My Chef's Hat - Thai Shrimp Soup

When I began the blog 3 years ago it was really just for me and my friends who like food. The only social platform I used was the blog itself, so of course I wasn't getting much readership. Aaron’s friends Matt & April moved to Stillwater in January. Not only have they become great friends, but April is a blogger as well. They bought a fixer-upper house, and April's blog projects are transforming their home. Her website is uncookiecutter.com, and you really need to check it out. Every time I go to their house she’s got new stuff. She’s so creative, and her projects are amazing.

April and I have really bonded over blogging. It’s funny, because we’ll be out with friends, get started talking about blogs, and get completely absorbed and ignore everyone else. One of the many things I truly appreciate is that she’s gotten me much more active on social networks, and that has drastically increased my readership. I've also joined several blogger groups. April’s blog is a source of income, and many others in my blogger groups are full-time bloggers. At some point I would love to get to that place in my life. I’m nowhere near that yet, but I’m working on it. 

Starting a Facebook business page has been really good for me, because I follow a lot of other food bloggers and find great recipes that way. No, I’m not giving up Pinterest. I still always look there for recipes. But when I see a great one on my Facebook feed I pin it for future use.

A couple weeks ago the recipe for Thai Shrimp Soup popped up on Facebook, and it looked so good. I've never made soup before, and I really don’t know why. I guess I always thought it would be hard. Which is dumb. I have quite a few soup recipes pinned and ready to go. This recipe was courtesy of Damn Delicious, and I've made many of her recipes before. She takes amazing pictures, and all of her recipes are easy to make and delicious.

When I decided to add this soup to my weekly menu, I had to go to the grocery store to get shrimp, coconut milk, and red curry paste. I always have shrimp in the house, but of course happened to be out just when I needed it. The curry paste and coconut milk aren't normal staples in my pantry. But when I got home I realized I had indeed bought coconut milk before. Then I saw it had expired about 6 months ago. 

Here is the official recipe photo


 And here is my version


This was fantastic. Light but full of flavor. I’m not sure if using light coconut milk makes a difference in the creaminess of the soup, but I’m willing to risk it to save calories.I didn't realize until I pulled up the recipe that there’s rice in the dish. And that the recipe calls for basmati rice. I amazingly found some in the pantry that I guess I had bought for a recipe at some point way back when, and the bag was about 2 years past its “best by” date. But it’s rice. How can dry rice go bad? So I went with it. I think I went overboard on the curry paste because the broth was very spicy. But the rice toned that down. I've never cooked with coconut milk, so this was a new experience. I pretty much guestimated on the quantity of both the milk and vegetable broth. But I figured with soup you could do that. And I wasn't wrong. It’s more about the quantity you end up with. And I tried to keep the ratios about even. I always use broth to save on calories, but I think stock might make the dish a little richer. I may try that.

I will definitely be making this again. And now that I know how easy it is to make soup, I'll be making others more often.


Recipe Found On Damn Delicious 
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