Thursday, February 10, 2011

Feeling Pretty SOUPER

A very humble THANK YOU to all of you who have left such great comments on my last post and those of you that are "following" me now. The response was surprising and appreciated. I hope to keep you entertained and inspired!


I apologize in advance for the corny title of this one. As many of my longtime friends know, there are certain things Renaissance Bunny is good at and should pursue, and other things that I am good at and should probably NOT do so much. Two of those things in the "probably not" category are corny wordplay and rhyming nonsense. Sometimes these will slip out in posts but it's just part of the package.

People ask me, "When do you have the time to cook?" Well, I sometimes make things ahead when my kids are napping, or I might throw it together quickly while they are eating their dinner in high chairs.
This works for me, but it may not for everyone.

Getting to the meat of the topic (oops! there I go again), today I'm going to tell you about something I made for dinner. Southeast Asian inspired shrimp soup!

A few months ago, Mr. Bunny and I decided to forgo eating land animals in favor of a mostly-vegetarian diet with occasional seafood (we just CANNOT give that up!) We still eat eggs and dairy though. So technically, if you had to define how we eat these days, we'd be called pescetarians. Sounds like a religion, doesn't it?

This Bunny Couple really enjoys ethnic foods, but we are only able to go out to dinner occasionally, so I try to experiment alot more in the kitchen. This often included trying to replicate certain dishes we have tried in restaurants, such as this Thai soup.

There are very few steps, and as long as you have the ingredients, it shouldn't be too hard. I'd rate this one a "beginner-level" recipe. Most of my recipes are easy and fairly quick to prepare as with the Bunny Twins milling about, I need to accomplish something tasty in a short amount of time.



Everything is flexible. If you want to omit something because you don't care for the taste, go ahead. I view cooking like anything else creative ... you have a basic idea of what you're going to make, but you need to be open to veering off the path. Below are the basics that I used and please disregard the sippy cups in the background of the photo. You won't be needing any of those for this recipe.

I just realized that the ginger root has a really ODD shape to it. This was NOT intentional, but it is pretty funny!

1 lb. raw frozen shrimp (Target's Market Pantry has them peeled, cleaned and deveined)
1 can coconut milk
3 cups of water
2 Tbsp. of lobster or seafood bouillon paste or some fish sauce (if desired, but not necessary)
4 cups of vegetable broth
6 medium-sized mushrooms of any variety, thinly sliced
1-inch piece of ginger root, finely grated (or the already prepared kind in jar, about 1 Tbsp.)
2 cups cooked thin somen noodles or regular spaghetti or angel hair, whatever you have or prefer
3 Tbsp. lime juice or a couple fresh limes, squeezed
1/2 cup sugar (I used organic cane sugar from Trader Joe's)
About a cup of chopped fresh cilantro
Dash of hot sauce (if desired)

1. Cook somen noodles or regular pasta according to package directions. Drain and set aside.

2. Get a large pot and dump in frozen shrimp (no need to defrost), coconut milk, water, bouillon paste or fish sauce, vegetable broth, mushrooms and ginger and bring to a  boil. Boil for about 5 minutes and notice the shrimp becoming pink and opaque. Then, turn down the heat to a simmer.



3. Add in the lime juice, cilantro, sugar and hot sauce (if using), and cooked noodles and simmer for about 10 minutes.

4. Serve and enjoy!

4 comments:

  1. OK, now I can't stop laughing at the ginger! ;)

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  2. This is really helpful! And I like the picture of the ingredients - believe it or not it helps me to visualize what I will need and what to do - I may have to try this one!!! Looks amazing, and this is a great site! Keep it up, mama!

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  3. Yummy! I think I have most of the ingredients and might try it this weekend!

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