Wonton Noodle Soup

My Wonton Noodle Soup is a finalist at the Whole Foods Budget Recipe Challenge! Can you believe it?

Need your help, please. There are 6 finalists and the winner is decided by votes! And because I’m up against blog-friends, Karina, Rachel and Katy. They are all really pretty, super-talented and I love them dearly.

But.

I’m going to play dirty….real dirty.

I’m gonna throw out all I’ve got, baby.

The Bribe Card:

By voting (which is done by commenting) you get a chance to win $500 from Whole Foods.

The Cute Kid Card:

Here. Let me pimp out my kids again:
Andrew and Nathan helped me make the wontons.

Awwww…aren’t they cute? NOW GO VOTE FOR ME!

The Save You Money Card:

Wonton Noodle Soup only costs $2.98 per serving. Like, way cheaper than a Double Cheeseburger Meal Deal.

The Second Bribe Card:

Ok, so that first bribe really wasn’t from me. You are entered into the $500 drawing no matter who you vote for and the money comes from Whole Foods!  hehehe.

So, here’s the bribe. If I win (and I can only win IF YOU VOTE FOR ME!) I get TEN $25 Whole Foods gift certificates. I will give NINE of them away to random voters on Whole Food’s site.

Oh, what happened to the TENTH gift certificate? I’ve already promised the boys $25 worth of jelly beans if they told their teachers to vote for me.

The I’ll Do Your Ironing Card:

Um. No.

It’s a Close Race! (it really is!):

But please, purty pullleeeeeze come vote for the Wonton Noodle Soup recipe? You’ll have to register to vote and voting is simply done by commenting on the recipe at Whole Food’s site. You’ll automatically be entered to win the $500 Whole Food Prize plus my NINE $25 gift certificates.

(photo from Whole Foods when they tested my recipe)

Dude. What the hell are you still doing here? GO VOTE FOR ME ALREADY!

What the Pho?!

I’ve been working hard perfecting the techniques and recipe for Vietnamese Beef Noodle Soup, or Pho, just for you. And really, I’m not kissing ass or anything, but it’s because of you guys that I’m posting this recipe! Of all the cookbooks that I own, the best recipe that I’ve found for Pho is from:

Andrea Nguyen’s Into the Vietnamese Kitchen, which is one of the most comprehensive books on the cuisine of Vietnam. The book also won nominations for a James Beard Foundation award and two International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP). Definitely a must-have book for Asian food lovers.

So, let’s get right to it - I’ve got lots of photos to share.

Oh and the dish is pronounced “fuh” and not “foo” or “foe” or “puh”

Yeah, Pho is cheap to purchase at a good Pho restaurant…but to be able to make a home made version? Pretty Pho-king amazing, if you ask me.

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You haven’t experienced wild until you’ve lived in the heart of Hollywood. My little duplex was squished in between movie-star wannabes, the homeless pushing shopping carts piled 8-ft high with trash treasures and gold-chained pimps proclaiming to the world, “GIRLS! GIRLS! GIRLS! Right over here!”

The location was by choice and I had a very good reason for living 2 blocks from the golden sidewalk stars. It was called, “just so I can say that I did.” I know. I was young. But seriously, where else can I shimmy into CFM boots, don an electric pink wig and just blend in without getting mistaken for $25? When the sun sets and street-level neon gas flows, Hollywood is pure freedom of expression.

After a night of clubbing 2 blocks south, my friends and I would walk 3 blocks east to a small, rinky-dink Vietnamese noodle shop to fill up on pho. Asian girly posters littered the walls and the same bad karaoke DVD played over and over. Thank goodness the steaming, hot, intoxicating bowl of pho drowned out the awful Chinglish rendition of, “Baby Got Back.” That soup was un-pho-king believable.

I don’t know what secret family recipe they followed, but after all these years, I finally mastered that bowl of chicken pho in my home kitchen, boots not required.

Read the full story

While writing my post on How to Host a Sushi Party, I surfed the blogs for a good 30 minutes looking for a great tutorial on how to make miso soup using instant dashi. Well, I couldn’t find one that I liked, and in that 30 minutes I could have made 30 gallons of miso soup and still photograph/write a tutorial. So thats just what I did. (the photography/writing thing, not the 30 gallons)

First, the ingredients:

I use instant Dashi - kind of like Japan’s version of chicken boullion. If you didn’t have Dashi, you could use diluted chicken stock…but it just wouldn’t taste right. But hey, if you really wanted miso soup and thats all you had, go for it. Just make sure you dilute the chicken stock - 70% water, 30% stock…otherwise your miso soup will end up tasting like chicken soup. Alright, back to the dashi. You could also make dashi from kombu and bonito flakes, but this recipe is the 10 minute miso soup, therefore instant dashi works just fine. Instant dashi can also come in a convenient glass jar.

• Other uses for dashi stock- boil your edamame in dashi instead of just plain water. They will taste SO much better.
• Blanch or steam vegetables in dashi stock.

This is dried seaweed. Just a tablespoon of the dried wakame will be enough for a pot of miso soup to feed 4. Soak this in a little water and watch it expand. There are many, many different kinds of seaweed, but this one is made especially for eating in miso soup. Look at the package first. Of course, I can’t read Japanese, but the back of this package shows an illustration of miso soup and little arrows pointing to put the seaweed in the soup and a happy smiling face drinking the soup. Therefore it must mean seaweed fortified with Prozac.

This is the miso paste that I found in the refrigerated section of the Asian market. Many regular supermarkets have miso paste as well. I generally buy organic, but this is all I found last week. I like Shiro Miso the best - its lighter, sweeter, little less salty. The most important thing about making miso soup is that you never boil the miso paste. Only add miso after you’ve turned off the heat. So, if you are using anything that needs a little cooking time, just do that before you add the miso paste.

Organic tofu. Cut into little cubes. I’ve tried making my own tofu before. Lots of work for very little tofu. I’d rather buy a block of the organic stuff.

10 Minute Miso Soup

serves 4 4 cups water
1 1/2 teaspoons instant dashi powder
1/2 cup miso paste
1 tablespoon dried seaweed (for miso soup), soaked in
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup cubed tofu
1 tablespoon chopped green onion

1. Boil water. Add dashi. Turn down heat. Stir.

2. Add tofu and drained seaweed. Let cook for a minute on low. In meantime, spoon 1/2 cup of the hot stock into bowl with the miso paste. Using chopsticks, mix to melt the miso paste so that it becomes a smooth mixture.

3. Turn off heat. Add all of the miso. Stir. Serve. Top with chopped green onion.

4. Drink up. Other ingredients you could add to the miso soup: sliced shitake mushrooms, thinly sliced leeks, spinach, crab meat, egg, fish cake.

This soup is creamy and rich, yet only uses low-fat milk. The secret is to extract as much of the milky, creamy substance from the corn kernels. I also use a couple slices of natural bacon, crumbled as garnish. This gives a smoky flavor to the soup without going overboard on the fat or feeling deprived!

Creamy Corn Soup, Healthy & Organic

All ingredients used are organic, except where noted (serves 4 as side)

5 ears corn, husked
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced w/garlic press
1 large russet potato (or 2 red skinned potatoes), cut into 1/4” cubes
5 cups low sodium chicken stock
3/4 cup lowfat milk
2T chopped fresh parsley leaves (from my garden)
1 tsp Old Bay Seasoning (non organic)
pinch of Cayenne pepper (non organic)
1 T fresh squeezed lemon juice
Salt & Pepper
2 slices all natural (no hormones, organic) bacon, trimmed of visible fat on the edges

In a large bowl, hold 1 ear of corn upright and use a serrated knife to cut off the kernals, but only go halfway deep. Go around the ear once. Go around the ear a second time, this time getting the rest of the kernals. Third time around: use the back of the knife and go over the ear again, to extract out all of the creamy, milky pulp. The purpose of going around 3 times is to get as much cream from the kernels as possible (and without the use of a food processor) Repeat with remaining ears. Set aside.

Heat a large pot or dutch oven over medium heat. Add 2T olive oil. When oil is shimmering, add onions and cook until softened and translucent, about 3 minutes. Add garlic, cook 30 seconds. Add corn kernels, potatoes, chicken stock, Old Bay seasoning, Cayenne pepper, salt and pepper. Bring to boil and turn down heat to low. Simmer 20 minutes. In the meantime, place the slices of bacon on a microwave safe dish and microwave on medium for 3 minutes until crisp. Crumble the bacon. When the soup is ready, add lemon juice, adjust salt and pepper seasoning. Garnish with chopped fresh parsley leaves and crumbled turkey bacon on top.