Thai-style Chicken and Pumpkin Soup

If you love the traditional thai pumpkin soup then you will love this variation of it that I have made. I often play around with recipes that I think can be either improved on or just a bit different from the original recipe.

PREPARATION:

1/2 cooked chicken
2 tablespoons red curry paste
4 and 1/2 cups water (4 cups if using coconut cream)
either 1/2 cup coconut-milk powder or 1 small tin coconut cream
4 cups of pumpkin soup (can be home made or tins)
1 chicken stock cube or powder
2 pkts of 2 minute noodles, lightly crushed (can use spaghetti noodles, cooked, if prefered)
chopped fresh coriander to garnish

Remove skin from chicken and chop up roughly. Spoon curry paste into a heated pan with a little oil and cook, stirring until fragrant. Add water and coconut powder which has been combined and then the soup and stock cube. Bring to boil and then simmer for 10 minutes uncovered. Add the chicken and noodles and simmer, uncovered for another 2 minutes or until noodles are tender and the chicken is hot. Serve, sprinkled with the fresh coriander.

Cold Water Ginger Beer

My mum used to use this recipe often if she didn't want to have to wait for the ginger beer plant to mature. It is so much simpler and I think it tastes almost as good as the recipe using a ginger beer plant.

PREPARATION:

2 gallons or 8 litres cold water
1 kilo sugar
2 tablespoons ground ginger
3 teaspoons creme of tartar
4 teaspoons tartaric or citric acid
2 teaspoons lemon juice or lemon essence

Mix all together and store in fridge. Ready to drink when chilled.