Miso Soup

I had Japanese for lunch, dinner and drinks on Friday. It may have been a bit much for one day I suppose, but I am a person who lived in Thailand and ate rice every single day for two months straight. I would not recommend it. Inspired by the cold and 101 Cookbooks, soup just sounded so good. It's funny how many times I've cooked recipes from the 101 Cookbooks blog because I think her style of cooking is very different from mine. She's a vegetarian (big difference) and does more down-home dishes than I do, but maybe we're more alike than I think. That or her food looks just so delish in the photos. I used up the remainder of my tofu from Jane's Health Market. Last week was the first time I had ever cooked with the spungy/squishy protein. I enjoy eating it, which is more than I can say for a lot of people. Can you imagine me trying to serve that to my dad--or even my mom? They would scoff. It is kind of a weird thing. It is pretty versatile. My old roomate put tofu in spaghetti with marinara once, it was pretty good. I stopped by Midwest Oriental Foods to get soba noodles and miso paste. I don't think I found the right kind of paste. I ended up with a packet of powdered substance (sort of pasty) with dried up bits of tofu and seaweed. What I made was probably the Japanese equivalent to American college students inventing dishes to go with ramen noodles. In Japan, they improvise with miso soup and soba noodles. I think I may have digressed here back when I tried to make Thai green curry, but if anyone in the Omaha-area is interested, there are a grip of Oriental and specialty food stores on 84th Street between Center and L. Aki used to fly in fresh sushi-grade fish the first Saturday of the month. Though they stopped doing it about a year ago, they do have the only (frozen) sushi-grade fish in town. And (I'm not supposed to tell you this) but when the local sushi joints run out of fish, in a pinch, they call Aki. Near Midwest Oriental, there is an Indian Grocery which then connects to a Mediterranean grocer. The Mediterannean place stocks the weirder ingredients--like don't go there for feta cheese. We often forget that Turkish, Lebanese and Moroccan foods count as Mediterranean. And I finally found a Thai food market on South 24th last week, too. These places are everywhere, you just have to dig a little. Check here for 101 Cookbooks' recipe for Miso Soup.

Would Have Been Better With Shrimp

I suppose it makes sense that when you are uninspired, everything you make is also uninspired. I made an attempt to rally myself last Tuesday. I feigned excitement when I saw a photo of a delicious pasta dish. It could have been so good. I'll blame the health food market I stopped by on my way home that doesn't stock shrimp. So what we're in landlocked Nebraska? This is America, and I want my semi-exotic seafood priced at $5 a pound. I'm being sarcastic. But this dish would have been a lot better with shrimp (versus tofu). Vegetarian Pasta: handful spaghetti 2 tablespoons butter 1/2 cup onion, chopped 1 garlic clove, chopped 1/2 butternut squash, diced 1/3 cup cremini mushrooms, chopped (because mushrooms go in everything) 1 cup chicken/vegetable stock 1 cup dry white wine or marsala 1 teaspoon dried rosemary 1 cup tofu, chopped (or 1 pound already-cooked shrimp) 1/4 cup cream (to thicken) salt and pepper to taste parmsan cheese (to salvage) Start out by bringing a pot of salted water to boil. Cook spaghetti according to directions. Penne pasta would also work well with this dish. Melt butter in sauce pan on medium high heat. Saute onions for a couple minutes. Then throw in the garlic, squash and mushrooms and continue to saute for several more minutes, until the onion in translucent. Add the stock and the rosemary, bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer. Add the wine. Simmer until squash is nearly cooked through. Add the tofu/shrimp while still on simmer. While stirring, add cream slowly until sauce thickens a bit. Add salt and pepper to taste.