Thai leftovers

It's hot. It's busy. I'm about to head for parts to the north. So this will be a catch-up post of sorts.

The other night, I cooked a Thai dish from From Bangkok to Bali in Thirty Minutes. I tried "Fat Noodles with Fresh Chillies and Mint Leaves." For ground meat, I used ground pork from the Pennsylvania Dutch Farmer's Market. I omitted the quartered cherry tomatoes and used Tabasco sauce instead of fresh chilies. There was no noticeable spiciness to the final dish, but it was quite salty from the fish sauce. It was more than edible for dinner tonight (especially given that it was coolly refrigerated and the evening is stiflingly hot), but not quite what the recipe had intended. I bet the tomatoes would cut the saltiness.

On Saturday night, after a long day's birding trip, we visited a Texas Roadhouse in Cumberland County. My "light" dish of sirloin tips on seasoned rice knocked me back as much as the other night's stir-fry. I'm starting to wonder if beef is getting to be too much for me.

Two Thai cookbooks and one Korean cookbook are on their way to me from the electronic motherlode of things to be ordered with a click (hint: begins with "A," used to mean a woman warrior).

In the garden, the spinach has bolted and the cilantro is doing so now, but the Thai basil is starting to produce some lush leaves, the Asian greens and lettuce are hanging in there, the mitsuba is sending out new leaves all over, the pea plant is flowering (if one flower so far = flowering) and the the tomato plant that was nursed through the winter and seemed to be at death's door has three green tomatoes on it, in addition to plenty of flowers.

There, I think that covers it. Thank you for your support.