Serving Up Thailand

Oh Thailand! I don't want to leave yet!!! We've had so much fun and your food is so good. Please don't make us go!!! 

Ok, now that my whining is out of the way, it is time to share with you how we concluded our tour of Thailand. I gathered up the evidence of our month long Thailand adventure and displayed it for our dinner. 

The books that we borrowed form the library (and are now over due... oops), The Kohn Inspired masks that we made, and the shadow puppets that we created inspired by the Nang Puppetry.

My parents took my littles for a sleep over on Saturday and they got take out from a local Thai restaurant for dinner. As much as I don't blame them for wanting to do that, I found myself feeling like I was now going to have compete with the pros. I worried that when they ate my first attempt at homemade Thai food, it would pale in comparison. I knew I was going to have to work extra hard to make this meal delicious. So I did what anyone would do, I put some Thai music on Pandora and cranked the volume up. If you doubt the importance of the music, be sure to check out the post I wrote about how it is essential here. 


When my parents brought my littles home, we were in the final stages of cooking up the food. The words, "That smells delicious!" rolled off of their tongues and some of the pressure began to fade. The food was served and we all sat to enjoy this last bit of Thailand before we spin the globe again and fall in love with a new country.  

I made spring rolls following this recipe that I found on Pinterest (though they call them summer rolls). I love avocado, but Preston and my dad both feel differently about it, so I also made a few with shrimp instead of avocado.

If you have ever wanted to try to make some Thai food, I suggest that you do yourself a favor and make these Spicy Thai Noodles. I used Lo Mein noodles instead of the suggested linguine and I used just under 1 tbsp of crushed red pepper after reading that they can get pretty spicy. It seemed like a perfect amount of spicy. They were so easy to make and tasted to delicious! A MAJOR boost to your confidence when making Thai food! :) 

My dinner plate. Spring roll, spicy noodles and lettuce wraps. We made two batches of filling for the lettuce wraps, one with chicken and one with tofu, since some of us eat meat and some of us do not. The drink was Ginger Lemonade which I found here, I'm not sure if it's actually an authentic Thai drink, but it tasted great with the Thai food. 

When I was done eating the food on my plate, I wanted so badly to go back for more. It tasted so good, but I was full and as sad as I was to think about not eating more, I perked up as soon as I remembered that not eating more now, means leftovers!!!! Hello Monday afternoon lunch!


While searching for dessert options, I had a hard time finding a workable option because almost everything I found had coconut in it. I love coconut, but sadly, I am allergic and really shouldn't eat it. (Truth be told, I do every now and then have a little taste, but I almost always regret it when the itching starts.) So, after my kazillionth look for Thai desserts, I stumbled upon a couple of recipes suggesting fruit. Of course, fruit! So, our desert consisted of fresh pineapple, mango and bananas sliced up and served with store bought toasted coconut Thai fortune cookies. 

Yes, I know, I said I am allergic to coconut, but I promise you that when I bought them, I had no intention of eating any of them myself. Of course once we served dessert and I saw how cute and little they were and I smelled the coconut, I decided that just one wouldn't be *that* bad. (Not that I suggest eating foods that one is allergic to, but so far, all of my food allergies are pretty mild, so for me, it's not life threatening.) 


This month, we skipped the trivia. We thought it would be fun to do something a little bit different, so we reviewed the numbers one through ten and also how to say "Hello" and "I Love You" and in turn, taught my parents a little bit of Thai too. If you missed the language lesson, check it out here.


That's it. That is the end of our Thailand tour. Don't forget that the blue words are links to the recipes. On Thursday, I am going to share with you a "Traveling Friends" post from a friend who went to Thailand a few months ago and he did a great job answering our questions! Make sure you check back! 


Is it lunch time yet? Where are those leftovers?