Easy vegetable ramen

15 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by Zoli in comfort food, healthy, kids, pasta, quick and awesome, soup, vegan, Vegetarian

Tags

homemade ramen, kids recipes, ramen noodles, vegetable noodle soup, vegetarian dinner

I love ramen but I don’t eat it much anymore, knowing it is really just delicious junk food loaded with msg. Even with a cracked egg, fresh spinach and hot sauce, it’s a guilty pleasure.

The first time it occurred to me to make my kids homemade ramen was while watching Ponyo. Such a great movie! It was during that scene when they’re soaking wet, having driven up to their house through a horrific storm and the mom (voiced by Tina Fey) makes the kids some ramen. Yes! I remembered. Ramen is total comfort food!

These days we call any clear-broth vegetable soup with noodles and some soy sauce ramen. This is not really a ‘recipe’, more of a suggestion for making an easy, comforting, nutritious soup without the sodium and msg from a packet. It’s certainly not an artful or elegant soup with ingredients like lemongrass or shitake mushrooms or watercress. Whatever you have, throw it in.

If you have picky children, chop the veggies very small and keep the ingredients simple. Over time they will recognize only that they are having yummy ramen and not fuss about any new vegetables that have been added.

Easy vegetabale ramen
serves 2 – 3 ppl
olive oil
1 carrot, chopped
1 celery, chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 – 3 cloves garlic
mushrooms, chopped roughly
green beans, chopped roughly
2 spring onion, chopped
dark greens such as spinach or cabbage
anything else you might have, such as potatoes, green pepper, edamame
5 – 6 cups of water (or vegetable stock)
soy sauce
salt and pepper
sesame oil
hot sauce, such as sriracha or go chu jang
cilantro or chives for garnish (optional)
Any kind of noodles, such as soba noodles, mung bean threads, rice noodles, chinese noodles

1) In a medium sauce pot, heat up olive oil and add all the chopped veggies. Turn the heat down, put a lid on and simmer until the vegetables are tender. About 10 minutes.

2) In a separate pot, cook the noodles according to the packet instructions. Don’t over cook them as they will likely cook a little more in the hot soup later. I like to use the traditional long curly ramen noodles as they are so much fun to eat and the kids love em. Drain the noodles and set aside.

3) If using vegetable stock or water mixed with a veggie bouillon cube, add this to the vegetables or use plain water as I did. Enough water to cover the veggies and then some. Vegetable stock will not need very much extra flavor, just a little soy sauce and pepper. If using water, add salt, pepper and soy sauce (about 3-6 tbs).

4) Cover with a lid, bring to boil, then turn down to simmer a few minutes for the flavors to come out in the broth. Taste and adjust seasoning if need be. Put a portion of noodles into individual bowls and ladle in the soup. Sprinkle with spring onion, chives or cilantro. Serve with a hot sauce and sesame oil.

Homemade pizza

09 Saturday Nov 2013

Posted by Zoli in bread, italian, kids, pizza sauce, quick and awesome, Sauces, the basics, tomato sauce, Vegetarian

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Tags

delia smith, easy pizza recipe, homemade pizza dough, ricotta, vegetarian dinner

If you’re daunted by homemade pizza, don’t be. It takes about 15 min to prepare the dough, an hour to rise while you do something else and another 15 min to cook. If you are home by 6, you can eat by 7:30. It’s cheap and you didn’t have to go anywhere.
Not having a pizza stone or a brick oven fireplace, this is my favorite pizza dough recipe (from Delia Smith’s ‘How to Cook Book One’):

Ingredients
makes 2 pizzas
350g plain or bread flour
8 fl oz of hot water (boil the kettle and mix with cold purified water to get the right temp)
2 tsp dried active yeast
1 tsp sugar
2 tbs olive oil
1 tsp salt

Quick garlicky tomato sauce
3-4 cloves garlic, sliced thinly
1 tin of plum tomatoes or 1/2 a large tin
olive oil
fresh or dried basil
salt and pepper
1 tsp sugar
dash rice vinegar (optional)

1) Mix dry ingredients together. Drizzle the olive oil and mix again.
2) Add the water and mix with a wooden spoon till roughly combined.
3) Dump on a clean work surface and knead for a few minutes until the dough becomes a soft squishy ball. It’s ok if at first it isn’t all sticking together. You shouldn’t need to add any extra flour to your work surface.
4) Place in an oiled bowl and cover tightly. If the covering is loose, the dough will develop a ‘skin’. Keep in a warm place for an hour until about doubled in size. An option is to warm the oven slightly, then turn off the heat and put the dough in there.
– While it is rising, make a quick sauce or use a homemade sauce you made earlier.
– Heat up olive oil in a sauce pot and gently fry the garlic for a few seconds.
– Add in the tomatoes and seasoning. Use a potato masher to break up the tomatoes.
– Cover with a lid and simmer on a medium heat for about 15-20 minutes.
– Blitz with a handheld blender.
– Taste and adjust seasoning.
5) Check on the dough after an hour. If it has risen nicely, Punch down, then gently knead again and cut in two.
6) Flour the work surface and then roll the dough out into the shape of your pan (circle or rectangle).
7) The best technique is to roll the pizza dough into a small circle shape and then a) pick up the small circle of dough, hanging on to the very edge so that the weight of the dough stretches itself. b) Move along all the outer edge with your fingers, letting the dough stretch out all sides. This is easier than flipping it up into the air! c) Place the dough back onto the work surface and roll out as big as you like. The dough should now be smooth and pliant. I recommend rolling out quite thin for a thin crispy pizza. Repeat with the other half of dough.
8) Sprinkle baking trays with corn meal to keep the pizza from sticking during baking. No need to use oil.
9) Bake on a high heat (400F) on the upper racks for about 10-15 minutes.