Miso Soup

We All Fall Off the Wagon

Maybe you've been on vacation with no healthy food access, or you've had that particular kind of stress you just can't seem to handle at all well. Or perhaps you had a time crunch with little left for shopping or cooking.  Severe stress happens too, and sometimes we turn to unhealthy "comfort" food at those times - just when our bodies need nutritious food the most.  We've all been there.  Eventually your body will motivate you to get back to your healthy shopping/cooking routine, and you immediately feel so much better.  Nobody's perfect, just keep trying.  Here are a couple of great "restart" recipes. 

One easy menu involves cooking up some brown rice (my favorite is short grain brown rice from Lundberg Farms) to serve with steamed or lightly stir fried veggies.  You can start the meal with some miso soup.  Here's a recipe I like:

Miso Soup

All the ingredients for this soup can generally be found in all supermarkets.  First you need to prepare a kind of Japanese stock called "dashi" which is very easy to put together.  This is just one kind of dashi;  there are many.  There are also many different recipes for miso soup.  

Ingredients:

For the dashi:

5 cups cold water

6 dried shiitake mushrooms


2 pieces kombu seaweed


4 ¼ -inch-thick coins fresh ginger

Combine all ingredients and slowly bring to a boil over a low heat. Remove and discard kombu once it starts to boil; reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes. Strain out solids. 
 

For the miso soup:

The above dashi

3-4 Tablespoons miso paste

1/4 to 1/2  block tofu (optional), cut in small cubes (less than 1/2 inch)

1/2 tsp dried wakame, cut up very small (a kind of seaweed, also available at supermarkets)

1 scallion chopped

Scoop about 1/4 cup of dashi into a small bowl, then whisk miso in until smooth and creamy paste. Whisk mixture into dashi and heat but do not allow to boil.  Add in tofu and sprinkle with wakame.  Serve garnished with scallions.  Some may want a splash of soy sauce, but if you need to watch sodium intake, it's good to know that miso is quite high in sodium.  Interestingly, it does not appear to affect our cardiovascular system as salt does.  It's also a food that is full of nutritional and health benefits.

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Below you will find a very, very different but extremely nutritious recipe, and I am not in any way suggesting that this recipe coordinates well with Miso Soup because it doesn't.  It is, however, a snap to make, tasty, and it's a dinner in a bowl.  I changed it a bit, but it's a recipe on the Mayo Clinic website - full of nutritious recipes.  Check 'em out at http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/recipes/heart-healthy-recipes/rcs-20077163.  

Creole-style black-eyed peas

Serves 8 – I cut it in half

Ingredients:

1-2 cups water, vegetable 
or chicken broth

2 cups dried black-eyed peas


2 cups canned unsalted tomatoes, crushed or fresh tomatoes, chopped small

1 large onion, finely chopped


2 stalks celery, finely chopped


2-3 chopped carrots

3 teaspoons minced garlic


1/2 teaspoon dry mustard


1/4 teaspoon ground ginger


1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper - You can add your own hot pepper if you like it hot. If you don't, skip the cayenne, or add 1/8 tsp.


1 bay leaf


1/2 cup chopped parsley

Directions

In a 3-4 quart saucepan place the black-eyed peas and cover with water. Bring to a boil for 2 minutes, cover, remove from heat and let stand for 1 hour.

Drain the peas and return to the saucepan. Add the 1-2 cups water or broth, and all the remaining ingredients except the parsley. Stir and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer slowly for 1-2 hours (depending on the freshness of your black-eyed peas - you'll have to check every 15 minutes or so after an hour). Stir occasionally. Add water or broth as necessary to keep everything covered with liquid.

When black-eyed peas are done, discard bay leaf, and serve topped with parsley. 

In the words of the immortal James Brown, "Get on the good foot!"

Enjoy, and be well!