thai coconut curry turkey soup

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

Yesterday was a looooong day.

It started with me not being able to get out of the driveway to get to work because the snow was deep and slick. Craig took the good in snow car because his commute is longer than mine and can be more treacherous on snow days.

I tried to shovel out, but it took a lot of grunting and gripping the steering wheel before I was finally able to get up enough momentum and traction to plow through the 9″ of snow and bank at the end of the driveway from the street plow. I would not be defeated.

Needless to say, I was pretty stoked to make it out and get to work safely. But the funny part about snow days as an adult in New Hampshire is that instead of a day off, you get to brave a commute into work. And then the commute home when everything freezes up. And then hopefully return to your abode in one piece in the dark to shovel.

We don’t have a snowblower, and we’re going to try to go as long as we can without one. We enjoy the rhythm of shoveling. It’s great exercise, even if our backs protest in soreness the next day. There’s just something very hearty New Englander about shoveling out. If Craig and I work in tandem, we can usually get the driveway and walkways shoveled in about an hour and a half. And you really do work up quite a sweat shoveling, no matter how cold it is outside.

I got home from work first, and I started the soup so it would be ready after we were done shoveling. Craig’s mom had given us some frozen turkey leftovers from Thanksgiving, and I figured soup would be perfect. I was going to do a traditional turkey soup, but I wanted to add grains instead of noodles.

However, I was out of barley. So instead I used Kashi.

And then I figured I might as well keep experimenting, so I used a coconut curry carton of broth I had on hand. The result was really pretty darn good. Here’s my recipe:

Thai Coconut Curry Turkey Soup Ingredients
1 or 2 chopped white onions (get organic if you can, they taste waaaaay better)
3 stalks organic celery
4 big organic carrots
at least 3 cloves of garlic
olive oil for stock pot
32 oz. low-sodium veggie broth (I use Trader Joe’s)
packet of Kashi 7 grains
32 oz. carton of College Inn Thai Coconut Curry culinary broth
1 tsp. curry powder
1/4 tsp. ginger (fresh is great, but powdered will do)
pinch or more of turmeric
pinch or more of red pepper flakes
leftover turkey (frozen works fine but break it up if you can)
14 oz. can of reduced fat coconut milk (check out Trader Joe’s)

Steps
1) Chop up the onions, garlic, celery, and carrot and saute in stock pot over medium heat using a little olive oil. Add to the pot as you chop and add a dash of veggie broth if anything starts to stick. Don’t worry about sizes—just imagine the veggies on your soup spoon. About that size.
2) Add veggie broth and kashi grains and stir to mix everything up.
3) Add coconut curry broth, curry powder, and red pepper flakes.
4) Put on the lid and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a slow simmer and let it go for at least 30 minutes. Stir occasionally to keep the grains from making their way to the bottom of your pot and getting stuck.
5) Add turkey pieces, turmeric, ginger, and a few more red pepper flakes if you wish (more curry, too, if you like). Add coconut milk.
6) Keep it on a slow, peaceful simmer for another 30 minutes to get it heated through and the flavors melding. It really can go as long as you need it to, but try not to let it boil since there’s coconut milk in there.
7) Serve and enjoy!

We had our thai coconut curry turkey soup with a sesame seed bread that I picked up from our local market’s day-old bin. Day-old bread costs about 75% less and is perfect if you’re going to dip it in soup.

Not a bad reward for getting the shoveling done. I hear we might have snow again on Wednesday. Repeat!

Tags: exercise, grains, soup, turkey, winter
Posted in Cooking Adventures, The Daily Balance | 1 Comment »