Sunday, November 11, 2012

Vegetarian Soba

Tonight my roommate and I were craving ramen, so we decided to create a healthy vegetarian ramen. I made the broth from scratch which isn't entirely ideal, however, it is totally worth it! I did make things easier by purchasing chicken stock instead of making my own.

Here is what I put in the broth:

4 cups chicken stock
4 cups shiitake mushrooms
1/2 cup cilantro
1/8 cup soy sauce
a dash of ground ginger
a dash of chile
a dash of salt
1 tbsp turmeric
1 tbsp lemongrass chopped and pounded

I let all of this simmer for 1 hour, then removed from the heat. 

Then I cooked the soba noodles (noodles made out of buckwheat). Usually you can buy these already cooked but I couldn't find any at my grocery store so I had to cook them. They cook pretty much like normal noodles. 
Next, I poached a few eggs. I thought this was gonna be really hard but actually the eggs turned out okay. I brought a pot of water to a boil and added 1 tsp of white distilled vinegar. Apparently this helps the egg white coagulate more quickly and though I have never tried to poach an egg without vinegar, supposedly it will result in disaster. There are 4 eggs here and while they don't look perfect they were almost perfect in consistency. 
Everything came together easily after the eggs were cooked. I brought the broth back to a simmer, added 1 cup of snow peas, and 4 cups of spinach to the broth. Once the spinach had cooked down, I spooned the broth onto the noodles and placed the egg on top. Mànmàn chī!

Delish!

The Beginning

Introducing two newbies to the blogosphere...

Megan and Elisabeth. 
Megan is 14 years old, a freshman in high school, and loves cooking and eating many things, but her doctor has suggested she eat more carefully.  

I am Elisabeth, 21 years old, about to graduate from college, and while I love almost all food, my doctor has suggested that I also eat more carefully. 

We are embarking on a food blog journey in order to encourage ourselves and hopefully others. 

The Rules:
No Sugar
No White Flour
No Cheese
No Potatoes 
Meat must be free range / humanely killed