Santa Monica Mountains

I’m loving Ellen DeGeneres and Portia De Rossi’s ranch in the latest edition of Elle Decor, especially swooning over the leather and wood chairs.

Santigold

Santigold’s album, Master of My Make-Believe is always on heavy rotation here.

chicken and rice soup

Here’s a favorite one pot meal I make all the time, Chicken Rice Soup and in Lao we call it “kao peaak” which translates to “wet rice.” So easy and it requires a few ingredients, nothing canned or crazy.

When you have left over cooked rice, in my case always some kind of white jasmine rice or brown rice, dump the rice in a large pot and add water to cover and then some, bring to a boil and turn the heat down to a low simmer. Then slice up 1-2 ribs of celery, stalks and leaves and slice 2 thumb-size pieces of ginger, add both items to the pot. Shred up some chicken from a roasted chicken you may have left over from the night before, if not chicken you can use boiled down pork ribs, the pork meat should be falling off the bone kind of tender. I usually buy an organic roasted chicken from Whole Foods, it’s a good deal as an uncooked organic whole bird costs the same as an already roasted organic bird, makes things real easy. Add the shredded chicken pieces to the pot and cook down, if you think the soup is too thick add some more water, season to taste with a few splashes of fish sauce and salt and pepper too. If you don’t have fish sauce around, just use more salt. Cook it down ’til the rice is very soft. Spoon the soup in a large bowl, top with sliced green onions and cilantro and a tablespoon of fried garlic or shallots in oil. I like to squeeze a wedge of fresh lime into the soup and sprinkle a bit of dry roasted thai chili flakes to taste. You can also season the soup with soy sauce too. For breakfast, lunch or dinner it works.