In the Kitchen: More than Miso Soup

Hub and I came down with a nasty summer cold this week, which kept us tucked in bed and too lazy to cook. After one too many PB&J's, we realized we needed sustenance and looked to our local takeaways. What we really wanted and needed was something along the lines of homemade chicken soup, which was no where to be found on Broadway Market. Then I remembered a nice and EASY miso soup we made in my Wholefoods class and fortunately, we had all the ingredients in our cupboard.

Makes 2 large servings or 4 small ones

• 3 garlic cloves minced
• 1/2 yellow onion sliced
• 2 inch piece of ginger roughly chopped
• 1/2 red chili pepper minced
• 3 sachets of red miso soup (or miso paste)
• 1 1/2 bundles of Soba or Udon or Vermicelli noodles
• 1 bag of mini prawns
• 5 mushrooms sliced
• 1 vegetarian bouillon cube
• sunflower oil (or any oil for sauteing)
• toasted sesame oil
• 3 cups boiling hot water

Heat up a mixture of both oils in a big sauce pan and just enough oil to coat the bottom of the pan. I love toasted sesame oil and it produces that fragrant smell associated with Asian cooking, but you only need a little dash. I sweated the garlic, onion, chili and ginger, then added and sauteed the mushrooms for a few minutes. Once everything looked soft and shiny, I added the water, bouillon, and miso. Bring to a simmer and simultaneously prepare your noodles separately. The best thing about these noodles is that they cook so quickly. All you need to do is immerse them in boiling water for a few minutes and voila! Your soup is done and ready to go. I like to place my noodles in the bowl then ladle in the soup.

So this soup is somewhere between a pho and a miso soup and what's wonderful is that you can throw in practically any protein/veg your little heart desires or can scavenge from your fridge. You can also use miso paste, but I like the sachets because they are quick and they season my soup for me. So with minimal effort, I threw the soup together and 20 minutes later was back in bed with Hub.

Oh Sauternes...you little Minx

So I recently received the results of my wine course exam and I passed with distinction! I love my certificate and plan on hanging it up in my kitchen. I worked really hard on the course and study my ass off, so I'm really pleased. 

Our final wine tasting class was on sparkling wines and dessert wines, which was my absolute favorite. I was looking forward to this class because I knew very little about the subject. I've always enjoyed drinking bubbly wine, but I never consciously thought about what I was drinking or taking note of a producer that I really liked. We tasted Spanish Cava, Italian Asti, Australian Brut-Cuvee and Champagne. I struggled a bit with the tasting and found this even more challenging than still wine. The non-vintage Laurent-Perrier Brut and Codorniu Brut Cava had really interesting flavors like biscuit and buttery bread from the malolactic fermentation, but my favorite was the sweet Asti Martini Spumante. Classy brawd, I know. Interesting things I learned about sparkling wine:

• sparkling wine produced in France outside of the Champagne region is called "Mousseux" or "Crémant"

• sparkling wine can be made from any grape, red or white
  
• England is beginning to produce some interesting sparkling wines

Ever since trying that delicious Hungarian dessert wine from our first class, I've been hooked on sweet wines. We tried a 2006 Chateau Laville Sauternes, which I much preferred to the 2011 Domaine des Bernardines Muscat Beaumes de Venise. I know what your thinking, doesn't dessert wine have a lot of sugar? Well I've done some nutritional research and I think if I'm out at a restaurant and craving something sweet for dessert, a sweet wine is a better alternative to traditional dessert. A standard glass of sweet white wine has about 165 calories and 14 grams of sugar. Compare that to a slice of cheese cake, which can have up to 450 calories and 40 grams of carbohydrates. It's a no brainer and good dessert wine is just as decadent and rich. All you need is a small glass and if you pair it with a good cheese plate, the fat and protein from the cheese will lower the GI affect of the wine. 

Hub and I were recently gifted two amazing wines, one sweet and one sparkling, that I would highly recommend. The first is the 1994 Tarlant Champagne Saga, which tasted of peaches and the label was hand written on the bottle. How cool is that? The other was a Chateau d'Yquem Lur Saluces Sauternes. Wow.

 

Helpful reads for this blog:

Andrew Barrow's piece on dessert wines in The Guardian
Wine Spectator weighs in on wine for diabetics

In the Kitchen: Semidulce Banana Bread

 

Now y'all know I love a good puddin', but gotta keep my sweet tooth in check as of late. And although I may have to skip dessert, I don't have to give up sweets entirely. I've been having the inner most desire to explore the world of baking and one idea I've been toying with is a semi-sweet range. I'd really like to try recipes (and create my own) that use natural fruit sweeteners and more importantly cut the amount of overall sugar. My inspiration comes from this Wholefoods cooking course by Nicky Clinch that I recently signed up for. One of the key concepts to the class is to listen to our bodies and respond to our cravings the healthy way. And although you might feel like eating candy, something as simple as sweet butternut can satisfy our sugary cravings.

Ingredients:

2 cups of heritage flour

1/2 cup of ground nuts

1 teaspoon of baking soda

3/4 teaspoon of sea salt

2 teaspoon of cinnamon

2 ripe bananas

1/4 cup of coconut sugar

1/2 cup of olive oil

1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

1 cups of room temperature water

1 cup of chopped almonds

Hub mentioned one of his favorite baked goods is banana nut bread and it was the perfect tester for my semi-sweet approach. Preheat your oven to 350F/175C. I chose heritage flour as my base, but any wholewheat flour will do. I've been told by a pastry chef that white flour has more gluten than wholewheat flour and often "wholewheat" bread is a combination of the two flours. This recipe is 100% wholewheat with all the minerals, vitamins and proteins that come from wholegrain. The density, taste and texture needs a bit getting used too, but it's worth it. I like heritage's rustic nutty flavor and thought it would work well with bananas and nuts.

Mix the dry ingredients together apart from the cinnamon. Cinnamon is a medicinal magic spice that is naturally sweet without the 'ose and stabilizes blood glucose levels. So if you like things extra spicy, feel free to increase the quantity. Compared to other banana nut recipes, I used half the amount of sugar and used coconut sugar. It's made by drying the sap of the coconut blossom and that's it. If you can't find coconut sugar I would recommend a natural sugar like honey or maple syrup EXCEPT agave nectar. Agave nectar has been highly marketed as a natural and low GI sugar sub, but it's highly processed and has a neg impact on your body like high fructose corn syrup. In a separate mixing bowl combine the bananas, cinnamon, vanilla extract and olive oil and mix until smooth. Since this recipe uses a small amount of sugar, it's really important that your bananas are ripe and the skins on the verge of black. Then mix in your dry ingredients and nuts and gradually add the water. This recipe makes one large loaf, but I prefer using a smaller 1lb loaf tin and making two batches. Bake for 1 hour if you are using a large loaf tin or 35-40 minutes for a small tin.

A smaller tin makes for smaller portions and therefore less calories, which is important to me when it comes to sweets. The end result was a deliciously semidulce loaf that kept my sugar monster at bay and even Hub enjoyed it. We toasted slices with olive oil butter for dessert and I ate some at breakfast, combining it with proteins like scrambled eggs or with a dollop of plain Greek yogurt.

Inspired by Ina's Back to Basics, I decided to play around and tape my own little video. You can actually hear her in the background, haha. I feel a bit nervous, but I thought I'd share a little clip. It's funny how self-critical we can be of ourselves and this was a wonderful way to overcome my inhibitions.  

Some helpful reads for this recipe:

The Power of Cinnamon

The Skinny of Coconut Sugar 
Coconut Sugar & Diabetes 
5 Best & Worst Sweeteners