Coconut Curry Soup

It seems as if life has just taken over lately. Trying new things in my kitchen (and then sharing them with you) have fallen by the wayside. There's a whole lot of sandwiches around here these days. We're barely eating balanced meals, let alone it being something new or fun or worthy of sharing. But I will say that this soup (which I have adapted from here) has been made several times in our home the past couple months. Its SUPER easy and quick to throw together. Its full of fresh vegetables, which is a big bonus--and the peas (wandou) are everywhere for cheap these days. A few of the ingredients may not just be available at your local grocery store, but see the notes at the bottom about where to find them (at least for other China people!). Make this vegetarian by leaving out the chicken, subbing veggie stock, and adding more veggies! Hope you enjoy it!

Coconut Curry Soup
2-3 chicken breasts
2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
salt and pepper
Oil
1 packet red curry paste (about 3 Tbs)
2 14 oz cans coconut milk (or 2 packets powder + 3 cups water)
1 cup chicken broth
1 tsp fish sauce
1 red bell pepper, medium diced
One big handful of snow peas, chopped to bite size
1/3 - 1/2 cup fresh peas
1-2 Tbs lime or lemon juice
~1/4 tsp salt (to taste)
2 bundles rice noodles
1/4 cup chopped green onions

Dice chicken breasts into smallish bite size pieces. Season liberally with salt and pepper. Stir fry in a skillet with a couple teaspoons of oil and minced garlic. Set aside. In a soup pot, whisk together red curry paste and coconut milk. Once warm, add in chicken broth and fish sauce. When everything comes to a boil, add all vegetables and prepared chicken and simmer for about 4-5 minutes--just until peas are done. Stir in lime or lemon juice and salt to taste. Remove pot from heat and throw in rice noodles and green onions. Allow to sit just 2-3 minutes for noodles to soften and then serve!

Notes: I think this would work great with all kinds of vegetables! Just experiment. I also think it'd be fine with more veggies and no chicken if you wanted to make it that way. As for the fish sauce, coconut milk and curry paste--at least here in my city, Carrefour carries these. The coconut powder is cheaper. The fish market will often have the coconut milk and so does Metro. Recently though I got all the packets way cheaper off a taobao guy based in our city (if you live here, he doesn't do cash on delivery unfortunately--you'll have to do it all through taobao). He has cheap cans of coconut milk as well.