One of the best things about living in Thailand is the food. It is not only delicious, but it is also plentiful and cheap. In fact, you can find it on almost any street corner at any time of day or night. I guess we are spoilt in Thailand in having such easy access to Thai food. After all, one meal in a Thai restaurant in say London, New York or Sydney would probably be the same as our weekly food budget. I know that is not really fair to compare as portion sizes in the West are far greater than what we get here. In addition, if you order say chicken curry in a London restaurant you are actually going to get a fair amount of meat. Here you will probably get a lot of bone and a bit of meat! Basically you get what you pay for.

As you probably know, I love to cook. So, I don't actually go out and buy street food that much. If I am going to eat green curry, I like to have a good amount of quality meat in it. If I am going to have stir-fried vegetables, I want to make sure that it isn't sweetened with a lot of sugar or "flavoured" with a tablespoon of MSG. I also like playing around with recipes mixing Thai and Western recipes to create my own innovations. It is fun. Cooking for myself also means that I can have more Western meals. Variety is always good I think. I don't live in Bangkok and we don't get much of a choice here in Samut Prakan.

One of the downsides to cooking at home is the cost. If you are buying quality ingredients or cooking Western meals then it is going to cost you more than the average meal bought on the street. Electricity is also expensive and my cooker and oven contribute greatly to my electricity bill. In the West we cook at home in order to save money. If we go out we might prepare sandwiches and a flask of hot soup. In Thailand, in theory, it is the opposite. I think a lot of us would say that it is actually cheaper to eat out every night. Of course, that doesn't mean dining at five star hotels every evening and drinking wine or beer. You can easily go through a lot of money that way.

Eating out for us is going to a local food shop or buying something from a food cart. Something that I don't do nearly enough. Which is what gave me the idea for this food challenge. I decided for one month that I would eat nothing but Thai street food. This would be three meals a day, seven days a week. I am not allowed to go to supermarkets, restaurants or even 7-Eleven. At home I cannot cook or even heat things up. I won't even be allowed to boil some water to make a cup of coffee. Quite a few Thai families don't have a working kitchen. Or if they do then it is just a single gas hob. What I want to see is if I will really save money by eating out for every meal. I have already made a note of how much I spend weekly at the supermarket and also the monthly average for my electricity bill.

To make it a bit more interesting, and certainly more challenging, I am not allowed to eat the same dish twice. Straight away this means I will be eating at least 90 different dishes in one month! I am not sure if that is even possible. In addition, I cannot return to the same food shop, food cart, stall or food vendor twice in the same week. To be honest, I am not sure how easy it is going to be for me. Breakfast is certainly going to be a challenge. My Soi doesn't sell much in the morning and I have to be at work by 7.15 a.m. So, I might have to do what many Thai people do and eat leftovers from the night before. Though, of course, for me it has to be something new bought the night before. I was never one for eating spicy food so early in the morning!

My Thai Street Food challenge starts on Wednesday 1st September 2010 and will last until the end of the month. I will be posting pictures of every meal as well as running costs on my new Twitter account @EnjoyThaiFood.com. I will also be posting daily updates over at www.EnjoyThaiFood.com. As I will be exploring the Thai food scene in Paknam a lot over the next month, I decided I should also take the opportunity to do a survey about Thai food. So, I will be working on a food map and making notes of what kind of food is being sold the most. I will also take notes about the kinds of places that are selling food. I will then write about my findings here at the end of the month. So, what do you reckon? Will it really be cheaper for me to eat out for every meal? Will I be saving money or will I just be putting on a lot of weight? Let's see!

This is a dip called "nam phrik mamuang". In the ingredients pictured below, you can see palm sugar, red chilli, red shallots, dried shrimp, green mango and shrimp paste in the middle.

Put the shrimp paste into a mortar and pound in the shallots and dried shrimps. Also add the hot chilli, sugar, fish sauce and finally the shredded green mango.

This is the Thai version of pork soup that is a little on the spicy side. In the ingredients below you can see diced potatoes, pork, carrots, Chinese celery, lime, stock cube, bird eye chillies and plum tomatoes. You could use chicken instead of pork.

Boil the pork in the stock until nearly cooked. Add the carrots and potatoes and continue to boil until cooked. Next add the plum tomatoes and Chinese celery. Season with fish sauce, salt and sugar. Take it off the heat and add the lime juice and slightly crushed bird eye chillies. We will have another Thai Food Recipe for you next week at www.thai-blogs.com and www.EnjoyThaiFood.com.

It is that time of year when people are eating vegetarian food for ten days. So, I thought we should kick off the festival with this simple dish. You can basically use any vegetables that you like, but in the ingredients pictured below, you can see green beans, onion rings, mushrooms, baby sweetcorn and sliced carrots at the bottom. There is also a dish of flour.

It is very simple to cook. Just mix the flour with some water to make a smooth mixture. Heat up some oil in a wok. Dip the vegetables into the batter and then into the hot oil. Starting tomorrow I will be eating vegetarian for ten days for the Chinese Vegetarian Festival. I will be posting here pictures of the religious ceremonies at the Chinese temples as well as pictures of the vegetarian food markets and the food that I am eating. I will be posting a lot of pictures over at the Samut Prakan Forums and www.Paknam.com.

One of the most unusual Thai sweets are the "khanom luk chub". These desserts are made from mung-bean flour and come in various colours and shapes. They are made to look like a variety of different fruit and vegetables. These are mangosteens, oranges, cherries, mangoes, watermelons, carrots and even chillies. They have been in Thailand for hundreds of years and have long been a favourite of the Kings. I have started seeing them more often these days at the old traditional Thai riverside markets.

The main ingredients are mung bean, sugar, coconut milk, agar (agar-agar is Malay for jelly), white jasmine water and food colouring. You also need some toothpicks. The method to make starts by mixing the mung bean and sugar together. Slowly pour the coconut milk into the bowl while continuing to stir. Pour the mixture into a brass pan and on a low heat, keep stirring until the mixture no longer sticks to the base of the pan. Take out and leave to cool. Next, shape the mixture into different types of fruit. Finnish by painting it with food colouring.

The "luk chub" sweets get their glossy look by dipping it into the agar. The main ingredients are agar, water and sugar. Put the agar in water and boil for a long time. Then add the sugar and continue boiling. Turn the heat down. Dip the "luk chub" into the liquid once or twice and then leave to dry. You can finish off by adding leaves or sticks to make the miniature fruit look more authentic. I took these pictures at Kungpen Restaurant in Suphanburi. We were invited there by the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) to watch cooking demonstrations as part of their "Amazing Tastes of Thailand" festival.

Thai food is certainly world famous these days. It has been estimated that there are now Thai restaurants in 13,000 locations around the world. These range from fast-food take-aways to up-market restaurants. Many of them have been set up by Thai expatriates living abroad. But there are also many restaurants run by foreigners who have fallen in love with Thai food while on holiday in Thailand. In 2007, tourists in Thailand spent an average of 4,120 baht per day, out of which 17% was spent on food and drink. In order to promote Thai cuisine to foreign tourists, the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) are helping to run the "Amazing Taste of Thailand Festival". This will be held from 24th to 28th of September 2009 at Central World in Bangkok.

In order to help promote Thai food around the world, the TAT have also organized "Thailand Brand". They have invited chefs, restaurant owners and media from all around the world to come to Thailand to introduce them to the rich diversity of food in the five regions. Today, the TAT invited us at Paknam Web to a popular restaurant in Suphanburi called Kungpen, where we caught up with one of the foreign tour groups. Apart from a very delicious meal of famous food from this region, we were also given demonstrations on Thai cooking and Thai desserts. In this picture, a chef from France is being given instruction on how to cook three popular dishes.

This first dish is called Spicy Minced Fish Salad or "laab pla ma" in Thai. Pla Ma is a famous fish in Suphanburi which literally translates as "Horse Fish". I am told that the face looks a bit like a horse! The main ingredients of this dish include minced fish, lemon juice, fish sauce, ground chilli, roasted rice, sliced red onion and mint leaves.

The second dish that we were given a demonstration cooking of was Snake-Head Fish with Herbs, or "Pla Chon Samun Prai". The herbs include sliced lemon grass, citrone leaves, ginger, galingale and white sesame seed.

The final dish was Shrimp Stew or "kung lon" in Thai. The main ingredients include chopped prawns, lemon grass, citrone leaves, sliced onion, sliced red and green chillies, crushed bird chillies and coconut milk. All of these dishes were very delicious.

This is a picture of our table. I think I enjoyed eating everything that was presented to us. It was a really delicious meal. I know it is a hard job writing travel and food blogs, but someone has to do it. And I am glad it is me! It is one of the best jobs you could ask for.

Before I finish, I just want to show you two final pictures of the food that we ate and that I really enjoyed. This first one is Fried Salty fish or "kung tod gluea" in Thai. The second dish below, is Fried Coccinia grandis with Shrimp or "tam leung" in Thai. This is a kind of ivy that is fried with batter. It was actually really nice.

I will be posting pictures of other demonstrations at this event tomorrow. On Friday, I will be reporting from the Amazing Taste of Thailand Festival in Bangkok. I would like to thank the TAT for inviting us on this trip and also the owners of Kung Pen Restaurant in Samchuk District for being such kind hosts. If you want to go to this restaurant, you will find it on Highway 340, about 30 kms north of Suphanburi town. It is very close to the 100 Year Old Market at Samchuk which we also visited. I will write about that soon.

This is a simple side dish that you can do as an appetizer. In the ingredients pictured below, you can see wide noodles, a mixture of chicken, tofu and garlic, bean sprouts, dried shrimp and sliced egg in the middle.

Prepare the mixture first by finely grinding cilantro root, garlic and pepper. Heat some oil in a wok and when it is hot add the mixture and cook until the garlic is nearly golden brown. Add the minced chicken and stir-fry until cooked. Next add the tofu and dried shrimp. Season with equal amounts of soya bean sauce and sweet soya sauce. Blanch the bean sprouts in hot water until soft. Beat the eggs and then fry it in a wok so that it is very thin. Roll it up and then slice the egg thinly so that it looks shredded. Put a spoonful of the mixture, together with the bean sprouts and egg, onto the wide noodle and roll it up. Use a sharp knife to cut across the roll without going through to the other side. Come back to www.thai-blogs.com next week for another Thai food blog.

This is a simple dish of salty fried prawns, or "kung tod khem" in Thai. You can see the salty prawns in the picture below.

Preparation is simple for this dish. Wash the prawns and then place them in a bowl where you need to rub them with salt. While you are heating up the oil, let them sit for a few minutes. Once the oil is hot enough, deep fry them until they are a rich golden red colour. Come back to www.thai-blogs.com next week for another Thai Food Blog.