Miso soup

Miso soup is a traditional Asian dish made from fermented soy bean paste and there are several different kinds of miso. Every family has their own recipe, which is given from one generation to the next so there is no "one" recipe for this and mine isn't always the same either!

In Japan miso soup is served for breakfast and we love it for breakfast too!

I usually begin with the base of leftover rice (or any other grain) and then I add some vegetables. More often than not I use any combination of carrots, radish, green peas, spring onions and napa cabbage. Sometimes I add mushrooms like shiitake. Then add water and bring to a light boil until the vegetables are tender.
Once the vegetables are soft enough for your liking,  reduce the heat and stir in your favourite miso paste. I use a 50:50 combination of hatcho miso and mugi miso. (when stirring in miso make sure to use a very fine sieve to make sure the miso dissolves completely!) Use approx. 1 teaspoon miso per every 200ml of water.
Let it sit for 2-3 minutes and serve with a tablespoon full of you favourite homemade quick pickles!

Sometimes I add sriracha - the very hot asian chili condiment - which makes the miso soup a very warming dish! Skip the sriracha if you're having digestive problems!

Side note: do yourself the favour and use unpasteurised miso and never boil it to keep the good fermentation bacteria alive!

Bon Appetit!

Winterporridge

I know it's summer, but the weather is more like fall most of the time so I'm already very much in comfort-food-mode!
So today I came up with a new combination for porridge and it tastes a lot like Christmas :)

I cooked it in my rice cooker to make it a hassle free meal but you can make it on the stove top as well!

- 3/4 cup steel cut oats
- 1/2 cup ground nuts (I used almonds and hazelnuts 1/4 cup each)
- Cinnamon
- 1 handful of dried fruit, chopped (I used apples, but would've added raisins as well if I had any)
- 1-1.5 cups plant based milk (I used oat milk)
- 1.5-2 cups of water
(You need a total of 3 cups of liquid, you can divide them as you wish or even use water only, it's not as creamy though!)

Mix everything together and cook for 5-10 minutes. If you're using a rice cooker make sure NOT to close the lid!! Then switch your rice cooker to "warm", close the lid and let sit for 20-30 minutes until your oatmeal is soft :)
You can add fresh fruit or nuts if you like! I'd say banana and pecans would be a great addition ;)

I'm so looking forward to having this for breakfast tomorrow!! :)

Quick pickles

Recently I started experiencing with quick pickles and I became a quick pickle junkie!
If you've never made quick pickles, let me tell you, they're way easier than you might think they are!

All you need to do is thinly slice up some veggies and either make a brine or sprinkle the vegetables with enough sea salt so they release enough water by themselve. Then use some kind of cloth to cover the jar and let sit outside the fridge for 1-3 days to let fermentation do its job. By then you can store them for a few days in the fridge and add them as a little something special to any meal. Personally I love a bowl of fresh rice with a selection of homemade pickles! It brings me back to basics and calms the digestive system.
In macrobiotic "medicine" pickles are used for several health problems as they're supposed to have a healing effect on mind and body.

For making a brine I simply use 1-2 parts of water and 1 part umeboshi plum vinegar (you might find this in your health food store, if not order it from a macrobiotic online store!) - I use the Clearspring Ume Su. Ume Su has a salty sourly taste and a beautiful pink colour.

Veggies I make with Ume Su brine:
- carrots
- radishes (any kind of the radish works great!)
- red onions
- spring onions

You can mix them up or pickle them separately. I don't recommend combining red onions with other vegetables though as they overpower the taste of everything.
You can reuse the the brine 1-3 times when making a new batch or use it as a condiment over fresh rice. (Add some finely chopped fresh tomatoes and avocado!)

For "salted" pickles I use:
- cucumber
- the white long kind of radish / daikon

For a 500ml jar I use approximately 1 tablespoon of coarse sea salt, sprinkled in between layers of vegetables. You might want to shake the jar up every now and then until enough liquid is released.
Cucumber pickles are ready to eat within a couple of hours.

Your pickles will get saltier the longer they ferment, but if they're too salty you can just rinse them in cold water before eating.

I might add veggies to the list when I try other veggies :)