What’s for dinner – Ramen like you never had it!

Well, it’s been a busy 10 days or so. Finally got 3 loaves of sourdough baked yesterday. Not before what looked like disaster, of course. The picture is of 2 loaves just put in bread pans to rise. Pretty, eh?

I’m still learning about sourdough, and the proper proportions of water/flour/starter, the “feel” of the dough, etc. All I knew was I thought the dough was beautiful, full of windowpanes and loo-o-ong gluten strands. I was pleased when I left it to run errands.

The camera was full, so I didn’t get a picture of the result. Just imagine those pans with drapes of liquid bread dough hanging down the sides to the rack beneath them. And that was in a COLD oven, no light, and it’s electric, so no pilot. ambient temperature was about 50F.

I started gathering the drapes up, and they pulled away from the pans and the rack quite neatly! I was able to scrape everything back into the pans without incident, then back into the bowl, where I added another 3 cups of flour! By the time I got done, I divided it into 3 pans this time, filling each roughly a quarter full. I figured I’d have smaller loaves, but safer.

Ended up with 3 BIG loaves, a good 50% bigger than the pans. Great crust, and a very tight, soft, faintly sour crumb. Makes lovely toast!

Okay, back to the ramen! Take one package of Oriental flavor ramen. (Or your choice, but that one’s animal-free.) Slice a 1″ square of fresh ginger into this slices. (IF YOU AREN’T EATING ALONE, COUNT THE SLICES!) Crush 3 cloves of fresh garlic. Slice 2 healthy green onions, and roughly chop a handful of cilantro.

Put the flavor packet (or half of it) into a small saucepan, I use a 2 quart for 4 eggs. Yes, there are eggs to come, but you can also dice extra-firm tofu and substitute. Add the ginger, garlic, 2 Tbsp of sugar, 2 Tbsp of lime juice, 2 Tbsp of white vinegar, 1 tsp of Sriracha hot sauce, 2 cups of water, and 1 cup of coconut milk. Bring this to a boil, then simmer for 3 minutes. (The ideal here would be to use galangal instead of ginger, kaffir lime leaves, and bruised sliced lemongrass. Tom means coconut, kha is galangal, kai is chicken, phak is vegetables, and I believe Dohu is tofu.)

Break the noodles up, if you like, to make it easier to serve and eat and add the noodles to the mixture. Cook for 3 more minutes. A little before the noodles are done, start fishing out the ginger and garlic, if you want to. I don’t bother, but I’m usually cooking just for myself. (Yes, that’s why you counted them!)

Add the green onions and cilantro, then quickly add 4 whole raw eggs. You can crack them right into the pan, or you can have them ready in a bowl, whatever works for you. The object is to keep them whole so they’ll poach in the soup. Cook for 3 more minutes.

Add 1 tsp of sesame oil, then serve however you like. This feeds 4, if you add egg rolls or something, 2 for a meal if they’re not starving. I generally cook it for 2 and eat it myself, and it lasts me most of the day.

The aim here is to very roughly duplicate a classic Thai soup, Tom Kha whatever, usually Kai. Kai means chicken. You can make Thom Kha Phak, or whatever. Add whatever ingredients you want. Straw mushrooms are traditional, but I didn’t have any in the cupboard. I’ve made this with fresh mushrooms, fresh pea pods or sugar snaps, a little shredded cabbage, bean sprouts. It’s infinitely flexible. The main thing is to replicate that classic Thai flavor of hot/sweet/sour/salty and make sure it has the lime/lemon edge.

If you’ve had the classic soup, you’ll know what you’re aiming for. If you haven’t, find yourself a Thai restaurant and have some! Tom Kha, or Coconut Chicken (or other protein) soup. It’s killer. If I don’t have the noodles from the ramen, I serve it with a cup or so of steamed rice in it. In researching it, it seems that’s the way it’s served in Thailand, not as a soup course, but as a filling warming meal with the rice.

And ginger, onions, garlic and mushrooms are all antiflammatories! So, you’re also doing your cold, wintry, arthritic joints a favor! I generally eat mine in stages, saving the egg for last, but I have OCD, too.

Rough Night, but Good Soup!

Dinner Tonight

I toss and turn a lot at night usually, pain from a variety of arthritic things and fibromyalgia, which actually is also an arthritic thing. And that’s not a complaint, just my life, and I manage it. But last night was a cold night, and Bella kitty curled up on my shoulder and side as soon as I slid into bed. And she started purring. She’s so skittish and soft and adorable, I didn’t have the heart to move her. Every time I tried to stretch a bit and move around a little, she’d blink at me and start purring again.

So, I stayed in basically the same position for almost six hours. Something I actively encourage other people not to do. I came to at 8am and took a pain pill, TURNED OVER, and then slept until 11. When I woke up again, everything hurt from my waist to the bottoms of my feet, AND felt like it was on fire.

So, I whined a bit, and my brother and mother let me, and then he helped by peeling the potatoes while she did the dishes. I found the miraculous bread recipe partway through the soup, and got it going. And now everything is a bit calmed down, the temperature is dropping (it’s almost 6pm and heading for the mid-20’s) and I’m eating wonderful hot soup while the bread bakes!

Made a big pot of Potato Corn Chowduh, 3 ribs of celery, 1 onion, about a dozen peeled chunked-up potatoes, 1/4 cup margarine to wilt the celery and onion, enough water to float everything well. A tiny bit of salt, and some coarsely ground mixed pepper. Half a bag of frozen baby white corn. A cup of flour and a cup of plain soy milk mixed to a smooth paste added as a thickener towards the end. Thinned out with enough more water and soymilk to give the consistency you want. I used a potato masher to mash everything, but that was because I was too lazy to get out the immersion blender, which is a really lovely tool. Actually, it depends how chunky you want your soup, for us the masher worked fine.

We’re all adding our own salt, pepper and whatever. I added another spoon of margarine to my bowl, along with a sprinkle of coarse kosher salt, some dried dill, more pepper. Hmm…should have added a teensy bit of nutmeg. I’d love to make the soup again, but add spinach, then definitely the nutmeg.

My mom would have loved bacon in it, but she could have made that on the side and added it. Or we could have used vegie bacon or sausage of some sort. It’s not really an exact or exacting recipe, after all. Some form of cheese for those who will would work well, too.

There would have been fresh bread with it, but I didn’t have rapid rise yeast, so the bread just now started baking. There were still a couple of thick heels of sourdough left, so that will do until this loaf comes out of the oven. And I’ll make more tomorrow.

This is a one-loaf bread recipe, using the food processor. That will get us through, and last night was a rough night. I wasn’t really in a mood or condition to fight with a big ball of dough and the KitchenAid.

Life should always be this difficult! I’m going to check the bread and grab another bowl of soup.

Today’s Lunch and Dinner

Well, I found a 5-quart ice cream pail in the freezer yesterday, filled with 4 quarts of something unidentifiable.  So, I thawed it enough to loosen it up, and it looked vaguely soupish.

Threw it into a slow cooker for overnight, turns out it’s a very hearty vegetable beef soup from last spring!  Lots of different beans, lots of vegies, enough meat.  Crumble a piece of the new rye bread in a bowl, put soup on it, and it’s a warm, filling meal!

The first loaf of sourdough white is in the oven, but I’m not very hopeful.  I think it’s WAY too loose, could have used another 2 cups of flour.  That’s what happens when I don’t use the Kitchenaid because I’m trying to be quiet.  I just can’t do that kind of kneading anymore.

Still, it’s all an experiment.  Who knows, maybe it will turn out great!  Sticky as tar on a hot roof, but I’ve read that sourdough IS sticky.

I wish I’d taken a picture of that rye bread…gargantuan.  Had to be at least a 4# loaf.  Took up half a jelly roll pan, on the diagonal.