Yuzu & Shiso Leaf Soup with Tofu Noodles.

Some girls like to take all their classy upbringing and go shopping at Louie Vouton. I on the other hand always thought the logo was XL for extra large and the name was spelled Vouton. For me, my favorite thing is to splurge on is Japanese food. I guess it's not so much a splurge as a 1/16 of a L.V. keychain, but whateves.

I take the potentially life threatening freight elevator up to the sunrise market and feel like Augustus Gloop. It is better than anything ever.

I bought these things, plus other things:


Originally I was going to make soba noodles with some shiso leaf, or cook up the shishito pepers and eat seaweed and bean sprouts but then I decided I want to make something great. So I made a soup with everything* from my shopping included and very little left out.

First I cooked the tofu noodles which smelled like a very dead fish's mold bowl - a smell I am familiar with as I had a dead fish from 7th - 10th grade. I think my mom was teaching me a lesson about taking care of things and cleaning things. I took it as a lesson in tolerance to smells. One nice thing is that the directions basically apologized for the odor. However, apology not accepted.

I then heated up some cups of water, added the miso I've been stealing from my roommate, threw in some enoki mushrooms (which I read after eating you are supposed to clean or soak or something for ten minutes - whoops, it happens), soy sauce, garlic, yuzu, shiso leafs and seaweed. It was ok. What I really liked was the yuzu and shisho leaf together. Not so much the tofu noodles. I feel like I've had them before and really liked them. Perhaps I was focusing too much on figuring out how to describe their texture for the sake of this blog that I started grossing myself out (I came up with a combination of a slug and cartilage).



* Every time I see the word everything, which is every day, I get so bitter someone already acted on my idea that was going to be my retirement fund. Everything.

**I love shishito peppers. I also like that they are getting more play in nyc menus, not as much as bacon brussel sprouts which I think are becoming as common as the option of sparkling or tap, but still more. I like to order them from ippudo so I can eat the yuzu salt. With my finger as a utensil and saliva as a cohesive I can clean out the salt bowl in seconds.

DRINK PAIRING NOTE. I put some yuzu into my Stella (I found it in my fridge, I didn't buy it, so no judging) and it was awesome! Yuzu beer. Done.

Beet Curry Pickled Cauliflower

I took a class in pickling. I guess that's obvious.

A + B = C

A= Went to Bard
B= Live in Bushwick
C= Took a pickling class

I guess there's also

A+B= I know how to knit
A+B= I like dinner parties
A+B= I've gone a week without showering

I didn't really understand that much in the class, or maybe I understood everything and it just turns out pickling is silly easy. But I made like six jars during the course. One ended up with mold on it because fermenting is confusing, but the others turned out really good. One thing I should have noted is that pickling takes a while which goes against my natural nature of frantic eating. So I ate four of them within a day. The last I saved to enjoy with my cuz.

They were awesome.

Stuff in mason jar :

Cauliflower
Peeled, not chopped, garlic (like five)
Some shakes of curry powder
Pickling spice
Then pour in the vinegar/water mixture (I do not feel like explaining how to pickle right now, so do a google).

I cut a 1/4 inch thick slick of beet and put it on the top hoping it would color the cauliflower. I got this idea from an ex who would use beets to make water color. He once painted me with a flower arm. I don't know what happened to the painting, but I'm assuming it is lost amongst (NOT A WORD??!!) my bills from ten years ago and the cause for my current rodent problem.

This is what they look like:


This is what they look like next to cheese:


I took a shit load of pictures. THey were awesome. Ideas my cousin and I came up with
- put it in a martini (pretty much my idea for all salty crunchy things)
- marinate steak in the juices
- use less garlic

Other picklings that I ate were======
pickled brussel sprouts. awesome. pickled asparagus. kinda awesome. pickled scallions. not awesome. cucumbers. pickles.

I remember trying to can apple sauce and having to send out a botulism bullitin to my family so a few words of advice:

- sterilize the mason jar by boiling for 15 minutes
- you can just put the top on and keep it in the fridge for a few months and it will be fine, but if you are going to keep it unrefrigerated, or want to keep it for years, seal that shit. Which means water bath. Which means look it up.
- buy mason jars from Fishs Eddie cause they are cheap there. Probably cheaper if you do research and buy in bulk.

Tagafluff Sandwich

'nuff said.

My dinner before leaving for a party. BTWz.

Trash Soup

Trash soup is one of my favorite things. It makes you feel like you are doing something good for your body and environment - although I never make it to the compost drop off and therefore only do good for me.

You basically store all your food scraps in the freezer in a plastic bag. Put all veggie scraps in the bag.. you can keep fruit parts as well, but you don't want to keep flavorless stupid parts of fruit like stems, pits, avocado/banana/orange skins etc. No not edible things or things that seem like they shouldn't be part of a broth. You also don't really want to use citris fruits. You can put in bones and egg shells - if you add a splash of vinegar it supposedly releases calcium. I think a splash of olive oil is supposed to be good too. Oh - I don't use wax covered skins like rutabaga etc.

This soup is amazing. You can use it whenever you need water in a recipe, particularly as a soup base. It is really nutritious - my boyfriend used to drink it instead of coffee. Which I like in theory - not as much in practice. A kiss goodbye is not as pleasant coming from a mouth that just drank cold trash soup at 8am. But it made me smile.

Basically you put everything frozen in a pot and cover with water... as much as you can... maybe throw in a clove or two of garlic. Then let it simmer for like two hours. You can mush it around. Then strain it and BAM broth that is awesome and natural.

Examples:

Before:

After (not totally after cause you have to strain out everything but..:


Before:

After:


Before:

No After.

Matzo Ball Borscht

I made borscht tonight. I won't give a recipe because it is borscht. put some beets and things in it. I feel like that is enough. It was not very good borscht that I made tonight. It had no meat in it... I care for my vegetarian roommate. I suggested putting baco bits in it, but my roommate said that was a bad idea. I then suggested putting in some BBQ sauce, but again, she said no. Apparently the borscht she got in Greenpoint had a sweet taste. She suggested sugar. I used sugar. But then IT TASTED SUGARY. SO STUPID IS MY ROOMMATE.* Anyways. I won't include a recipe but I will say don't put sugar in it.

I decided to make matozo, matza machhhhtzoshevitzchhhh borscht. So I made matzo balls and put them in. In the balls I putt dill -- too many Ts in that word putt but I'm ok with that, I putt dill inside of the matzo balls.


This soup was ok. I ended up adding a boy-on-cube. which I wanted to avoid since otherwise the soup was so healthy and natural and whole foods (the store not the food trend) based. but that artificial, high sodium, eight year old powder was delicious. I gotsa say. the matzo balls were delicious in the beet soup. I ate all of them.


For dessert I had ice cream. there was something chewy in it which I imagine in actuality was some runaway dill. but I've had a lot of vodka** so I'm of the mindset that it could be a spider leg. I assume everything is part of a terantuala after a movie which caused childhood trauma.

Me: Liz, how do you spell terrantula?
Lis- tah-ran-two-la
Me: no really, not phonetics
Liz t-a-r-a-blahlha
Me: I lost you after tara.
Liz: ugh, t-a-r-a-n-t-u-l-a. I'm an excellent speller.



* she is not stupid, I Love her dearly.

** It's infused vodka so totally appropriate.