Taco Cake

 In our family, we've recently been talking about palindromes like Tacocat (and Madam, I'm Adam).  This Taco Cake isn't a palindrome, but it was a fun dessert we made for Cinco de Mayo.  While my girls continue to tease me that my favorite food is chicken, it's actually tacos . . . and taco cake!  I pinned this on Pinterest a long time ago and it's actually one of the rare times that our version met and exceeded our Pinterest expectations (#nailedit!).

It's more of a method than a recipe . . . make a cake flavor of your choosing in one cake pan (we used a boxed yellow cake recipe).  Take a white frosting (we used a canned frosting) and dye it a pale yellow (a couple drops of yellow food coloring).  Cut the cake in half, stand it on the sliced ends and put a generous layer of frosting in the middle to stick it together.  Frost the outside of the whole cake with the pale yellow frosting.  

 

Make the taco fillings.  We used crushed Oreos for the ground beef, red m&ms for the tomatoes, coconut dyed green for the lettuce, and sliced orange jelly candies for the cheese.  We sprinkled it over the middle of the taco cake and were so happy with how realistic it looked!

Thai Chicken Noodle Soup

Recently, Thai red curry is a flavor we can all agree on and all enjoy.  I'll post soon the revised red curry stir fry that's in regular rotation, but this soup is something a little different.  I only have a mini chopper, not a full food processor and can just barely fit it all in there to make the paste that becomes the soup base.  Don't be intimidated by the long list of ingredients - I bought some of these pastes at a grocery store (Stater Bros) and made 3-4 batches of soup with them but you could chop your own ginger, cilantro and lemongrass and add it to your food processor.  

The amount of heat is determined by the chilis in the garnish more than the red chile paste or red curry paste and we liberally add Sriracha at the table.  If you're gluten free, just use a GF soy sauce alternative.

Word of warning:  You'll wish you had made a double batch!

Ingredients:

2 large cloves of garlic, chopped

1 medium onion, chopped

1 red bell pepper, chopped

2 T fresh ginger (or ginger paste)

1 T lemongrass paste

2 T red curry paste

2 T fresh cilantro (or 1 T cilantro paste)

1 T red Chile paste (or 2 red chiles, chopped)

2 T coconut oil (or vegetable oil)

1 lime, zested and juiced

1 T soy sauce

4 cups chicken stock or broth

1 can coconut milk

2 cups shredded chicken

7 oz rice noodles

For garnish:

4-5 green onions, thinly sliced (both white and green parts)

1 green chili (sliced, seeds removed)

1 red chili (sliced, seeds removed)

Chopped cilantro

Combine garlic, onion, red pepper, ginger paste, lemongrass paste, red curry paste, cilantro (or paste), and coconut oil in a food processor and process until a paste forms.

While you are making your paste, start boiling water for the rice noodles.

Add paste to a medium pot and fry it for a couple of minutes, just until fragrant.

Add chicken stock and coconut milk and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to a simmer and simmer for about 10 minutes.  While soup is simmering, cook noodles according to package directions and drain.

Add shredded chicken.  Add soy sauce, lime juice and zest, and rice noodles to the soup.  Top with garnishes and serve.