I saw this pack of colorful vegetable noodles at the Asian supermarket the last time we were there and I simply had to buy it.  Over the weekend, I made Chicken and Crab Noodle Soup.

Abby chose the purple noodles (which turned pink), while I chose the orange noodles for myself and assigned the green ones to Hubby.  You can say we had a noodle station going at home.  *wink*

These are the ingredients that went in the noodle soup:  sliced chicken breast, green onions, crushed garlic chips and imitation crab.  We also had hardboiled egg, which I decided not to slice anymore.

I had fun assembling the noodle components in the bowl.

Don’t forget the egg! *wink*

To finish it off, pour hot chicken broth into the bowl.

For the broth, I sauted garlic and onions in a pot then poured the chicken broth (yes, the one used to boiled the chicken breasts!) in, seasoned it with salt and pepper then waited for it to boil.  Easy peasy!

Anyone who can boil water can do this.  We had so much noodles I almost offered some to the workers of the New York Moving Company, who were loading our neighbor’s stuff into their huge truck. But nah. I’m way too shy! Hee hee.

How’s that for a meal in a bowl? *wink*

Let’s drive off to the farm…my other Weekend Snapshot entry.

Have a great week ahead!

There are two soup dishes from the Philippines, which, I dare say, are the top 2 national favorites:  sinigang (a sour soup that is usually tamarind based) and nilaga (boiled beef with vegetables - pechay and potatoes).

Yesterday, a busy day, I decided to cook sinigang na bangus (milkfish in tamarind broth) for lunch.  The fact that it only takes about 30 minutes to cook (it might be longer if using pork instead of fish) just makes this soup-slash-viand all the more appealing.

I have to admit that I cheated in making this dish.  I sought the help of Knorr Tamarind Soup Base Mix.  Hee hee.  *wink*  I hope this little admission of guilt doesn’t make my Nanay turn in her grave.  Tamarind isn’t always availalble in the Asian supermarket we go to.  My Mom and I have tried using lime as our sour soup base, but it just wasn’t the same.

It’s been a while since we’ve had sinigang.  Abby loved it and constantly asked to be served extra green beans (no stringbeans at the supermarket so green beans it was for us!).  With only Hubby, Abby and me partaking of the sinigang, I get to have the fish head (back home, it’s my Mom who has that privelege.).  Woot!

With cooler weather making it’s way to our part of the world soon, it looks like we’ll be having sinigang a little more often.

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.

Comfort-in-a-Bowl for me may be a bowl of strawberry cereal with milk, one or two scoops of ice cream, popcorn, chips, etc.  The possibilities are just endless.  Last week, my comfort-in-a-bowl was this…

Macaroni Soup or sopas as we call it in the Philippines.  I’ve always loved sopas.  And in spite of the Texas heat, I had a bowl of sopas and some crackers for lunch Friday last week.  There are a number of variations to cooking sopas.  Usually, chicken is used.  Some add shredded cabbage and milk, too!  Hubby doesn’t want too much veggies in his sopas.  I just threw in a few pieces of carrots.  Instead of chicken, I used ground turkey.  And to add more flavor, I dropped one chicken bouillon cube. :D  Yum!

What’s your comfort-in-a-bowl?

The theme for week #7 of Lasang Pinoy, Sundays is “Soup”.  I love soup, but I’m a bit partial to one that is already a meal in itself, like noodle soup and porridge (or congee as it is commonly referred to in the Philippines).

Last Sunday, we had dinner at TC Noodle House and I realized it’s been ages since I’ve had congee.  I thought I ought to give it a try.  I ordered something really simple, but something I’ve always liked:  Porridge with Centruy Egg (Hundred Year Old egg is what it’s called here)… 

I had very high expectations because we like TC Noodle House and their food.  But, the porridge, while OK, wasn’t exactly what I had hoped it would be.  It was bordering on bland.  I’m used to tastier, well-seasoned ones from Chinese restaurants in the Philippines.  This porridge reminded me of lugaw (Filipino term for porridge) that my Nanay (maternal grandma) would make for my Lolo (grandfather) when he’s sick.  I had to use lots of soy sauce!  And the century egg?!  They were cut into very small pieces!  I doubt if they even used a whole egg for the porridge.  Hmp!

After everything I’ve said, I still haven’t decided if I’ll have porridge in that place again.  Seafood porridge next time perhaps?  We’ll see.  You’ll definitely hear read about it when it happens.