Green Curry Soup…I mean Stew

This weekend in NC, it snowed for the umpteenth time, which is pretty uncommon if you’re not at a high elevation in the mountains.  In Charlotte, there was more ice than snow.  We set out to our friend Gibson’s house mid morning to brave the ice and have brunch with friends.  I made scones that weren’t worth mentioning.  I’ll post them later when I develop a better recipe.

I was so excited to go to brunch, not just to see good friends, but also because my friend Brittney just got her own new dachshund puppy and we decided to make the brunch Rascal and his official first play date.  Rascal did not warm up to the little guy immediately.  Brittney’s pup’s name was Clyde and he was soooo adorable.   I held him for most of the morning, which Rascal did not like at all!

He loves kisses.  🙂  Eventually Rascal took to Clyde once he learned how much fun it was to be chased by him, especially since the Clyde could never catch him.  Rascal doesn’t find many dogs that has trouble outrunning him since his legs are so short.  As you can see Rascal is MUCHO larger than Clyde.

Clyde is a mini so he will never get as large as his new pal.  Rascal was extra needy the rest of the day after watching his mama snuggle a puppy for a few hours.

The cold weather made me in the mood to make soup that night, so I gathered all the ingredients to make green curry soup.

Star of the show: green curry paste I found in the back of the cabinet with an 89 cent sticker on it.  Best supporting actress: Ms. Toe Thumb.

Recipe:

4 chicken breasts cut into bite size pieces

1 can of light coconut milk

1 Tbsp.  green curry paste

1 inch piece of ginger peeled and grated or finely chopped

2 tsp. brown sugar

32 oz. low sodium free range chicken broth

1 Tbsp. fish sauce

1 tsp. dried basil

1 tsp. dried cilantro

1 chopped carrot

1 chopped stalk of celery

1 chopped red bell pepper

1 cup of green beans (fresh or frozen)

1/2 pint of mushrooms

1 cup of green peas (fresh or frozen)

1 cup jasmine rice

Non stick cooking spray

Saute ginger in a large pot with cooking spray.  Do not burn.  Add chicken broth and coconut milk and bring to a boil.  Add chicken and cook for five minutes.  Add rice and all vegetables.  Cook for 10 minutes, then add herbs.  Cook for five more minutes then turn burner to low and allow to simmer for 30 minutes.

I underestimated the expanding capacity of rice that you allow to simmer for a while.  My soup turned into a hearty stew, but was still very delicious and satisfied my craving for something warm and comforting.  The curry gave it a bit of a kick.

This recipe made enough for six 1 cup servings.  It was pretty delicious and I would love to try this again with less rice to make more of a soup (maybe 1/2 cup instead?).  It would also be pretty good with red curry paste which is my very favorite form of curry.  I only used green because we didn’t have red and who wants to trek out in the icy snow and fight through all of the bread and milk buyers for a can of red curry paste?

Ingredients
Directions