I was never really much of a cook, so it’s newsworthy, at least to me.
A friend gave me a book called Every Day Food which is filled with great recipes, which mostly take less than 45 minutes to prep and cook.
Over the weekend, I made hot and sour soup and a salad with feta, beets, and walnuts, plus a dressing made with shallots.
Today I made another salad with broiled goat cheese breaded disks and some other goodies. I am making strawberry shortcake later.
Buy this stuff:
2 cans–29 oz.–of low salt chicken broth, 2 tbsp. soy sauce, 1/4 to 1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes, 8 oz fresh shiitake mushrooms, stemmed and capped–about 4 cups. 3 to 4 tbsp. rice vinegar, 2 tbsp. corn starch, 1 lightly beaten egg, 7 oz. soft or firm tofu, well drained, cut into 1/4 inch cubes, 2 tbsp. finely grated and peeled fresh ginger, 3 thinly sliced green onions.
Get a pot.
Put in broth, soy sauce, flakes, 2 cups water. Bring to boil, add mushrooms, reduce heat, simmer about 10 minutes.
Get a bowl.
Whisk 3 tbsp of vinegar and the cornstarch; add this to the pot, simmer, stir until soup thickens–just one minute.
Add the egg via a slotted spoon (I used a grater and it worked just fine); stir to form ribbons. Stir in tofu. remove from heat, let stand covered for a min.
put ginger in little sieve or garlic press and squeeze out juice into soup; add a bit more vinegar if you like. Sprinkle green onions into the soup. Do not use the ginger solids; toss them out.
This will serve 4 people. Total time is about 40 minutes for prep and cooking.
The mushrooms are a pain to slice; they are like sponges.
But it tastes so very good.
Remember, folks: If Viva the non-cook can do it, you can too.
