Hot Pot from Home
Last Wednesday, I boiled several chicken breast pieces, which I used for a pasta sauce. That left me with a good amount of chicken broth which I would normally save and store in the freezer for future use. Yesterday, I decided to use the broth to make chicken noodle soup for dinner.
As I was reading the cooking suggestions at the back of the package of vermicelli noodles, the word shabu-shabu seemed to have turned on a switch in my head. Immediately, I made a mental list of the contents of my freezer, zeroing in on three particular ingredients: dumplings, prawn balls and immitation crab. Perfect, we could have a simple Hot Pot dinner at home. ;) Why oh why haven’t I thought of that before?!!
I went to work right away and sauted several cloves of garlic and onions in a pot. After about a minute of sauteing, I poured the chicken broth in, seasoning it well with salt and pepper. As soon as it started boiling, I dropped in the dumplings, prawn balls and immitation crab meat. All this time, my vermicelli noodles were soaking in cold water (15 minutes of soaking as per the instruction on the package).
When all the ingredients I dumped in the pot floated to the surface of the boiling broth, I dropped in the noodles and turned off the fire after a minute or so. Dinner was ready! Quick, easy and yummy!
Abby loved it, and Hubby did, too (like he had a choice!). Abby had fun during dinner because she got to use chopsticks (with kiddie attachment) to pick out the prawn balls and crab. I, on the other hand, can’t be an impartial judge of our meal. First, I’ve always loved noodle soup. It’s one of my favorite comfort foods. Second, I cooked it! Hee hee.
I honestly think it’s always best to use real chicken broth for soup or whatever recipe calls for chicken broth. It just tastes so much better than if one were to use bouillon cubes. I haven’t used canned broth yet ever so I can’t say if it’s any good.
On our next grocery shopping trip, I’ll be getting more hot pot ingredients and make sure to include veggies, which we have ran out of. Hee hee. And next time, I hope to make shabu-shabu from home. I’ll have to do a little research on the different shabu-shabu sauces first.
Pasta & Noodles, Soups | Comment (1)
PH #18: Hanging
I wasn’t able to do some photo hunting for two consecutive weeks. Well, I’m back. ;) Hee hee! This week’s theme was quite a challenge for me, primarily because I’m only getting over my vacation hang-over (Oh please, it’s been a week already!) and I didn’t want another kitchen nightmare (see my entry for Photo Hunt: Pointed) pic. :) Anyway, I was positively sure I had an appropriate pic buried somewhere deep in my food pics archives. And I was right!…
…noodles hanging from chopsticks! Woohoo! ;) Hubby almost always orders “ramen” from Musashino, one of our favorite Japanese restaurants. See the bowl? It’s outrageously huge! I haven’t ever tried ordering one for myself because the noodles are sooo good I’m quite sure I’ll be able to finish the entire bowl…noodles, veggies, meat, soup and all! I bet I’d feel overly guilty that I might just end up reading diet pill reviews. But nah! I’m way past feeling guilty over overeating. I need entries for this food blog! Hahaha! 
I have another hanging entry HERE. Visit other photo hunters here.
Have a great weekend, y’all!
Pasta & Noodles, Photo Hunt | Comments (20)
Soba II
In my most recent Weekend Snapshot entry about soba, my friend, Tin, left this comment, which included a question:
it looks so good, weng! do you just mix the ingredients, that’s all? if it’s easy to make, i’ll try to prepare it for R. he loves jap noodles.
Thank you for leaving that comment, Tin! I should have included the procedure in my post. So sorry about that! Hahaha! And to answer your question, yes, it’s that easy to make.
Here’s what you will need for the a basic soba:
Japanese buckwheat noodles
soba tsuyu (noodle dipping sauce)
nori (roasted shredded seaweed)
wasabi ( I prefer the powdered wasabi)
1. Add noodles to a pot of boiling water and cook for about 4-5 minutes on high heat, or until the noodles reach the desired tenderness.
2. Strain noodles into a colander and rinse under cold running water (iced water will be even better as you want your soba to be cold). Drain well then transfer to a plate.
3. Garnish with the nori.
You can have a side of vegetables and quail eggs if you like. ;) That’s all there is to it! :) LIke I said, anyone who can boil water can do this. Hahaha.
Just a short note about the soba tsuyu, you can choose to buy one that is already ready for dipping or one that still has to be mixed with water. You can also make this from scratch. We bought the one that is ready for dipping, lazy people that we are. 
Next time, I hope to make hot soba, say, tempura soba. *cross fingers*
Pasta & Noodles, Quick Fix | Comments (3)
WS #13: Soba
We went to the Asian supermarket (MT Supermarket) yesterday, specifically, to buy lunch items for my daughter. She just loves having dimsum for lunch in school and we urgenty had to restock. Hee hee! After grabbing what we needed from the frozen food section, we proceeded to go through some of the aisles at the supermarket. While at the Japanese aisle, hubby and I decided on a very simple impromptu Japanese dinner at home.
My husband and I both love soba (Japanese buckwheat noodles) so we grabbed a package of buckwheat noodles, a small bottle of soba tsuyu (noodle dipping sauce), a jar of nori (roasted shredded seaweed) and a tiny can of wasabi powder.
When we got home, I started dinner after playing with bubbles with my daughter. Here’s the “before picture” (two bundles of buckwheat noodles were already in the pot of boiling water when I took this picture) of our dinner.
And here is the finished product…
I wonder why it took us so long to make this at home! Tsk tsk! It would have been nice if I had my own zaru, a sieve-like bamboo try on which chilled soba is typically served. I’m glad we bought wasabi in powder form instead of the already prepared tubed ones. Powder is definitely better than tubed. I only needed to add water and voila, it was ready in no time. So what if it’s carbo loading?! Hahaha. It looks like we’ll be having this at home more often. ;) If you can boil water, then you can very well have soba in the comforts of your own dining room anytime.
Have a great week, y’all!
ps: My other Weekend Snapshot entry is “Bubbles and Blooms“. 
Pasta & Noodles, Weekend Snapshot | Comments (16)
Baked Spaghetti
What household with kids doesn’t have “Pasta Night” at least once a month? Definitely not ours! :D Even before I got married, I’ve always took a special liking for cooking pasta dishes. Mostly because of the sheer ease of preparing and cooking them. One thing I’ve never done though, is make my tomato based spaghetti sauce from scratch. But something does tell me that I may just do so some time soon.
I was under a lazy spell last Monday so I announced to the two other members of our household (hubby and my little munchkin) that it’s spaghetti night. :D But to give an otherwise ordinary pasta dish just the slightest hint of a twist, I decided to bake it.
We waited an extra 30 minutes before we finally had dinner. But it was well worth the wait, if I may say so myself.
My little girl gave it her stamp of approval: “It’s yummy, Mom!” ;)
It’s very simple really. First saute garlic and onion, then add the ground beef, and season it with salt and pepper. Let it simmer for a few minutes, just until the beef changes color. Then add mushrooms and the spaghetti sauce (mine was store bought! ). Bring the sauce to a boil and adjust the seasoning according to taste. Mix the spaghetti sauce with the cooked spaghetti (I used thin spaghetti for this one.) and transfer it to a baking dish. This is the yummy part…topp the spaghetti with grated cheddar cheese (as in I covered the entire top of the dish with cheese!) and then bake it in the oven for 30 minutes or just until the cheese turns brown and starts to bubble. Voila! :D It’s spaghetti packaged just a little differently. ;)
Simply put, just make spaghetti like you normally do, top it with your favorite type of cheese, then bake it. :D
p.s. Please do excuse my amateurish babbling of the procedure.
Pasta & Noodles | Comments (5)
