Miso Soup

Since I already had the miso out, I thought a nice accompaniment to the salmon would be a miso soup. This was also simple, quick and healthy with minimal cleanup. I love meals like this!

Ingredients:
- Miso
- Water
- Dashi (pellet-like fish stock base)
- Wakame (dried seaweed - but not the sushi kind)
- Tofu
- Green onions

Directions:
- Boil some water in a pot.
- Add dashi according to the package directions, stirring to dissolve the pellets.
- Add miso paste to taste.
- Add in the wakame.
- Dice the tofu and gently slide it in.
- Gently stir the soup so that everything is mixed.
- Garnish with a bit of freshly chopped green onions.

Clam Chowder

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!!!

While I didn't do any cooking for the holidays, I still haven't finished my Thanksgiving posts, so here's one more.

I was a bit worried that the soup wouldn't get eaten and that I'd have a ton of leftovers, but apparently, it wasn't something that I needed to worry about. I made the clam chowder the day before and then popped in the crock pot in the morning to heat it up and left it there during dinner to keep it warm. Anyone who wanted it, had to get up off their butts, walk over, pour themselves a bowl, and bring it back to their seats.

The crock pot happened to be near my father-in-law who took it upon himself to tattle on people who went for seconds. I told him it was fine and that we had plenty - people could go for seconds and thirds as much as they wanted. Apparently that wasn't the reaction he was looking for out of me, so he decided to report to everyone, how many bowls each person had helped themselves to. Luckily, that didn't deter anyone from going back for more and we had less than one bowl's worth left at the end of the night. I'd call that a success :)

Happy New Year!!!


Ingredients:
- Clams and clam juice (I used canned clams that were packed in its own juices)
- Stock (clam stock would be best, then fish, then veggie or chicken. I used chicken because that's all that I had on hand. Water will do too if you don't have any stock at all)
- Milk (I used soy milk)
- Cream (I used half & half though I'm sure heavy cream would have been wonderful)
- Potatoes
- Onions
- Celery (optional)
- Parsley
- Salt
- Pepper
- Flour
- Butter

Directions:
- Peel and dice the potatoes.
- Finely dice the onions.
- Finely slice the celery.
- In a heavy bottomed pot, add a bit of butter or oil and the onions and sweat them until softened.
- Add the potatoes and celery.
- Saute everything until the potatoes and celery have softened a bit. They don't need to be totally cooked through yet at this point.
- Remove everything.
- Make a rue by mixing equal parts of melted butter and flour and cooking it until it is just starting to turn a bit golden in color.
- Add any of the liquids (milk, cream, stock) and whisk the mixture until the rue has been fully incorporated into the liquid and it has thickened nicely.
- Add the rest of the liquids, the clams, clam juice, onions, celery, potatoes, etc and bring everything to a simmer.
- If the soup is not thick enough, either add more cream or make more rue in a separate pot, add a bit of the liquid from the soup to the rue and add the entire mixture back to the soup once it's been fully incorporated.
- Salt and pepper to taste.
- Add the parsley at the last minute.

Chicken Orzo Soup

The weather is getting cooler and while I'll definitely miss the summer, I will also enjoy the fact that it's also soup season! Plus I've been saving all the bones from all those summer bbq's in my freezer and have lots of stock on hand for some great soups.

This is a simple and easy classic, but instead of using noodle, I used orzo. I love the fun shape and texture of orzo, it's like fat rice!

Ingredients:
- Chicken (I used chicken breast)
- Onions
- Celery
- Carrots
- Potatoes
- Orzo
- Chicken stock (recipe can be found here)
- Salt & Pepper

Directions:
- Dice the onions, peel and chop the carrots, and chop the celery. Set everything aside.
- Heat a heavy bottomed pot and add a bit of oil. Add the onions with a sprinkling of salt and saute them until they're soft.
- Add the carrots and celery and cook until they've softened as well.
- Add chicken stock to the pot and bring it to a boil.
- Add the potatoes and orzo and chicken.
- When the chicken is cooked through, pull it out, let it cool, shred it, and put it back in.
- Salt and pepper the soup to taste and let it warm you up on a chilly night.

Niu Rou Mien (Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup)

Now that you have amazing handmade noodles, you need something equally amazing to eat those noodles with, right? Enter one of my all time favorites - Niu Rou Mien aka Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup. I love this stuff. One of my coworkers makes us go to the same exact place EVERY week and orders this dish so that he can get his weekly fix, and I more than happily oblige.

Usually, this dish is served with a nice thick layer of spicy red oil on top of the broth, but alas, when I'm cooking at home, I can't bring myself to knowingly eat it that way, so I refrigerate the broth overnight and skim off the solidified fat. It's still yummy, but if you chose not to skim off the fat, it'll only make it better.

Additionally, making a batch of Niu Rou Mien is the perfect opportunity to impart some of these great flavors into a few other otherwise ingredients. Personally, I really like the flavor of carrots that have been stewed in the broth, so I always toss a few of those in. I adore soy sauce eggs and this broth is perfect for making them, so I always make sure to cook up a batch of those too whenever I'm making this dish. Other things typical items that you can toss in there are dou gan (bean curd - kinda like a super firm tofu) and seaweed.

I'm submitting this post to Pasta Presto Nights. Patsy of Family Friends & Food is hosting this week, so check out her blog on May 15th to see everyone else's pasta creations!

Now onto the second most important part - how to make this dish. (The most important part is actually eating it)

Ingredients:
- Handmade noodles (recipe here)
- Beef (traditionally beef shank, but any stew meat will do. I used chuck this time)
- Beef Tendon (totally optional. some people like it, some don't)
- Water or Beef or Chicken or Vegetable Stock
- Soy sauce (to taste)
- Brown sugar (to taste)
- 1-2 sprigs of Green onions
- 3-4 cloves of Garlic
- 3-5 slices of Ginger
- 3-5 Star anise
- Dried chili peppers (to taste)
- Sichuan peppercorns (to taste)
Optional additions that I used:
- Carrots
- Peeled hard-boiled eggs

Directions:
- Put the meat, tendon and carrots if you're using them, ginger, garlic, scallions, spices, etc (basically everything but the eggs) in a pressure cooker or heavy bottomed pot. If you're not using a pressure cooker, go ahead and stick the eggs too. If you are, I don't imagine pressure cooked eggs to be a pretty sight (though I've never tried it), so leave those out for now.
- Fill the pot with the liquid of your choice until the meat is barely covered.
- Add soy sauce and brown sugar to taste. You can always water down the broth later if you add too much, or add more if it's too bland.
- Bring everything to a boil. If you're using a pressure cooker, let it cook at maximum pressure for about 20-30 minutes and let the pressure come down naturally, or until the meat is fall apart tender. If you're using a pot, either simmer it on the stovetop or put it into a 350 degree oven for a few hours until the meat is fall apart tender.
- Take out everything but the spices, ginger, scallion and garlic and set it aside.
- Strain the broth. If you used a pressure cooker and want to make soy sauce eggs, put the eggs in and let it simmer for at least an hour (the longer the better though) so that the color and flavor penetrates the egg.
- If you want, refrigerate the broth overnight to remove the layer of fat on top.
- Now it's time to serve! In a bowl, put some noodles, a bit of the broth (and some water if it's too salty), and a few slices of the beef. Garnish it with some bok choy, carrots, soy sauce egg, pickled cabbage, green onions, parsley, etc.
- Slurp and enjoy!

Shrimp Bisque

Our friend, Stephanie, had crab night at her house a while ago and it was a huge hit. She boiled half of the crabs in an broth seasoned with old bay and the other half in cajun seasonings. Then she let the liquid boil down and sent a batch of delicious crab broth home with me! Yay!

Sticking with the seafood theme, I decided to make a shrimp bisque out of it. I can't give you an exact recipe since I have no idea how much of what spices she put into the broth. But then again, I rarely give measurements on this blog anyway since I tend not to measure things, so I guess it's not that different from usual. My typical method of cooking is to spin my spice rack around, grabbing whatever catches my eye, and tossing it in. I give it a taste and adjust accordingly. This usually results in something decent :)

Ingredients:
- Leftover crab broth
- Onions
- Carrots
- Celery
- Garlic
- Tomatoes
- Tomato paste
- Rice
- Butter
- Flour
- Shrimp
- Soy milk (or cream)
- Water
- Paprika
- Salt
- Pepper
- Parsley

Directions:
- Melt some butter in a heavy pot and add the onions. Sweat them until they're soft.
- Melt more butter if necessary. Add flour and mix, cooking it down to get rid of the raw flour taste and make a roux.
- Toss in the chopped carrots, celery, garlic, tomatoes, tomato paste, rice, crab stock, water if necessary.
- Bring everything to a boil and let it simmer until the vegetables are soft.
- Season to taste with salt, pepper and paprika.
- Using a stick blender, blend the soup until everything is smooth and creamy.
- Mix in the cream (I used soy milk) and add the shrimp. Stir until the shrimp is cooked.
- Garnish with parsley and serve.

French Onion Soup

What can I say about this soup? I didn't do a particularly good job on the presentation, but the flavors were there, and that's what's really important, right?

Either way, I think if I ever make this soup again in the future, I'm going to have to get myself some cute little ramekins and do it right way. But seeing as how I already have more than enough kitchen clutter, I don't see that happening. Oh well, at least I can say that I made it at least once and that it was rather tasty.

Ingredients:
- 5-6 large yellow onions
- 2 cups of beef broth
- 2 cups of chicken broth
- 2 cups of water
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
- a splash of balsamic vinegar (optional)
- salt and pepper to taste
- baguette slices
- shredded cheese

Directions:
- Slice all the onions.
- Heat the oil in a big oven-safe pot over medium heat.
- Add the onions and a bit of salt and cook until the onions are wilted. Putting the lid on will help, but be sure to check it and stir it constantly so that it doesn't burn.
- Stir the onions until slightly carmelized.
- At this point, you can either put it in a 250 degree oven and let it carmelize to a deep brown color there, or keep it on the stove and just keep an eye on it. In the oven, I didn't really worry about it burning and only checked on it every 20 minutes or so until it got the deep color I wanted.
- Deglaze the pot with the water, then add the chicken and beef stock.
- Season with salt and pepper to taste and a splash of balsamic if you'd like to brighten the soup up a bit (be very careful with it, a little goes a long way).
- Pour it into an oven-safe bowl and top with a few slices of crusty baguette and cheese (I used mozzarella because that's what I had but found it a bit bland. Gruyere is probably best).
- Place the bowls under the broiler and watch it until the cheese melted and slightly browned.

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

I tend to try new recipes for the first time when having guests over. Maybe it's not the best idea, but it has yet to go horribly wrong. On occasion it doesn't go quite as planned, but my hubby has a great palate and creative solutions to help save the day. In fact, sometimes, his ideas end up being even better than the original! Luckily, this time, all I needed was his taste buds to help me out.

So, silly me didn't know that the hollow section of a butternut squash was so small. I thought it was hollow all the through the skinny part too and bought way too many for the soup. Do you have any great ideas for my extra squash?

Silly me also didn't know how difficult they were to peel and chop, but I got through it with some help from my brother-in-law, thanks Alvin! I have since done it on my own with the extra squash I bought. They're tough little guys!

Ingredients:

• Butternut squash
• Chicken stock
• Cream
• Salt
• Pepper
• Cinnamon
  
• Nutmeg

Method:

• Peel, seed, and cut the squash into bite-size cubes. Toss it in some olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Put it in a roasting pan and roast at 350 degrees until the squash is tender (about 30-45 minutes).

• Put the squash in a large pot and pour in the chicken stock until the squash is barely covered. Bring it to a simmer.
• Blend the soup until smooth and creamy. Be careful, it is very hot and can splatter easily.
• Add cream to the soup and stir until it has reached the desired consistency.
  
• Add cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and pepper to taste.
• Serve with croutons, bacon bits, a few sprigs of fresh herbs or just enjoy it on it's own!
  

Pressure Cooker Chicken Stock

Homemade chicken stock is so much better than store bought. I save all of my chicken bones in a bag in the freezer and then pull them out when I've collected enough to make chicken stock, which I then freeze and stick back in the freezer in smaller batches so that I can take a bit out whenever I need. I've also started freezing the tops and leaves of celery that I cut off when making celery sticks, etc to use in the stock.

The problem with making stock is that you have to let it simmer for hours and I'm just not that patient. Plus, when you only notice that you're out of frozen chicken stock the morning of Thanksgiving and already have a million other things to do, you don't have time to wait hours for the chicken bones to release their goodness into the stock. That's when I'm especially glad that I have a pressure cooker.

This is my entry for Joelen's Tasty Tools event which features stock/soup pots. I love soups, so check out her blog to see what other tasty dishes others have made!

Ingredients:

• Chicken bones
• Water
• Carrots
• Celery
• Onion
• Salt (optional)
• other herbs (optional)

Method:

• Put the chicken bones in your pressure cooker and cover it with cold water until the bones are just covered. Be sure not to fill it over the recommended limit for your pressure cooker (pressure cookers should NOT ever be filled to the brim).
• Rough chop some carrots, celery and onions and dump them in. There's no need to peel the carrots or chop them finely, etc since it's only there for the flavor, not to be eaten. Just be sure to wash them.
• Add salt, herbs, or other flavorings that you might want. I tend not to add any of things since I don't always know what I'm going to be using the stock for in the future and can add those things later.
• Close the pressure cooker according to the manufacturers instructions and put it over high heat until the maximum pressure is reached. Then turn down the heat just enough to maintain the pressure for about half an hour.
• Turn off the heat and let the pressure dissipate naturally.
• Carefully open the pressure cooker. Make sure you've gotten all the goodness out of the bones by breaking them. They should be so weak that they just fall apart with minimal effort. If they haven't reached this stage yet, go ahead and put the lid back on and turn up the heat again for another 10 minutes and let the pressure come down on its own again.
• Strain out all the bones and veggies.
• Now, you can either use a fat separator to get rid of the excess fat or chill in the fridge and remove the fat that solidifies on top.
• You can use the stock immediately or store it in the fridge for about a week, or freeze it practically for ever. Use it in your favorite soups, sauces, etc.

Corn chowder

Who says chowders have to be unhealthy? This had minimal butter, no cream, lotsa veggies, and soy milk! And it tasted great (in my opinion at least). My brother always laughs at me because I'll drink diet coke and eat french fries smothered in cheese, guacamole, and carne asada (the best thing ever by the way if you've never tried it - a San Diego hole in the wall Mexican specialty). But my argument is that if a comparable lower calorie version of carne asada french fries existed, I'd eat it. Unfortunately, there isn't, but there is one for soda, so I might as well take advantage of that, right?

I'm always about finding comparable healthy alternatives. I've baked eggrolls before, made creamless creamed spinach, baked potato wedges/chips, etc. and now I'm on to my healthy version of corn chowder, I hope you like it!


Ingredients:
- 2 tbs butter
- flour
- 1 can of corn
- 1 onion finely diced
- 2 ribs of celery chopped
- 1 potato diced
- 1 chicken breast
- 1 cup soy milk
- 1 cup chicken stock or water
- 1 tsp oregano
- 1 tsp parsley
- salt and pepper to taste

Method:
Melt the butter in a heavy pot and add flour a little a time to make a rue. Keep adding the flour until it can't hold anymore.

In a separate pan (or take the rue out and use the same pan), sweat the onions until softened. Add a pinch of salt to help with the process.

Add it to the pot (or add the rue back in). Add the can of corn, with the liquid, soy milk and chicken stock/water. Stir to break up the rue and thicken the soup.

Toss in the celery, potato and the chicken breast to poach. Bring everything to a boil then turn down to a simmer.

When the chicken is cooked, take it out and shred it and put it back in. Add the herbs and salt and pepper to taste and enjoy the comforting goodness of this healthy corn chowder.

Tortilla Soup

I love soup. Whenever restaurants ask if I want soup or salad, I always go for the soup. I made this soup with the leftover liquid from the carnitas. It would be such a shame to waste all that flavorful broth. Why do they sell chicken and beef broth, but not pork broth? Pork broth is yummy too, isn't it?

Anyway, this soup is also a great way to use up stale tortilla chips or the small broken ones at the bottom of the bag. Unfortunately, I was a dummy that forgot to add the tortilla in before taking the picture. Oops. But I'm sure you can use your imagination.

Since I used leftover carnitas liquid, I don't have measurements for ingredients. Mine are always just estimations anyway and really done more by taste than anything, but here it is...

Ingredients:
- Pork broth (chicken would work fine too)
- 1 chicken breast
- 1 can of corn
- 1 can of black beans rinsed
- 2 ribs of celery sliced
- 2 carrots diced
- 1 onion diced
- 2 cloves of garlic minced
- 1 jalapeno minced finely
- cumin to taste
- chili powder to taste
- salt to taste
- black pepper to taste

Method:
- Saute the onions until soft and add the garlic, cumin and chili powder. Toast the spices until fragrant.
- Add the carrots and celery and saute for a few minutes.
- Pour in the broth and bring to a boil.
- Add the jalapeno and chicken breast. Simmer until the chicken breast is cooked. Remove the chicken breast, and shred it.
- When the vegetables are soft, add the chicken back in, the corn and black beans.
- Heat everything through, add salt and pepper to taste and serve it with some tortilla chips and a dollop or sour cream if desired. Diced avocado would be a wonderful addition too. Enjoy!

cheater's pho

After weeks of gorgeous summer-like weather, it rained today!* Grrr. Cold, gloomy, it puts me in the mood for a nice, hot soup, so I made some pho (the cheater's version).

This recipe is faaaar from authentic but it's still tastes good and it's MUCH faster, so I'm calling it "cheater's pho". Authentic pho takes hours of simmering beef bones and spices and then ideally refrigerating overnight to make fat removal easier.

I usually don't like to go out to by stuff for one particular dish, so my garnishes aren't traditional either, but they are what I had in the fridge/pantry already. Typically, your garnishes should include thinly sliced onions, bean sprouts, mint, lime, cilantro, and thinly sliced rare beef (or meatballs or beef tendon, etc).

*Note: I started this post a while ago and now the weather is back to being sunny and gorgeous. Yay!

Ingredients: Soup -
- 1 can of beef broth (or chicken broth if you want to make pho ga - chicken pho)
- 1/2 onion quartered (and a few thin slices set aside to add into the noodles)
- 1 star anise
- 5-10 thin slices of ginger
- a pinch of cinnamon
- 5-10 coriander seeds
Noodles -
- 1.5 cups of thick, flat rice stick noodles
Garnish -
- 4 slices of roast beef (because it was the closest thing I had to rare steak in the house)
- a handful of spinach (becuase I had none of the proper veggies)
- 2 thin slices of onion

Directions:
- Boil all the broth ingredients for ~10 minutes to extract all the flavors. The longer the better, but at least 10 minutes.
- Boil the noodles according to the package directions.
- Strain the broth.
- Put everything in a bowl - broth, noodles, garnishes into a bowl and slurp it up!