Ramen

When we think of Ramen in the U.S., what we typically think of are those little dried packets of noodles that have a little bag of powder in them, usually some chicken flavor or something like that. However, Ramen in Japan is actually real meal kind of soup. There are entire shops which just serve Ramen, and they are extremely popular. Ramen noodles actually originate in Chinese cuisine, but were heartily taken up by the Japanese.

We love making Japanese soups in general, and Ramen is no exception. If you can find fresh, not dried Ramen noodles, you will really be surprised at what a difference there is. They are soft, but springy, very flavorful, and very very satisfying to slurp up. Add in fresh-made broth, and some delicious ingredients, and you've got yourself a nice, full meal all in one bowl. There can be pretty much infinite variations to this soup - you can use different broths and different ingredients and come up with all kinds of great flavor combinations. Experiment!

The base of this particular soup is a simple Dashi Stock, so this recipe assumes you are starting with 4 cups of stock in a pot.

Ingredients

• Miso paste (I like white miso for soups)
• Soy Sauce
• Kamaboko (cured fish paste), sliced
• Thinly sliced pork loin
• 1/2 bunch spinach, washed
• 1 egg per person
• Ramen noodles
• Sesame seeds
• Nanami togarashi (spicy seasoning)

Directions to boil the eggs

1. Place eggs in the bottom of a saucepan, in a single layer.
2. Cover eggs with cold water, so that they are covered by about an inch (2-3 cm).
3. Salt the water with 1/2 tbsp per quart/liter of water.
4. Set the covered saucepan on a cold burner, turn the heat up to medium, and let come to a simmer, then drop the heat to low.
5. Let the eggs sit in the saucepan on low for 5 minutes, covered the whole time.
6. Turn the heat off, and let the eggs sit an additional 5 minutes.
7. While they are sitting, prepare some cold, even chilled water in a bowl.
8. Take the eggs from the hot water and place in the cold water to stop the cooking. Let sit for several minutes until well-cooled.
9. Peel and slice in half.

Directions

1. In a pot over medium to medium-high heat, heat up your dashi stock, but don't boil it.
2. In a separate pot, bring enough water to boil to cook your ramen noodles in.
3. Once the dashi is hot, add miso and soy sauce to taste.
4. Take as much thinly sliced pork as you want, and cook it and the spinach in the hot broth, then remove to a plate.
5. Once the water boils, throw in ramen noodles, and reduce the heat slightly.
6. Once the noodles are cooked to the desired texture, remove them to bowls.
7. Arrange the pork, spinach and kamaboko around the noodles in the bowl.
8. Ladle in hot broth over everything until you have as much as you want.
9. Place the halves of egg on top of the broth in the bowl.
10. Season with sesame seeds and togarashi if you would like. You can also drizzle in a teaspoon or so of sesame oil if you'd like.
11. Enjoy!

Salmon Patties, Quinoa Patties and Green Salad

This meal came from a kind of conglomeration of a number of different motivations. We had just gotten Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Every Day from the library, and her recipe for Little Quinoa Patties looked amazing.

We had originally planned to make crab cakes to go with them, as we've been really in the mood for fish the last couple of days, but when we went to the store, they had these really nice looking salmon patties, so we got two of those to go with it instead.

While the quinoa was cooking, we made a salad from mixed greens, and used a simple vinaigrette dressing we whipped up in a few minutes.

This really hit the spot, and was very satisfying. The nuttiness of the quinoa makes a really nice complement to the mixed green salad, and the sweetness of the salmon with the bit of citrus adds a little tangy zest to the whole mix. Enjoy!

Quinoa Patties

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups/12 oz/340 g cooked quinoa, at room temperature
• 4 large eggs, beaten
• 1/2 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt
• 1/3 cup/.5 oz /15 g finely chopped fresh chives
• 1 yellow or white onion, finely chopped
• 1/3 cup/.5 oz/15 g freshly grated Parmesan or Gruyère cheese
• 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 cup/3.5 oz /100 g whole grain bread crumbs, plus more if needed
• Water, if needed
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil or clarified butter

Directions

1. Combine the quinoa, eggs, and salt in a medium bowl.
2. Stir in the chives, onion, cheese, and garlic.
3. Add the bread crumbs, stir, and let sit for a few minutes so the crumbs can absorb some of the moisture.
4. At this point, you should have a mixture you can easily form into twelve 1-inch/2.5cm thick patties.
5. I err on the very moist side because it makes for a not-overly-dry patty, but you can add more bread crumbs, a bit at a time, to firm up the mixture, if need be.
6. Conversely, a bit more beaten egg or water can be used to moisten the mixture.
7. Heat the oil in a large, heavy skillet over medium-low heat, add 6 patties, if they'll fit with some room between each, cover, and cook for 7 to 10 minutes, until the bottoms are deeply browned.
8. Turn up the heat if there is no browning after 10 minutes and continue to cook until the patties are browned.
9. Carefully flip the patties with a spatula and cook the second sides for 7 minutes, or until golden.
10. Remove from the skillet and cool on a wire rack while you cook the remaining patties.
11. Alternatively, the quinoa mixture keeps nicely in the refrigerator for a few days; you can cook patties to order, if you prefer.

Salmon Patties

Since the salmon patties were pre-made, we simply sautéed them in the pan we had just cooked the quinoa patties in for a few minutes on each side, until the patties were nicely browned, and cooked all the way through.

Salad

The recipe for this bit is going to be very general, as we didn't measure anything, but just kind of made it by improvisation. I'll just give some general guidelines, and you can fill in the specifics as you make it. We used mixed greens, carrots and radishes, but you could really use any kind of salad greens, and substitute other kinds of vegetables, such as asparagus, broccoli, cauliflower, or anything else that sounds good to you.

Ingredients

• Mixed salad greens, washed
• Carrots, thinly sliced
• Radishes, thinly sliced
• Olive oil
• Balsamic vinegar
• Mustard
• Salt
• Pepper

Directions

1. In a large bowl, combine salad greens, sliced carrots, and sliced radishes.
2. In a small mason jar or other container with a sealing lid, mix olive oil, balsamic vinegar, mustard, salt and pepper in proportions that taste good to you.
3. Put on the lid and shake the jar to mix the dressing well.
4. Once you have the dressing the way you like it, pour some over the salad, and then toss the salad to coat everything and mix the carrots and radishes in.

Once you have made everything, arrange some salad on a plate, then place a salmon patty and a quinoa patty on top of the salad, grate some parmesan cheese on top, and serve with a small wedge of lime to squeeze over everything.

Baked Donuts

Since we were on the theme of donuts, we really felt like we needed more of them, so this morning we decided to try some traditional baked donuts. I looked up recipes, and this baked donut recipe from King Arthur Flour looked like a nice, simple option, so we went for it.

We didn't have buttermilk powder, so we substituted 2 tbsp dried milk powder, and then used actual buttermilk instead of water. It's nice to have the buttermilk in there both for the flavor, and because buttermilk reacts with the baking powder to help the donuts rise (same thing with biscuits). If you don't have milk powder either, you probably could just add two tablespoons more flour and omit the milk powder entirely.

At the end, we brushed the donuts with butter, and then rolled them in sugar and cinnamon.

These turned out very nicely. Whereas the texture of the gluten-free, vegan donuts was more like a pudding cake or sponge cake, these ones are very much a traditional cake donut. They got a little bit crispy on the outside edges, which was nice, and they were very satisfying.

This recipe makes 6-8 donuts.

Ingredients

• 1 cup Unbleached Pastry flour or 7/8 cup Unbleached All-Purpose Flour (as it's going by weight, actually)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 tablespoons dried milk powder
• 2 large eggs
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil (we used canola, since it doesn't have much flavor)
• 2 tablespoons buttermilk

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 F (190 C)
2. Whisk together all of the dry ingredients in a medium-sized mixing bowl.
3. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs, oil and buttermilk until foamy.
4. Pour the liquid ingredients all at once into the dry ingredients and stir just until combined.
5. Butter or grease the doughnut pan. Fill each doughnut form half full.
6. Bake the doughnuts for about 10 to 12 minutes. When done, they'll spring back when touched lightly, and will be quite brown on the top.
7. Remove the doughnuts from the oven, remove them from the pan, and allow them to cool on a cooling rack. Glaze with icing, or coat with cinnamon and sugar.

Donuts!

We've been playing around with baking more and more, and we've been meaning to try donuts for some time now, so when our friend Eva gave us a stellar recommendation for this basic gluten-free vegan donut from BabyCakes NYC, we just had to give it a try. It turned out to be quite easy, and the donuts turned out very well - I'm already pondering different variations (pumpkin instead of applesauce!), and may try one of them tomorrow.

Note: the store I went to didn't have the just garbanzo and fava bean flour mix that the recipe calls for, so I used Bob's Red Mill gluten-free all-purpose flour, which is a mix of garbanzo, fava, sorghum, and potato starch. So, I left out the extra potato starch, and just did 1/3 cup + 1/2 cup of the all-purpose flour, and that seems to have worked out alright.

Ingredients

• 1/3 cup garbanzo-fava bean flour
• 3/4 cup rice flour
• 1/2 cup potato starch
• 1/4 cup arrowroot
• 1 cups vegan sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/8 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
• 1/2 teaspoon salt


• 1/3 cup melted coconut oil
• 6 tablespoons applesauce
• 1/4 cup vanilla
• 1/2 cup hot water

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 F (163 C).
2. Brush donut trays with coconut oil and set aside.
3. In a medium bowl measure in flour, potato starch, arrowroot, sugar, baking powder, salt, baking soda, xanthan gum, and whisk.
4. Pour in oil, applesauce, vanilla, and hot water and continue mixing until batter is smooth.
5. Using a melon-baller or tablespoon, drop 2 tablespoons of batter into each donut mold.
6. Using a toothpick spread batter evenly around mold.
7. Continue until all molds are full.
8. Place in oven for 8 minutes, rotate, and continue to bake for another 7 minutes or until donuts are golden brown. Donuts should smell slightly of burnt or caramelised sugar.
9. Remove donuts from the oven and cool for 15 minutes.
10. Run a knife around the donuts in the mold, lift them out, and place them on a cookie sheet or plate.
11. Decorate donuts with topping of choice. We used cinnamon and sugar.

Simplicity

We love our breakfasts on weekends, since we don't get to sit down and eat together during the week except in exceptional circumstances, so we try to make a point of it on the weekends. It doesn't have to be anything extremely elaborate, sometimes the simplest things are best.

This last weekend, it was eggs, scrambled and cooked in butter, a few strips of bacon, a few slices of avocado, some blood orange, and some toast.

Pair it with some coffee, some juice, and good company, and what more could you ask for?

Happy Breakfast!