After over 8 months in Asia we’ve only got a few days left here before heading to Europe. I can barely believe it. How have we been traveling for eight whole months already? And all the way on the other side of the globe in Asia of all places. We’ve seen some amazing things and met some incredible people. All the countries we’ve visited have been unique in their own ways.

As much as I feel like I’m ready to leave Asia and head to Europe, now that we only have 3 day left here it’s starting to feel a little bit sad. We’ve been here for so long it seem and have gotten so used to certain things, even the frustrating ones that it will be strange to leave this all behind to have to start over again in a new continent.

Don’t get me wrong – I am incredibly excited for Europe and have already started dreaming of freshly baked baguettes, cheeses and wine for lunch in Paris.

Until then though, I’ve got a few more Asian recipes to share.

Which bring me to this Thai Massaman curry with chicken. The Thais are pros when it comes to the curry pastes. There are so many different types and they are all delicious. They can be quite spicy though.

The massaman curry though I find to be the least spicy of the bunch and the closest to an India curry. What really makes the massaman curry stand apart from the others is the addition of fennel seeds, nutmeg cardamon, cinnamon, cloves and star anise. Are you starting to see how this one takes on more of an India flair?

Another way the massaman curry stands out? The addition of potatoes. If you ask me there aren’t enough potato dishes in Thailand, but the massaman curry does it right – since potatoes and chicken are the real stars here.

Use sweet potatoes if you like (which you know I do not) so I’ll be using regular potatoes in mine.

Potatoes + chicken + massaman curry + peanuts + Thai sauces = perfection

Serve with rice and or simply slurp the sauce straight from the bowl.

I will miss this when I’m in Europe.

Recipe from Time For Lime Cooking School 

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Pumpkins and I didn’t always get along so well. There were a few years there when we flat out wanted nothing to do with eachother. Correction – I wanted nothing to do with it. I lumped it into the category with all those other confused vegetables – sweet potatoes, butternut squash etc, you know, the ones who call themselves veggies (and therefore should be savory) but actually have that sweet taste.

Yea, I wasn’t a fan.

If I ever saw any of these veggies on a menu or was offered them I mentally scrunched up my nose and offered a polite, no thanks. And it wasn’t until I went to an amazing Thai restaurant (seriously the best Thai food in the US) in Washington DC (Thai X-ing for those in the area) that I finally put my judgement aside and gave pumpkin another shot.

The dish that changed it all was a salmon pumpkin curry with coconut milk and red curry paste. I kid you not, the dish was so good I almost felt tears of joy rolling down my cheeks. Not quite, but close.

Ever since that moment I’ve been open to pumpkin in all forms and gladly welcome it on the dinner table.

So when Thai pumpkin soup was on the menu at the Time For Lime cooking school in Koh Lanta, I could barely contain my excitement.

I had already tried pumpkin with red curry paste once before and knew that these two were made for each other.

The soup also contain the other Thai classics; garlic, kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass, fish sauce, coconut cream, etc, you know, who whole gang is here. With such a promising list of ingredients expectations were high.

This soup did not disappoint. It was creamy, dreamy, decadent, everything I ever wanted in a soup and more. Think regular pumpkin pureed soup but taken to the next level. Pumpkin soup with an air of sophistication and a deep flavor profile.

Are you with me? Have I convinced you yet?

Sweet potatoes and I still haven’t quite made up, but pumpkins, pumpkins are becoming my new best friends.

Looking for a Thai pumpkiny curry sans the soup? I’ve got you covered, – check out my Thai Squash Red Curry

Recipe from Time for Lime Cooking School 

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I’ve been reading a few heavy books lately. It started with Confessions of an Economic Hit Man which reveals how developed countries exploit the undeveloped world for their own gains and how the “global empire” is booming and causing distress to local communities worldwide. From there I started reading The Shock Doctrine – which details the history of torture techniques – meant to ‘shock’ the body and how this has turned into disaster capitalism, with natural/economic/political disasters ‘shocking’ an economy and capitalists profiting off of this.

Needless to say this hasn’t exactly been light reading.

So for a change I needed something a bit simpler. A bit of romance but nothing too too corny or over the top. On The Island seemed perfect. Not exactly carefree reading, as the protagonists get stranded on an uninhabited island after their sea pilot suffers a heart attack, the book is a quick read though and highly enjoyable.

Sometimes a lighter fiction, love story is what you need.

And a lighter quicker meal is the perfect accompaniment.

So I present to you Pad See Ew – quite simply my all time favorite noodle dish. This Thai dish is made with fresh thick rice noodles which are quickly stir fried with a few sauce ingredients and veggies or meat. It’s easy, quick and just melts right in your mouth.

With the few minutes it takes to make Pad See Ew, you’ll be back to your summer (spring?) reading in no time.

Recipe from Grandma’s Thai Recipes 

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Right now I’m feeling pretty cranky. The kind of thing where if I was still a baby I would just cry nonstop and throw my toys on the floor. Possibly with a few bouts of stamping my feet on the ground as well.

Since I’m a so called adult, I’m simply throwing an internal temper tantrum.

I’m not sure exactly what it is, but my best guess is that it’s the weather. I have been in 100 degree tropical South East Asia temperatures for the last 5 months and instead of building up my tolerance for the heat I’m just reaching my limit.

It’s just too hot.

All the time.

Anyone who knows me knows patience is not one of my strong suits, and it really is starting to run out. The heat is wearing on me.

I’m ready to walk outside and feel a cool breeze, perhaps even a chill.

Luckily we’ve got less than two weeks left in Asia, and then we head to Europe, but I can honestly say I’m ready for temps in the 60s.

I’m ready to go inside to warm up, instead of rushing to the room to plant my body in front of the fan, while simultaneously frantically lowering the A/C temp and turning on the ‘powerful’ mode.

I’d love to have a bowl of soup to warm me up. While I love soup and continue to eat it despite the South East Asian heat actively trying to destroy my desire for it, it’s just not the same when it’s not cold.

And so while I was eating this Tom Kha – Thai coconut milk soup in 100 degree weather I was really imagine a cool breeze and warm sweaters in my mind.

And trust me, you know a soup’s good when you’re ready to eat it even on the hottest of days.

A handful of fresh flavorful ingredients is all you need for a winning bowl of soup.

Seems simple enough, but when all those herbs and veggies come together in the pot something magical happens. The soup is ever so slightly creamy without being over the hot, but full of depth from the Thai ingredients.

Did I mention it takes less than 30 minutes start to finish?

So, regardless of the temperature wherever you are this soup will not disappoint.

Recipe from Grandma’s Thai Recipes Cooking School 

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I used to think sunsets and sunrises were overrated. To be fair I do still think sunrises can be a bit weak, sunsets though, sunsets deserve all the attention. Though the sun sets every single night, so many times there isn’t that magical spectrum of colors that you’re always hoping to see. Sometimes the sky is cloudy, sometimes you’re just not in the right place. The sky doesn’t always light up.

We’ve seen a lot of those sunsets during our travels.

This past week though, we saw something else. While lounging on a soft round chair on Otres Beach Cambodia with a smoothie and draft beer in hand we were the audience for the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen.

It’s after the sun’s out of sight that the colors seem to slowly sneak out and play in the sky.

The result? Magical.

What on earth does this have to do with lemongrass salad bites?

Breathtaking sunsets and these lemongrass salad bites are quite similar you see. Both can seem be seemingly ordinary at first but like a killer sunset that can catch you off guard and light up your face, these lemongrass salad bites with a zing of strong contrasting flavors will bring a smile to your face.

And if you just so happen to be eating these while watching one of those sunsets, your life will really be complete.

A medley of simple Asian ingredients, finely chopped and mixed together, and then folded into a betel or regular salad leaf – these lemongrass salad bites are just perfect.

As you bite down and feel the crunch of a salty peanut, then a squirt of sour lime juice, a ting of red chili and the strong zap of ginger, you’re taste buds will be awakened.

These are the kind of dishes that get me excited about food.

Recipe from Grandma’s Thai Recipes

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Hello All – D here.

Currently we’re in Cambodia and, unfortunately, we didn’t manage to do any cooking classes here…yet. Let’s take a look at how the site performed this month.

Traffic:

While March was AvocadoPesto’s best month to date, we took a sharp hit in April in traffic, coming in at about 10k pageviews less. This was most likely due to less posting and less posts accepted to the major food sharing websites (Foodgawkers, etc). We both kind of feel that we’ve been at this 40k hurdle for awhile now and are not sure how to get out of it. More posts just don’t seem to do the trick and growth feels like its stagnating. Given our current travel lifestyle and the amount of attention we give to the travel blog, I think AvocadoPesto just isn’t getting enough of the love it needs to grow substantially. We’re also not sure how much people are liking the Asian recipes, but, as for now, that’s the situation. It’s an uphill battle, but we’re not giving up!

Vicky did put in a lot of effort into Pinterest this month, mainly by directly contacting board members and asking if she could be added to particular boards she had singled out. She experienced a lot of success and was added to a lot of new boards, but of course, this requires even more work to post the articles to these boards (and go back and post old articles), so nothing comes without a price. As you can see from below, pinterest is becoming more and more substantial in the referral traffic – so it definitely goes to show that it can payoff big in these image heavy niche blogs like Food.

April Breakdown:

BlogHer – $54.30
Google Adsense – $90.9
The Thesis Theme – $0
Hostgator – $50
Amazon Affiliates – $3.93
BuySellAds – $20
Direct Advertising – $450

Grand Total: $669

Income Summary:

Sadly, this was also a low for income on AvocadoPesto, which we hadn’t seen since September of last year. BlogHer had a very dismal month, but we have little control over that. We were approved for our first BuySellAds, which was nice, but not until I lowered the price to a mere $20 to see if anyone would bite. Another bright spot was our second HostGator commission being approved. The Amazon Affiliates is providing a small trickle monthly, we’ll have to put our heads together on how we can multiply that by say 10x. Lastly, Direct Advertising, which generally makes up the bulk of the income, came in at $450. Part of this is on account of most of these being related more to the travel blog than the food blog. Our new initiative this month is to see if we can reach out to more food related companies with a similar proposal.

Overall, I feel we that we are allocating a lot of real estate on the sidebar to BlogHer, Google Adsense, and BuySellAds, but potentially not receiving an optimal amount of money from them. You have to remember that these services are first and foremost, middlemen. I wonder if we could start contacting companies directly and benefiting from that, but it would take extra effort on our part, and where would we find them?

Lastly, last month I said I wanted to try testing some new Google Adsense positions, and this month I finally did it and we made some improvements (up about $15 from last month). I did this by taking one of the vertical sidebar ads and moving it down just above the comments as a new, horizontal ad. I thought this might bring in a better variety of adds as well as stand out more because it was not surrounded by other ads.

It’s the one in the middle. As you can see, it still ranks below the two side vertical ads, but I think it is still better than a third one of those, and that’s really the opportunity cost (since Google limits the number of adsense ads you can have on one page).

If you have any questions, write them in the comments!

Previous Income Updates (Food Blog)

• July 2012 – $47
• August 2012 – $117
• September 2012 – $128
• October 2012 – $825
• November 2012 – $1019
• December 2012 – $837
• January 2013 – $1260
• February 2013 – $1094
• March 2013 – $1721

Previous Income Updates (Travel Blog)

• August 2012 – $55
• September 2012 – $490
• October 2012 – $1345
• November 2012 – $2031
• December 2012 – $2170
• January 2013 – $2925
• February 2013 – $3132
• March 2013 – $4390

The post April 2013 Traffic and Income Report – $669 appeared first on avocadopesto.