Christmas cooking class

I never blogged about Christmas simply because I was too busy and tired. My mom and brother were here from the states visiting for two weeks, so we played host and hostess and tried to wear them out doing as many touristy things as possible. I don't know if WE wore THEM out, but we were always pooped out after each day.

I am sure I will eventually post more of the activities we did, but I wanted to write about my favorite activity: a Thai cooking class. Mike semi-enthusiastically went, and actually enjoyed it more than he thought he would... which speaks volumes. :)

After researching a few different cooking schools in Bkk, we decided to go with the Silom Thai Cooking School, simply because it was the least expensive. The school promised to take you to a market to get fresh ingredients, teach you traditional Thai cooking techniques, prepare 6 dishes and give you the recipes, as well as let you eat the food you made... all this over the course of 5.5 hours for only $32/person. You can't beat that! But what the website didn't say was that we would get a very funny, flamboyant teacher named Nusi, who was quite the entertainer with his comments, reactions, and ridiculous faces/poses.

We made:
fried bananas
fried rice
deep fried spring rolls
green papaya salad
musuman chicken with curry
spicy shrimp soup

We learned how to make:
fresh coconut milk from coconut shavings
sticky rice (did you know it was steamed)?
homemade curry paste

Enjoy the pictures!

Market

Market

Nusi

Prepping some of the ingredients

Squeezing freshly chopped up coconut to make coconut milk

Making soup

Soup

Stuffing/rolling spring rolls

Frying bananas and spring rolls

Fried bananas and spring rolls

Fried rice

Chicken curry

Papaya salad

Papaya salad that is eaten with sticky rice

Steaming sticky rice