Swimming Rama

The name of this recipe is Swimming Rama and comes from a Thai cookbook I recently picked up. I don't know what Swimming Rama means, but I will translate it to chicken in the most delicious peanut sauce EVER. This meal is a little bit more involved than others, so I made it over the weekend when I had plenty of time to cook. I made the full recipe of the peanut sauce but only 1 chicken breast.

















Get a sauce pan of water boiling and lets gather everything and get it prepped to cook!




You will need some spinach.




A chicken breast.




Chop it into nice bite sized pieces.




grab a bright red pepper




Chop some up into small pieces.




You need some shallot or onion, you know I will prefer shallot.




Chop it up nice and fine also.




Mince some garlic.




This Pampered Chef measuring cup is MADE for measuring out peanut butter. No scraping required!




You need some delicious brown sugar. As I have mentioned before, I keep mine in the freezer and it is always nice and soft after just a few minutes on the counter.




Some fish sauce.




You can use cayenne, sriracha, or any chopped red pepper flakes. You will also need some Paprika, which is hiding behind my cayenne.




You can be pretty sure that anything with coconut milk is probably going to be amazing.




you also need a little bit of water and corn starch. I think we have everyone assembled so lets start cooking!




This is the lazy steaming method I use when I don't feel like dragging out my steamer. Wire basket on top of the boiling water. It works! Once the spinach is done, toss in the chicken and pop on the lid. It will poach in the hot water.





Meanwhile, get another pan going with a little oil.




Add in the shallots and garlic.




Once the shallots and garlic are softened add in the other sauce ingredients except the coconut milk. Mix it up.




After it is combined, slowly stir in the coconut milk.




while the sauce cooks, get your spinach down on the plate.




Add in the corn starch mixture and some lime juice.




Stir in the poached chicken and get it all nice and covered in the sauce.




Plate the chicken on top of the spinach and garnish with the red peppers.




As you eat this, imagine swimming in rivers of this peanut sauce. It is so rich and peanutty and delicious I could have slapped it on pretty much anything and been happy. I am glad I made a full batch!

So here is a question for my readers, do you have any idea why this is called Swimming Rama??

100th Post! Hungarian Pepper Stew

I can't believe I am at my 100th post already! This has been so much fun, the posts just fly by! I can't thank you guys out there enough for reading and for all of the wonderful comments and emails. I used to not get excited about cooking but now I really look forward to it because I get to share it with so many wonderful people! I have met so many nice people through this blog and found so many cool sites to read. Thank you all for spending a few minutes with me so I don't feel like I am "Dining Alone".

For the 100th post I am making a fantastic Hungarian Stew. I adore paprika so this stew made my mouth very happy. The recipe comes from the cook book Going Solo in the Kitchen by Jane Doerfer. It is a fabulous cookbook for cooking and eating alone.




I know a hearty soup may not be the best for summer, but I can't live without soup!




This coincided with BACON DAY!




Dice up some onion while the bacon cooks.




I reserved some of the bacon drippings (sounds so much better than bacon FAT) to cook the onions.




Into the dutch oven it goes.




You also need some peppers. I used red and green, you can use whatever color/flavor combo you want.




Dice those guys up also, but not too fine, you want some nice big bites of pepper.




You need some diced tomatoes also. Nowhere in the recipe does it mention putting any bacon into the stew, but forget it, I am adding some in!




Don't forget the star, delicious sweet Hungarian Paprika. I just love this stuff.

Lets start cooking now that we are all prepped.




Get the onions in your bacon drippings and get them cooking.




Drop in the paprika and give it a stir.




Keep stirring this and swoon because it smells so absolutely delicious.




Add in the peppers, tomatoes and BACON. Don't forget to season with some salt and pepper also. Cover this up and let it cook for about 20-30 minutes depending on how much crunch you want your peppers to have.




The flavors combine so beautifully and you end up with a delicious stew. If you want to do this vegetarian you absolutely can, just use olive oil and maybe just a dash of brown sugar or molasses to give it a little oomf that you lose with the bacon and the drippings.




Thank you all for dining with me 100 times!

Broccoli Salad

This is one of my most favorite salads EVER. My sister first made this for me many, many years ago. She had a rough week this week so I am posting this in her honor as things now seem to be looking good.

As with everything I changed the recipe, why not just leave well enough alone, right? Well, when you are cooking for one you can do whatever in the heck you please!

I don't have a written recipe for this, but it is super simple.




Broccoli. Cut the florets into nice bite sized pieces. Save the stems to feed to your dogs.




Some diced onion or shallot. This is sweet onion.




Oh yes, BACON! Not all of that bacon, I assure you, but you will want a few pieces. I cook bacon like this once every couple of weeks to satisfy the hubby's BLT cravings. In the 8 years I have been with him I have probably cooked more bacon than I have eaten in my entire lifetime of bacon consumption.

This is where I stray from my sister's original recipe...




I add raisins and omit cheese. I like savory and sweet, I have probably said this a million times. Sometimes I also add pine nuts. If you want to do it the old school way and pay true homage to my sister, ditch the raisins and grab some nice grated cheddar.




Get all those guys in a bowl and lets make the simple dressing.




I told you it was simple. I use about 1/2 cup mayo and a half of a teaspoon of sugar. You can also use some rice wine vinegar for sweetness instead of the sugar.




Pour the dressing over and mix it up.




I didn't bother to plate this and take a million pictures because this salad is one of my most favorite things to eat EVER, made for me the first time by one of my most favorite people EVER! The salad did not survive but a few moments for me to snap this one photo!