a meal.  Traditionally served here with sliced cucumber, spring (green) onions and a chilli dip it is a dish many young children eat or maybe something eaten for a quick lunch or as an accompaniment to other dishes.

Fried Rice

Ingredients:

• 1.5 cups cooked cold rice
• 3/4 Spring Onions
• ¼ of white onion chopped
• 2/3 cloves of garlic chopped
• ½ leaves of Chinese cabbage or other cabbage ( optional)
• 1 Egg
• ½ tbsp Oyster Sauce
• ½ tbsp Soy Sauce

For chilli Sauce

Ingredients:

• 5 Thai chillies finely sliced
• 3 tbsp Fish Sauce
• ½ a fresh lime

If you are using shrimp( prawns) then start with the whole fresh shrimp, pinch of the head and de-shell the body leaving the tail on ( Thai style) at the same time try to retain that lovely shrimp oil from inside the head this is what gives your fried rice a wonderful red colour and a nice rich flavour.

Let’s Cook!

Chilli and fish sauce aka prik nam pla

This little dish is always served alongside your Fried rice whenever you eat it in a restaurant…

Just finely chop the chillies and add the fish sauce and a squeeze of lime. That’s it!

Making fried rice only takes about 15 minutes or less to make and this recipe serves ones.

All you need is a wok and a spatula.  Serving more than 1 person just double up.  The more you make this dish you will get a feel for it and will instinctively know how much of this and that you need just by taste.

  1. Firstly peel and finely chop your garlic.
  2. Slice about a quarter of your white onion
  3. Finely slice 3-4 green onions
  4. If you are using Chinese cabbage slice in half along the spine and then slice into 1 cm strips.
  5. Heat your wok or suitable pan and add about a tbsp of oil once your oil is hot add your garlic and stir fry continuously for about 15 seconds we don’t want burnt garlic do we?
  6. Throw in the shrimp and fry for about 30 seconds. Your shrimp should just start to turn pink then add just about less than half of your rice which will soak up all those lovely juices stir fry for about 10 seconds push all the rice to one side and crack the egg into the empty side swirl the egg and let it cook for a few seconds and then start to mix with the rice and shrimp.
  7. This was my second big mistake I used to just pour the egg straight over the rice hence a claggy, clumpy mess which no one wanted to eat.
  8. Then stir in the remainder of your rice and you should have a lovely dry fried rice with separate grains
  9. Now add your soy sauce and oyster sauce and stir, some people add a little sugar at this point. I don’t
  10. Now add your chopped Chinese cabbage and white onions and stir fry for about 30 seconds and then toss in your spring onions and stir for a few seconds a little longer if you like your vegetables a little softer.

Place on a plate with a slice of lime and spring onion and your little bowl of chili dip. If you want it to look extra special put it in a little bowl and turn out on the plate as pictured.

A little sprinkle of fish sauce and some fresh chillies on top of your fried rice with and an extra squeeze of lime just elevates your fried rice to another level.

Younger children, here are generally given just fried rice with egg and a little spring onion and maybe some very finely diced carrot. Fried rice is one of those dishes where anything goes.  As little or as much as you like.

Sometimes if I have a few shrimp (prawns) or half a breast of chicken or a thigh leftover I bag them and they are ideal for 1 serving of fried rice. We all have leftover vegetables chop them and put in your fried rice. For one all you need is a small piece of carrot maybe a couple of peas or a floret of broccoli cut small and bobs your uncle and you have fried rice.

Truly anything goes it is one of those dishes where you really can add almost anything I suppose a bit like you would do when topping your pizza.

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About Carol Taylor:

Enjoying life in The Land Of Smiles I am having so much fun researching, finding new, authentic recipes both Thai and International to share with you. New recipes gleaned from those who I have met on my travels or are just passing through and stopped for a while. I hope you enjoy them.

I love shopping at the local markets, finding fresh, natural ingredients, new strange fruits and vegetable ones I have never seen or cooked with. I am generally the only European person and attract much attention and I love to try what I am offered and when I smile and say Aroy or Saab as it is here in the north I am met with much smiling.

Some of my recipes may not be in line with traditional ingredients and methods of cooking but are recipes I know and have become to love and maybe if you dare to try you will too. You will always get more than just a recipe from me as I love to research and find out what other properties the ingredients I use contain to improve our health and wellbeing.

The environment is also something I am passionate about and there will be more on this on my blog this year

Exciting for me hence the title of my blog, Retired No One Told Me! I am having a wonderful ride and don’t want to get off, so if you wish to follow me on my adventures, then welcome! I hope you enjoy the ride also and if it encourages you to take a step into the unknown or untried, you know you want to…….Then, I will be happy!

MeWe

More and more of my blogging friends have joined me on MeWe…A social media site which is fairly new and which promises much without the restrictions some other social media sites are choosing to impose on many of us.  Join me if you will on  mewe.com/i/caroltaylor3 

Carol is a contributor to the Phuket Island Writers Anthology: https://www.amazon.com/Phuket-Island-Writers-Anthology-Stories-ebook/dp/B00RU5IYNS

Connect to Carol

Blog: https://carolcooks2.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheRealCarolT
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Thank you once again for reading this post I hope you all are having a great weekend and have a creative week ahead xx

If you missed any of the previous installments, please hop over and enjoy the previous posts