Working Girl Cooks!

I had a baaaaaad cooking day yesterday. Some people have bad hair days, and I just say whatever and throw my hair up in a pony tail. Some people have fat days, and I just wear baggy pants (I have many in my closet). Some people have bad work days, of which I have had many but I am currently jobless so no need to worry about those anymore! But when I have a bad cooking day, that’s when I just want to get out the cheap wine and drink myself silly. I’m not sure why but when I cook something that doesn’t turn out right or tastes plain awful it ruins my whole mood, my whole day, and nothing can salvage it. Does anyone know what I mean? Or is it just me?

Since returning from Thailand I have been on a huge Thai food kick. I want to learn how to cook everything I ate in Thailand at home. And I want it to taste exactly how it tasted in Thailand! Is that too much to ask!!!!! Okay maybe it is….but I’m determined!  Last weekend Eddie and I rode our bikes over to Chinatown to try to find some of the more uncommon Thai ingredients. Most people think of Grant Street as China Town in San Francisco. But the street next to it, Stockton Street, is where all the good stuff is. That is where the markets are with fresh fruits, vegetables, meat, and seafood. All for very very cheap! There were some particular things I was looking for that I learned about in Thailand that I haven’t found in San Francisco. I was able to find really big fat carrots (which I use to carve pretty flowers), Thai preserved plums, Tofu cakes (a much firmer, yummier version of tofu), rice noodles and fresh small chillies (I was really excited about those two ingredients!) I still haven’t found kaffir lime leaves or green papaya. I really really need to find green papaya. So I can make this amazing green papaya salad! It’s amazingly yummy!

Anyways, I couldn’t wait to go home and try out my new found goodies. The first thing I made was a Thai plum sauce with the preserved plums to go with some fresh spring rolls I made for Super Bowl Sunday. This sauce was so yummy and a huge success (which is why the recipe is printed below). The next thing I tried was a Thai style noodle dish using the rice noodles last night. This was not so much a success as a complete disaster!!!!

The first thing that went wrong yesterday was that the refrigerator was turned down, way down, and all my vegetables froze. Those beautiful sprouts you see in the picture above…frozen! My fresh mushrooms I couldn’t wait to use in a salad…frozen! My rice noodles…FROZEN! So when I went to use the rice noodles they were so hard that I couldn’t pull them apart to soak in soy sauce, the first step in making fried noodles. After completely tearing apart the first batch I decided to try to soak the second batch in some hot water to try to loosen them. After ten minutes they still were rock hard and I was getting hungry and very desperate. So I boiled them. They came apart beautifully! I drained the water and stuck the noodles in the soy sauce. I cooked the veggies, made the sauce for the noodle dish, and then tossed in the noodles at the last minute like I was supposed to. They completely fell apart! They disintegrated and I was left with a pile of mush! Okay, so maybe boiling them was not such a wonderful idea. I was so disappointed. I was so looking forward to this meal and I got mush! I couldn’t even eat it. So I ate half of it, resorted to drinking beer because I just needed something to help me feel sorry for myself. And then ate some banana with yogurt and granola because I needed something sweet and we have NO DESSERT IN OUR HOUSE WHATSOEVER!!!!

Anyways, I’m off to buy some  more rice noodles, a bottle of wine…and dessert! (just in case I have another disaster) and I leave you with a recipe for Thai plum sauce that is excellent with fresh or fried spring rolls.