Soupy soups!

MMM soup! Last night it got down to 27 degrees! Sheesh! Since it was so cold I decided to make a tasty egg drop soup. This is one of the easiest tastiest soups a person can make. Here's what you need:

Chicken broth
2 eggs
Shitake mushrooms (reconstituted if they are dried)
Ginger
White pepper
Green onions, finely chopped
Corn starch

Dice your mushrooms and toss them in with your chicken broth. While your broth heats, whisk your eggs reeaaalllllyy well. Add 1 tsp of ginger and a pinch of pepper to the broth. Take a bit of the hot broth and add one tbs of corn starch, mix until you don't have any lumps and pour the mixture back into the broth. While stirring the soup in a circular motion begin to add your eggs. They should be forming thin ribbons. If they're not instantly cooking, your broth isn't hot enough. Last but not least, add the green onions. See, how easy was that? And here's what you get!  

Nippon

Hello my darling doodles!
This is a recipe taken from our last place of residence, Japan! This is a good easy place to start if you want to experiment with Japanese food. Here's what you need:
Salmon fillet
Cooked short gain rice
Quality green tea leaves
Soy sauce
Salt
Ginger
Wasabi

Salt your salmon generously. Let it hang out for a half hour or so before popping it under the broiler. Broil 5 minutes-ish or until nice and cooked. In the meantime, warm your rice and start boiling that tea. When warm, spoon your rice into a bowl and top with the salmon. Add a pinch of ginger to the tea before pouring it over the fish. Top with a bit of wasabi and some soy sauce. The end! By the way, I served this with a cucumber and tomato salad made with: rice vinegar, sugar, sesame oil and ginger. I think a tart side dish goes really well with this kind of sweet main dish. Oh, and I almost forgot! Today I planted: chamomile, mine, more basil, dill and lavender. Gardening, here I come!

Din-Dins!

Hi there!
Today was 70 degrees and BEAUTIFUL! Also, I was in a climate controlled office all day. It was tragic! At least there was enough daylight for me to pull some weeds when I got home. Well, today I thawed a whole roasting chicken only to discover that it was actually a turkey breast! What? I know! How does that even happen! Oh well, we ate tofu instead! Fried italian tofu over a mater salad. Delish! Here's what you need:

Firm tofu
Basil
Oregano
Garlic seasoning
Flour
Salt
Maters
Mozzarella cheese
Olive Oil
Balsamic vinegar

Drain and blot your tofu dry. Slice it how you like it! In a bowl combine the herbs (about 1 TBS each), 1/2 TSP garlic seasoning, flour and a pinch of salt. Dredge your tofu in the flour mixture and slap those puppies in a hot oiled frying pan. It wont take long for these to cook, a couple minutes on each side depending on their thickness. Make sure your oil isn't too hot or they'll be toasty on the outside and cold on the inside. The same thing goes for oil that's too cold, they'll end up really mooshy and oily, ew. I digress, while your tofu is frying, go ahead and chop up your basil, oregano, maters and cheese. Combine with a nice olive oil, a splash of balsamic vinegar and a pinch of salt. I like to let this marry for a few minutes before serving. Once your tofu is nice and golden, blot 'em, salt 'em and serve 'em! The end!

Old fashioned gingerbread

Hello my darling dearests!
Here's what I made for dessert last night, old fashioned gingerbread! Yum! I've included the recipe below. Tonight was my knitting circle, a little bit of a small turnout but still substantial progress was made on the shawl I'm making for Joe's Grandma. I hope to finish it sometime in the next millennia. Also, this weekend (if the weather is nice) I'm going to be putting in my tea garden! Mint, chamomile, lemon balm and lavender. I can't wait! It's almost t-minus three weeks 'till vegetable garden planting. I'll post pictures of my broccoli and herbs later this week. Until then!

Old fashioned gingerbread
Here's what you need:
2 1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 sugar
1/2 dark molasses
1 cup coffee
2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
1 1/2 tsp ginger

Mix the oil, sugar, molasses, coffee and eggs until well combined. In a separate bowl sift together the dry goods and spices. Slowly incorporate the dry ingredients into the sugar/molasses mix until your batter is nice and smooth. Bake for 40ish minutes at 300 degrees. Serve with whipped cream or powdered sugar. Yum! PS- Don't forget to grease and flour your pan!

Joe's Jellyfish (Spring) Rolls

Hi hi hi!

Poor husband Joe has been grading speeches for 72 hours straight so I made him an afternoon snack to keep his head from exploding. Tasty spring rolls with green tea. I call them jellyfish rolls because Joe says the rice paper looks like, well, a jellyfish. Here's a quick how to for spring rolls.

You'll need:

Spring roll wrappers (the dry kind)

Pork/tofu/shrimp/whatever

Cabbage

Carrots

Green onions

Garlic

Ginger

Soy sauce

Sesame oil

You want all your ingredients to be slivered. Saute your meat/non-meat in a pan coated in sesame oil. Add your soy sauce (I don't measure this, but I guess it's about 2 tbs) veggies, garlic and ginger. I like the cabbage to be a little crunchy so I leave this for last. While your filling is getting nice and tasty, fill a bowl with hot water. You'll need to soak the wrappers in the hot water for about 30 seconds or until they're nice and easy to work with. Take the wrappers one at a time and add about 2 tbs of filling. I've taken pics of the wrapping process, but to summarize: your filling should be in a line near the bottom of the wrapper, fold over twice before folding in the sides. Fold over one (or two) more times. That's it! I served these with a nice cup of green tea and a little duck sauce. By the way, these are great for parties because you can make them way before hand.

Tasty white bread!

Here's a basic white bread recipe. I made two loaves: one pain old white bread and one with garlic, basil and rosemary. Oh boy!

2 packets dry active yeast

1 tbs salt

1/2 cup sugar

2 1/2 cups flour & 3ish cups flour

1 cup water

1 cup milk

1/2 cup vegetable oil

Combine yeast, salt, sugar and the first amount of flour. Heat the milk, water and oil in a saucepan until quite warm. Incorporate the liquids into the dry ingredients. Mix on medium speed until well blended (2 minutes or so). Incorporate 2 more cups of flour by hand. Place dough on floured board and knead in final cup of flour. NOTE- You just want enough flour to make a not too sticky dough, this might be closer to 1/2 a cup than 1 cup. You'll just have to eyeball it. Once your dough is kneaded, smooth and looking delicious put it in a greased bowl, cover with a towel and leave it someplace warm until it has doubled in size (30/40 minutes). Divide the dough into 2 loaves, recover and let sit for an additional 30 minutes. Bake at 375 for about 15 minutes. Yummo!

MMM MMM Cake!

Well, I've just started this new blog as a place to post some of the things I make/bake/eat. I'll post recipes to the best of my ability, I have an aversion to measurement so I'll apologize in advance for that. So to start things off here's a banana cake I made for my boss' b-day.