It's getting colder all the time! I guess I should expect that-it's winter! A good cold snap just makes me want to hole up in my snug little cabin. Lunch time rolled around today and I was thinking a good hot bowl of soup would be just right. I'm not one for canned soup so usually it is something I make in a huge quantity and eat for days and maybe even freeze some for the future. It is a time-consuming lengthy project.
I wasn't really up for that kind of project today so I got to thinking. I know - thinking sometimes isn't good! Lately, I have also been partial to oriental food so now I'm really thinking. So this is what I did. I put a pat of butter in a pan and added a small amount of chopped onion and let it start cooking. I added some diced zucchini and sliced mushrooms. I also diced up a bit of leftover pork tenderloin and added it to the vegetables. When the vegetables were almost done, I put in a can of chicken broth and some garlic chili sauce for a bit of spice. How much chili sauce - enough to satisfy your level of spice! It's kinda like season to taste. Then I added a bit of vinegar and some soy sauce - couple tablespoons of each - again add enough until it tastes good to you. When it all came to a boil, I added some bean sprouts. By the way, I was in the local oriental market and they had a huge one-pound bag of beautiful fresh sprouts for under a dollar! I understand it's important to cook bean sprouts so I let the soup cook until they were done. There you go - my version of hot and sour soup - and it was really good!
This was a quick and easy soup. I used the ingredients I happened to have on hand so the next time I do this the ingredients probably will be different. If you don't have garlic chili sauce on hand, I'd think using a sprinkle or two of crushed red peppers would add the zing you need. Also, adding a beaten egg while stirring the soup would give you an egg "noodle" like what is used in egg drop soup. You could add a rice noodle or even regular noodles. The possibilities are endless! It just take a few minutes and you have a great homemade soup for one!
No comments:
Post a Comment