christmas wrap up and anti-recipe #69 for miso soup

Ah, Christmas. Christmas of frantic crafting. Peaceful moments in front of the twinkling lights and then, and then, the puking baby, and the lights on the twinkling tree, as I am holding the puking baby, give off a loud pop and start smoking (I am not making this up for effect). It was like the world was saying. Ok. Things are not under your control, mama Sara, so you, my dear lady, need to let go and just be.

And honest to goodness it was the most relaxed I have felt about Christmas time in YEARS.

HA. Go figure.

I think, in retrospect, it was probably because having a pukey baby gave me permission to NOT get I all done, you know? Drink a glass of wine instead of making pocket babies for the cousins.

In any case. Baby puked, and brother did too, and we spread our germs all around my giant family, although they were okay with it because they love my kiddos, and we opened presents and ate a little Christmas chocolate and watched movies and played Wii, and it was good.

And yesterday I came home and, feeling like I had overindulged for several days, as I have actually done, dada made this soup, which I made once last week, which really is the perfect end of the holidays nourishing yummy soup.

And here is how you can too...

Buy Miso paste. The good stuff. Here is a pic of what it looks like:

Saute a few handfuls of shitake mushrooms in butter.

Defrost a yogurt container of good chicken stock, made after roasting a chicken (which is what we do every time, simmer water and the chicken carcass, strain, saving any meat for soups, and store in old yogurt container in the freezer).

Add several tablespoons of miso paste, stir to mix it in. Add in chopped garlic (a teaspoon or two cloves.) Add in some chopped ginger (a teaspoon) or several shakes of powdered ginger.

Add in frozen or fresh broccoli and some shavings of carrot and chopped scallions. Cook all this for awhile until veggies are tender to your liking.

Now cook in a separate pot your thin rice noodles, per instructions on box. The kind we get needs to be cooked by boiling water, tuning off heat, and then dropping in the noodles and let sit until nearly done (6 minutes). While these sit and cook chop up a cup of firm tofu into small cubes and add this to the soup. Now strain the noodles and add. Stir in several handfuls of fresh spinach or some sprouts until just soft. Turn off the heat.

I added a generous dousing of soy sauce to mine.

OMG so good. Especially after eating things like meatballs and egg bakes and WAAAAY too many peanut butter filled pretzels for the past five days.

ENJOY!

Also, here are some photos of Christmas from our neck of the woods, for grandmas and aunties. The girls were kind of "eh" about the mermaid dolls (sad face) but baby dear did love the wooden animals and I think they will warm up to them once the novelty of new coloring books and playdoh and my little ponies wear off (crossing fingers anyway...)

Happy almost new year mamas!