December 14, 2017 Lunch – Vietnamese Miso Noodle Soup. Dinner – Hamburger Helper and Roasted Vegetable Stew

December 14, 2017 Lunch – Vietnamese Miso Noodle Soup. Dinner – Hamburger Helper and Roasted Vegetable Stew

For breakfast I ate my usual yogurt, milk, blueberries, and granola.

I got hungry at around 11:15 so began cooking my usual soup these days.  I filled a three guard pot 3/4full of water and added chicken stock, a pho seasoning cube and 2 tsp. of dehydrated dashi.  Then I began adding ingredients; seaweed strands, bok choy, three sliced mushrooms, about 3 oz. of baked chicken, five shrimp, three types of noodles (wheat, bean thread, and 30 mm rice noodle squares) and then a heaping T. of red miso, plus sesame oil and Chinese rice cooking wine.

Then when the soup was ready I chopped two green onions and to each bowl of soup I added a handful of fresh mung bean sprouts to each bowl of soup.

I ate two bowls of soup and had soup left to eat tomorrow.

I started cooking dinner at 6:00.  I wanted to make a brown sauce to emulsify the dry hamburger helper and roasted vegetables.  I looked at a brown sauce recipe in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking.  Basically it called for cooking a mirapoix in butter, adding flour and the brown stock.  Luckily, there was a bottle of turkey stock.  I also used some beef consommé concentrate.  I sautéed 3 oz. Of celery and red onion and 1 T.  of fresh parsley in three T. of butter.  After 6 minutes I added 1 heaping T. of flour and cooked it a couple of minutes and then adde 1 Roma tomato diced.  I then sautéed the vegetable another couple of minutes.  I then added about 2 to 3 T. of sweet Madeira.  Then I added about a cup of turkey stock and then after mixing the sauce, I added the hamburger helper and roasted vegetables.  I then added about 2 T. of tomato paste., 1 tsp. Of dried marjoram, a dash of salt band white pepper, another dash of Madeira and then two large handfuls of fresh spinach.  After cooking the stew for a couple of minutes, I plated the stew and heated it with a slice of Cloud Cliff Bakery Whole Wheat bread and a glass of 2015 Cherry Blossom California Pinot Noir, my new favorite inexpensive Pinot Noir priced at $4.99 at Trader Joe’s.  It has a very characteristic Pinot flavor and elegant with a smooth finish. I recommend it, a lot.

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This dinner proved that one can convert a mediocre meal into a delicious dinner by binding the ingredients into a stew with a great sauce.

Bon Appetit