Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman

The other night Tony and I were watching a show that had comedians Martin Mull and Drew Carey talking about their careers.  I of course knew who Drew Carey was, but I only had vague recollections of Martin Mull.  Turns out his first big break as an actor was on a show called Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. 

I remember my parents watching it I think.  Tony couldn’t believe that I didn’t remember more of it, until I looked it up and it aired from 1976 to 1997.  Um, I would have been 8 years old, while Tony would have been 16. 

It’s funny how just the difference of 8 years in our ages can make the difference about a lot of things.  Such as t.v. shows in the 70s, 70’s music.  I can’t tell you how many times we’ve been in the car and a song comes on that Tony knows all the words to, and I tell him “I have never heard that song before in my life!”

But the same holds true to the 80s – my decade if you will.  Tony hated all the music from the 80s, while I could pretty much sing verbatim every Eurythmics, Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Peter Gabriel and Wham song!  Let’s take a quick trip down memory lane, shall we?  You’ll thank me tomorrow when this song loops through your head all day.

Question of the Day:  What Decade was “YOUR” music?

I ended up making another breakfast panini – this one is egg whites, baby spinach and 1 ounce of goat cheese.  And surprisingly delicious black berries on the side.  Sometimes I have to sprinkle blackberries with sugar or splenda, but these were perfectly sweet.

I decided to swim again yesterday.  I have to say I am becoming a much better swimmer, so much so that the life guard doesn’t even sit in the chair anymore, she just sat in her office.   One thing I noticed though?  Um, my bathing suit is literally about to disintegrate.  I’ve had this one for probably 8 years and when I was putting it on I could literally see through the material – nice!  There’s a Sports Authority near my office, I may need to make a stop there at lunch today!

I have my sister to thank for this delicious soup.  She subscribes to Bon Appetit magazine, and once she saw the cover of hot soups, she faxed me over the pictures and the recipes.  The cover recipe immediately caught my eye – it was for Chicken Kao Soi, which they described as:

A simple curry paste gives this Northern Thai-inspired soup surprising depth of flavor.

That is the best description I can give this soup – depth of flavor – wowza!

Chicken Khao Soi

• makes 4 servings, 1.5 cups each 
• 351 calories, 19 fat, 28 carbs, 2.8 fat, 16 protein, 406 sodium
• 110% of Vitamin A, 32% of Vitamin C

Ingredients for paste:

• 4 large dried guajillo chiles, stemmed, halved, seeded
• 8 garlic cloves
• 1 2 inch piece of ginger
• 1/3 cup chopped chilantro
• 1 tablespoon canola oil
• 1 tablespoon ground coriander
• 1 tablespoon ground tumeric
• 1 teaspoon curry powder

Ingredients for soup:

• 2 cans unsweetened coconut milk (each of my cans was 175 calories and low fat)
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 8 ounces chicken breast
• 1 package of precooked udon noodles (mine was 140 calories for half a package)
• 3 tablespoons fish sauce
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• garnishes of bean sprouts and lime

For the paste.  Seed the chiles (using gloves or a ziploc bag – I sadly used my fingers and later touched my nose and mouth and they were on fire!).  Pour boiling water over the chiles just enough to cover, and let soften for 30 minutes.  You don’t need to worry about how much water, because you are only using a couple tablespoons of that liquid to make the paste.

In a food processor, put the softened chiles, garlic, ginger, cilantro, canola oil, coriander, tumeric, curry power and two tablespoons of chile water and pulse until pureed.

The original recipe called for 2 tablespoons of oil in the paste, as well as 2 tablespoons of oil in the soup.  I reduced that to just one in the paste, and since there was oil in the paste, I didn’t add any to the pot.

Heat a Dutch oven over medium heat.  Ad the paste, and cooking, stirring constantly for five minutes, or just until the paste starts to darken slightly.  Add coconut milk and broth.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat.  I had one 8 ounce whole chicken breast, so I just put it in the pot and let it poach in the coconut milk for about 15-20 minutes and the chicken was cooked through.  I removed the chicken, let cool, shredded the chicken and put it back in the soup. 

I then added the fish sauce and brown sugar to the soup, put a lid on it, removed it from the heat and let it cool. 

At lunch I heated up the noodles separately – they cook in a bowl of water for three minutes.  I put 1/4 of the noodles in each bowl, heated  up the soup and put the hot soup over the noodles, then topped it with fresh bean sprouts, chopped cilantro and a lime wedge.

Holy cow, this is a winner.  The flavors are so complex.  It has a nice heat, but you don’t get the heat until the second or third spoonful.  My boss LOVED this one – I can see this one being in a regular soup rotation.

Dinner was sausage pasta alfredo.  I followed this recipe, except I used half and half for the heavy cream.  And I didn’t add in the peas, but added chopped baby spinach to my dish.  Pure comfort in a bowl.

This made four generous servings, so guess what I am going to do with the leftovers? 

More Lasagna Soup!

I had leftover sausage and I always have canned tomato sauce.  I am going to add the leftovers to the soup and call it a day.  I have been going through lasagna soup withdrawal – its been a couple weeks!  Just click on that link and check out the comments and see how many times I’ve made this soup.  It’s kind of embarrassing!

And thanks to my co-worker J who found these for me!

I ate about 1/3 of the bag in the afternoon – they are spicy good!  I went ahead and voted for that flavor, because the idea of chicken and waffle chips makes me want to throw up in my mouth a little!

Make it a great day!