Happy New Year!

Hang on, bloggers!
Don't give up on me yet!

I've been so busy with life (and preparing for my graduation in May) that I haven't really had much time to dedicate to food blogging. I have, however, been trying to follow a Japanese and Asian-style diet in the last few days and it's supposed to last me another week and a half. It's delicious, pretty simple, and lots of fun, but the high salt content is turning me off. Learning how to adjust the recipes and not use so much. Also a lot of carbs I don't need. But it's a good experiment and overall pretty healthy! Salmon's expensive, though...I have no clue how the Japanese can afford that! Haha. I'm working on a lot of recipes, so hopefully I'll have something for you soon. Having a really bad camera doesn't help my blogging experience, either. One day I'll have an AMAZING camera...let me just pay for food, rent, and the headshots/resumes/website/clothes I need for the start of my career first...!!!

Oy vey! Taking a break from crazy life never seems long enough!

So here's a picture of some yummy Asian food to tide you over until then. ;) Clear soup with mushroom and green onion, pan-fried tofu with soy and ginger, homemade rice ball, and soy-boiled bok choy. Mmm.

Photo Copyright 2012 - Katie Peters

P.S. I also have a recipe for homemade tangelo marmalade coming up! Made it for E for Christmas. :)

Happy Eating and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Miso Soup w/ Noodles, Wakame, and Egg

I love soup.
And smoothies.
And salad.
And burgers...
...and fries...
...and chicken nuggets...
...and corndogs...
I have to stop.

Eating healthy is a big part of how I want to live...but unfortunately, I'm still trying to work out the kinks to cut bad cravings. In London, I discovered that a hot bowl of chicken broth or sodium-free chicken bouillon in water was one of the perfect late night snacks that made me warm and sleepy (and didn't cost me a lot of calories). These days, I want to get back into that, but I have also begun eating soup as an anytime meal just because I like it so much!

Being a college student means a giant punch to the stomach of my budget, pantry, and cooking time. I have been working on a healthy healthy HEALTHY diet so I can lose more weight (excepting this past week because my boyfriend came to visit…plus, I have been so busy with classes and rehearsals that I ordered a lot of food to my apartment and never once visited the gym…! Boo!), and this has become a large staple: Miso soup. I haven’t been able to find any sort of low-sodium miso in my area (or anywhere, really), so having a bunch of salt isn’t my favorite option. But with lots of noodles, dried wakame (a type of Japanese seaweed), and egg (or chicken), it is a nutritious, healthy, light meal you can have any time of the day.

My favorite thing about this recipe is that it is super fast and easy to put together. To make life even easier and you eat lots of chicken like I do (generally for stir-fries), try cutting up the breasts when you get it from the store and putting them in individual Ziploc bags and freezing them. I have the perfect serving size that is pre-sliced, thus eliminating both defrosting too much as well as having too many leftovers (unless you want them—I know that when I have too many leftovers from assorted dinners, I just forget about some because I get excited about making new dishes).

 

Hearty Miso Soup with Noodles, Wakame, and Egg

Recipe should be enough for one large bowl. Split between two if you aren't very hungry or want to eat this as a side dish.

Ingredients:

-2.5 c water

-2 tbsp miso paste

-2 tbsp dried wakame

-inaki udon noodles (buckwheat soba is also good)—however many noodles you would like

-1 egg

Photo Copyright 2011 Katie Peters

1.       Bring water to a boil in a medium-sized pot. As water starts to bubble, add miso paste.

2.       Once soup has come together, add wakame and noodles.

3.       Lastly, drop an egg into the soup (if you want the egg to stay together better, try cracking it into a small bowl or cup and pouring that in).

See how simple that is? Feel free to add any spices you see fit if you want to change it up a bit! Some of my favorites to play with are black pepper, Sriracha hot sauce, garlic powder, and onion powder!

Photo Copyright 2011 Katie Peters

Happy Eating (and now maybe a smoothie...)!

Thai-Style Chicken Noodle Soup

So I finally have a moment to upload a recipe! I'm moving back to school tomorrow so I'm a bit disheveled and upset at having to move away from Ethan and out of the big city, but it's time to graduate! Anyhow, I'm quite proud of this recipe because it was spur-of-the-moment and COMPLETELY from memory. I like referencing other recipes for specific portion sizes and what not, but I just put a bunch of ingredients together based on what I know about Thai food and scribbled down how much of each I used. I've had to write down specifics for all these recipes and I HATE IT. For the last couple weeks I've been making dinner, eyeballing everything, and not writing anything down; this is completely normal, but now I don't have the recipes to share. Alas. Recording all these measurements is tiring! Lazy cook.

I thoroughly enjoy Thai food. Japanese, Chinese, Thai and Italian are some of my favorites. I frequently make Chinese dishes, and I can make a damn nice Pad Thai when I have the money. I've been laying off the Italian lately because of money and too many carbohydrates. And when I move, I'm planning on putting more Japanese food into my diet. The best news about this recipe I invented is that it's not expensive nor difficult to make. Plus, you could make a lot of it and keep it in the fridge for up to two weeks. Yummy lunches and dinners when you're lazy. Who doesn't like a good bowl of chicken noodle soup, anyway?? ;)

As you know, I LOVE spicy food, so I left all the seeds in the two jalapeños. Feel free to take them out for a milder dish. I look so silly cutting hot peppers--lately, not covering my hands = insane burning for hours. I don't know why it started happening this summer but I DO NOT LIKE IT.

Ouch! - Photo Copyright 2011 Katie Peters

Additionally, I didn't have any fish sauce in the pantry, so I made do with oyster sauce. The next time I make this recipe, I think I'm going to lessen or completely omit the oyster sauce, add fish sauce, and add more lime juice (I ran out!). I want to see if it helps the flavor, or at least makes it closer to Thai-style soup. This recipe was delicious, I'm not gonna lie, but it can always get better!

I'm tired and distracted, so I'm going to stop ranting and shut up already!

Photo Copyright 2011 Katie Peters

Thai-Style Chicken Noodle Soup

Ingredients:
-10 c. water
-2 chicken-flavored bouillon cubes (low-sodium preferred if you can)
-large handful fresh string beans, ends removed
-1/2 medium yellow onion, sliced thin
-1 stalk celery, thinly sliced/julienned
-1 large chicken breast, pounded out and sliced very thin
-2 jalapeño peppers, sliced
-3/4 c. roughly chopped fresh basil
-1 8oz. can sliced water chestnuts, drained
-1 tbsp. each: garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper
-1/4 c. oyster sauce
-generous squeeze lime juice
-4 to 5 oz. flat rice noodles, soaked in water for 10-15 minutes (not necessary, but I find that it aids in faster cooking)

1. Boil water with bouillon cubes to create a basic broth. When water is bubbling, add string beans, onion, and celery. Reduce heat a little and let simmer for ten minutes.

Photo Copyright 2011 Katie Peters

2. While soup is cooking, pound out the chicken until it is nearly flat, then slice into thin pieces. Turn heat back up and bring the pot to a boil again. Add the chicken and jalapeños to the broth and stir. Chicken should cook almost immediately.

Soup's on! - Photo Copyright 2011 Katie Peters

3. Add remaining ingredients and stir. Keep hot and let noodles finish cooking.

Photo Copyright 2011 Katie Peters

 Happy Eating!