Oatmeal!

Its oatmeal! Oatmeal is really delicious and healthy. (as long as you get a canister of  plain oats and not the packed sugar filled kind.) 

Oatmeal is a complete grain. It has tons of fiber so its good for the digestive track, it slows down the break down of starches, which evens out blood sugar levels, and oatmeal lowers cholesterol! Plus its packed with nutrients and minerals. A great food to start the day.

But why the heck am I posting a recipe for oatmeal? Its a seemingly simple dish, but I make mine a bit differntly than the average person.

1/4 cup rolled oats
Hot water
Yogurt or soy cream
Sliced fruit
Some sweetener, like sugar, agave nectar or maple surup

1.) Put some oats in a bowl
2.) Add a little hot water
3.) Mix the oats til they  become oatmeal like.
4.) Add some yogurt to it! It makes the oatmeal creamy and good.
5.) Add slices of fruit and cinnamon or other spices if you like.
6.) Add a little sweetener if you need it and then eat!

Another great thing about rolled oats...you can also make granola out of them and add then to breads that you bake or even stick them in pancakes!

Ochazuke: Tea and Rice Soup

Ok...I know this Japanese dish will sound very strange to westerners...but it is delicious, I promise. Absolutely one of my most favorite meals. Ochazuke means Tea-pickle. Its essentially rice with pickled vegetables and tea. It takes little time to make, and is very filling.

Rice
Genmai cha, Hoji cha or Jasmine tea. Oolongs might work...but japanese tea's will work the best.
Pickled Vegetables
Some Flavorings: spices or dashi or a little stock


Optoinal Toppings:
Some Rice crackers or Arare
Soy Sauce
Nori (toasted seaweed)
Cubed Tofu
Fried Egg
Peas
Green Onion
Ume Boshi (pickled plum)
Bean Sprouts
Toasted Sesame seeds
Wasabi (horseradish)
Rice vinegar
Bonito flakes (flakes of tuna)
Furikake (rice sprinkles?)
Fish
Konbu (a type of seaweed)
Shiso (a purple herb that is sort of like basil and oregano)
Jako (tiny dried fish)
Left over steamed vegetables
Pieces of steak....

Basically any asian stuff you have lying about. You could also just buy a Ochazuki flavor pack, like this one, thats how most japanese people make ochazuki now-a-days.

Pickled Vegetables:

You can buy them in the store, or make them yourself, which isn't hard.

1.) Thinly slice up about a cup or so of some veggies or fruits, in either in round or match stick shapes: carrots, radishes,plum, celery, ginger, cucumber, peach, turnips, eggplant, pineapple, cabbage, peppers, etc.
2.) Put the veggies/fruits in a plastic bag.
3.) Add in 1/4 tsp. salt, 1 Tbs. sugar and 3 Tbs. rice vinegar.
4.) Close the bag with some air in it and shake it up!
5.) after the veggies are well coated push the air out of the bag and close it.
6.) place a flat plate on top of the bag, and place a weight like a large can on top.
7.) Let the whole thing sit for 3 hours or even over night.
8.) Rinse off the veggies. You should be left with something that is crunchy, sweet, and acidic all at the same time. (japanese pickles-sokusekizuke- are not like western pickles at all, and if you've ever eaten those bright pink ginger slices with sushi, you've had pickled ginger!)

These pickles are good for about the same length of time as fresh fruit, 2-7 days.

Ochazuki:

1.) Scoop some rice in a bowl
2.) Put toppings on rice
3.) Pour Hot tea over rice and toppings, the same amount you might put in cereal.
4.) Eat.

Italian Bread Dipping Sauce

I love this stuff. Its simple and makes a great snack, especially with some sliced Roma tomatoes.

Just make sure to remember that 2-3 Tbsps of oil/fat a day (saturated or unsaturated) is what the average person should be getting. (most people get much more than this) So its not a good idea to eat a whole bread loaf with this stuff. But the serving you see there is barely half a Tbsp, and I didn't even use the whole thing up when I was eating. It's also a lot easier to control your fat intake when you make foods from scratch than it is when you eat processed and canned foods, so learning how to cook with fresh foods is one of the best things you can do.

Ok, no more tangent, here's the recipe:

1 cup oil
Basil, Parsley, Oregano,
Minced Garlic, Black Pepper
Crushed Red Pepper
Anatto, Rosemary

1.) Mix all the ingredients up in a jar, bottle or bowl.
2.) Let it sit together over night so the oil will get infused with the flavors.
3.) Eat with some bread and tomatoes or cheese if you like.

The oil is good for about a week. After that botulism can start to accumulate in the oil, and getting the black death from your food can't be good.

Food Spotlight: TEA

Tea is a pretty simple drink in principle. It is flavored water essentially. There are many flavored water drinks out there…and tea is a much better alternative to drink than mixes, soda, or even fruit juice. (Juice while healthy, can have a ton of sugar and calories, so juice should be drunk in small single serving amounts)

Many people don’t think they are a “tea person”. This is a misconception. There are literally thousands of flavors of tea. You can’t dislike them all. (and you may even love a few)

Black tea, Compressed tea, Oolong, Green, Yellow, White and herbal teas are the basic types of tea you can get. Tea leaves all come from the same plant (excluding herbal tea) and depending on the drying, fermenting and processing; a tea leaf can become any one of those different types.

Green, yellow and white teas generally have a lighter, fresher taste and black teas have a more nutty/earthy taste. Herbs, spices and fruits add another dimension of taste to tea, adding a sweet, nutty, fruity, flowery, cooling or spicy effect. The best thing to do is experiment to find a tea that you like.

Some of my favorite teas:

Earl grey: This is generally a bitter black tea with a citrus flavor in it from added bergamot. It is great to drink for breakfast as it has some caffeine and the citrus flavor will wake you up just as much.

Jasmine: This tea has a sweet, subtle flower taste. It’s very fragrant and makes a great relaxing tea.

Rooibos: This is an herb that comes from Africa. It’s also called red tea and has a nice bright color. Rooibos tea has a sweet, nutty flavor and is great by itself or mixed with other herbs.

Chamomile: This tea is very refreshing and also has some anti-inflammatory and sleep inducing effects, so it’s good to drink if you have a headache or want a good nights sleep.

Mint: Peppermint + spearmint and other mints make great tea. It tastes…minty? Very refreshing and helps out with bad breath and upset stomach.

Genmai Cha: This is a Japanese tea with small puffed rice bits in it. For such a lightly colored tea the flavor is very strong and unique enough that I cannot describe it. I can say that the first time I had some it was a surprising/shocking experience.

Brewing tea with 8 oz of water

Tea	White	Green	Oolong	Rooibos	Mate	Herbal
Amount (Tbsp)	1.5	1	1	1.5	1	1.5
Water Tempurature (F)	175	175	195	208	195	208
Brew Time (minutes)	1	3	3	8	8	5

To make iced tea use twice the amount of tea leaves and a longer brewing time. The boiling point of water at standard human livable air pressure is 212 °F …If you brew tea with boiling water you will over cook it.

Angry soup.... aka cream of basil soup

This is for you Charles. :)

Ingredients:

2 cups chicken or vegetable broth
1 1/2 cup milk
2 Tbsp flour
1/2 Tbsp butter or margarine
Lots of garlic power and basil
Some oregano, parsley, black pepper and hot pepper if you like.
Dash of salt (only if the both you use has no salt)
ANGER

1.) Put the broth, spices and butter into a sauce pan.
2.) Turn the heat on the stove to med-high
3.) Direct your Rage and ANGER into the soup. Behold as your anger makes the soup boil in rage.
4.) Once the soup has soaked up all your anger, turn the heat down a bit and add the milk.
5.) As you simmer the soup slowly add the flour through a sifter stirring constantly so there are no lumps.
6.) Cook soup until it thickens with ANGER
7.) Eat.

If you really wanted to, you could add some vegetables, pasta or chicken/tofu pieces to the soup, but then it might get appeased and stop being so ANGRY.

Miso Soup

Miso soup is a sweet, tangy soup that hails from japan. Its one of my most favorite "comfort foods" to eat when I get a cold or relax in the afternoon and have a snack. It is a pretty simple soup to make, and it has tons of health benefits too.

Basic Ingredients:
Miso Paste
Dashi or Wakame Sea Weed + hot water or Vegetable soup stock
Scallions

Other Things you can add:
Mushrooms
Cubed Tofu
water chestnuts
somen noodles
Egg plant
Potatoes
Radish)
Thin pork slices (this would make the soup tonjiru)
Carrot

1.) Bring a few cups of dashi, soup stock or wakame seaweed + water to a boil.
2.) Once the soup boils turn the heat down, and keep it at a pre-boil temperature.
2.) add the solid/hard ingredients to the soup and cook until softened.
3.) Add disolve some miso paste into the soup. Once you do this, do not allow the soup to boil as this will change the flavor of the miso.
4.) Add soft ingredients and green vegetables to the miso and heat for a short time.
5.) Eat

Most Miso soups only have 1-3 ingredients in small quantities. Usually an item that floats and one that sinks. The ingredients are supposed to reflect the season and also have contrasts of color and texture. Having Miso is supposed to be as much as an aesthetic experience as a taste one.