Last Week's Eats & Halloween

On Monday and Tuesday last week it was really cold!  We warmed up with some hearty eats, including one of our favourite pasta dishes, Linguine with Green Olive Sauce and Zesty Breadcrumbs:

If you like briny flavours (capers, olives) you need to make this dish!

It reheats well the next day, but good luck having any leftover!  Mmm!

We also made a new recipe, Thai Red Curry Chicken Thighs with Zucchini:

 

This was really easy to make, and it hit the spot.  I love zucchini, and you can never go wrong with a Thai curry.

Christopher smoked a couple chunks of salmon outside in the cold, and it smelled incredible in the cool air.  I went outside with him when he was glazing it, just to take in that wood-smoke smell.  We enjoyed some of the salmon one evening with cream cheese, paratha, and fresh dill.

My breakfasts all week mostly looked like this:

The weather warmed up for Halloween, but we only got 13 kids!  We bought way too much candy, so I guess I'll be taking it to work to share.  Our Halloween tradition is to order in pizza, so we called for Dominos and got comfy on the couch, so we could easily hop up to get the door.

We didn't dress up or go out for Halloween this year.  It was very low-key. 

How was your Halloween?  Did you hand out candy?  Take someone out trick-or-treating?  How many kids showed up at your door?  Did you dress up?  Do you order in on Halloween?

Khao Soi

Almost every restaurant we walked by in Chiang Mai had gorgeous, colourful menus outside to look through, so it was easy to decide where we wanted to eat, and what we wanted to order.

But, I'll make it even easier - if you ever decide to visit order the khao soi!

Northern Thai food is different than the Thai food you typically get in North America.  The cuisine is strongly influenced by Burma/Myanmar, and Laos, and the most popular dish is khao soi, which can be found on pretty much every menu.

We actually first tried khao soi in Las Vegas at Lotus of Siam, which was the only Thai restaurant we had ever seen it at.  We fell in love with it, and decided to visit Chiang Mai because of this amazing dish.

The broth is a combination of a Thai red curry with an Indian curry, and then it has noodles, meat (usually chicken, but you can also get beef or pork), and crispy egg noodles on top.  It is served with a plate of pickled veggies, shallot, chilies, and lime, and all of these things need to be added for the full taste experience.  It is the epitome of flavour, and we could not stop eating it.

After eating khao soi at numerous restaurants, we have to say our favourites were from Khao Soi Khun Yai:

And Khao Soi Mae Sai:

Both are little outdoor restaurants that have been there forever, and are frequented mostly by locals.  And at $1.75 a bowl, you might just need to go back for seconds.

I miss khao soi already, but you better believe we'll be working to perfect this dish at home.

How is your week going?

Have you ever traveled somewhere specifically for the food?

If you had to pick one place to travel to, just based on the cuisine, where would you go?