Thai Curry Soup

I have to admit...I have been SO bad about cooking new, original, healthy, delicious meals lately! I don't know what has gotten into me. A sampling of last week's dinners included Subway and macaroni...pitiful!

I promise this is just a temporary phase. Brett moves home FOUR weeks from today (!!) and I can't wait for "meal-planning" evenings. That basically consists of throwing on some PJs, grabbing a beer, and flipping through my magazines and recipe books to choose dinners for the next two weeks. That's my kinda night!

This is something I made a few weeks back. I was trying to clear out my pantry and I did an ingredient search on a couple random things I had, including coconut milk and rice noodles. This recipe was really, really good. I left out the shrimp and instead, used chicken (but only because I had chicken in the freezer!) If you do use chicken, ensure that its fully cooked before you add to the soup. I also left out the spinach because I haven't had the best of luck using spinach in soups...it tends to get wilt-y. Yuck!

World Market sells red curry paste, by the way. Also, I love spicy food, and I simply could not get this soup to be spicy enough. I increased the curry paste, I added red pepper flakes...and finally, I resorted to my most fool-proof SPICE enhancer...cayenne pepper. I didn't want to alter the flavor of the soup (cayenne pepper has sort of a smoky flavor) so I added as much as possible without overdoing it.

Thai Curry Soup

• 2 ounces rice noodles (pad thai noodles)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 1/2 tablespoons minced lemon grass (I omitted b/c I couldn't find any)
  
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger (I used fresh)
  
• 2 teaspoons red curry paste (I used 3-4 TBS)
  
• 1 (32 ounce) carton chicken broth
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon white sugar
• 1 (13.5 ounce) can coconut milk
• 1/2 cup peeled and deveined medium shrimp
• 1/2 cup sliced mushrooms
• 1 (10 ounce) bag baby spinach leaves
• 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• 1/4 cup chopped cilantro
• 2 green onions, thinly sliced

1. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add rice noodles and cook until al dente, about 3 minutes. Drain and rinse well with cold water to stop the cooking; set aside.
2. Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Stir in garlic, lemon grass, and ginger; cook and stir until aromatic, 30 to 60 seconds. Add the curry paste, and cook 30 seconds more. Pour in about 1/2 cup of the chicken broth, and stir until the curry paste has dissolved, then pour in the remaining chicken stock along with the soy sauce and sugar. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low, partially cover, and simmer 20 minutes.
3. Stir in coconut milk, shrimp, mushrooms, spinach, lime juice, and cilantro. Increase heat to medium-high, and simmer until the shrimp turn pink and are no longer translucent, about 5 minutes.
4. To serve, place some rice noodles into each serving bowl and ladle soup on top of them. Garnish each bowl with a sprinkle of sliced green onion.