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digitS'
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Noodles

Yeah, they transformed my diet.

Of course, there was spaghetti when I was a kid. Did you know people used to get together for spaghetti parties? Pizza came later in my Far West hometown ...

More recently, ramen noodles followed stir-fries just as easily as could be.

Here is SeriousEats on Ramen Hacks. Simplest thing possible. We often start off with kimchi noodles; kimchi is mostly just a seasoning ingredient in our house. Yesterday, we had the last of the green beans as an addition. There are a few more snap peas in the fridge, leafy brassicas coming out of the garden and soon, some from greenhouse beds.

Steve

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I like fried ramen too. I prefer fresh noodles but, the dried noodles are convenient. I like mine with many of the ingredients I would use in fried rice: bacon, garlic, onion or green onion, fish cake, spam (I know most people go eeewww but spam is a staple here), hot dogs, watercress, beans, snow peas, carrots, kim chee, cabbage, fried and diced eggs. I don't use them all at the same time just maybe three or four.

I also like saimin and won ton min with veggies. Mondoo soup is really good and I haven't had it for a very long time. I do not care for miso ramen but a lot of people do like it.

You should also try pancit, a filipino staple. It is fried noodles but they use rice sticks or chow mein noodles with beans, carrots, bamboo shoots, usualy pork or chicken, garlic, shrimp, and shaved dried fish, and fish sauce and soy sauce for flavoring and achiote oil. Sometimes they will fry shrimp heads and shells to start off to flavor the dish.

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Oh, dumplings!

I used to only eat Mom's dumplings and leave the chicken broth ;). I don't think that was what she intended.

Later, I discovered chili and dumplings - my kinda chili!

I've made raviolis but it's been years. I've tried to get DW interested in them but unsuccessfully ... maybe, it's the quality of what is available in the soopermarket.

Steve

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I make a lot of stir fry with noodles. When I'm hungry and don't feel like thawing and cooking, noodles fit the bill. Noodles with butter, garlic, garden herbs and parm are always nice. I just discovered fish sauce when making kimchi so lately it's been Thai/Asian/Indian noodles with garden veggies, herbs and spices. I was getting burnt out on the same old soy/garlic blend. The fish sauce really added a new element. I have been experimenting more with fenugreek, curry, turmeric, cardamon and others. There is a new Indian market down the road. I was always reluctant to spend 5 bucks on a tiny jar of spices at the grocery store. When you get a big bag for 2 bucks it really opens the door.

I grow most all of my ingredients. That limits trying to cook traditional recipes and more experimenting with what I have available. It really seems to always come out good when you use home grown veggies, herbs and spices from scratch. I keep thinking, "this one is going to have a bad combination", but it never happens. Well, excluding the overuse of hot peppers. Then the girls won't eat it.

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I like veggie lumpia. it usually has rice noodles in the filling.
I made Spaghetti on Saturday. I am eating it for a week. I only make a gallon of it at a time and I usually don't freeze it. I just have it with different kinds of pasta. Spagetti one day, penne or elbow macaroni on another day, I make frech bread pizza with the sauce and add more veggies like more mushrooms, onions, peppers, and pepperoni. I could make lasagna with the sauce but that would last another week.

I only had dumplings once, they were good with gravy and so filling.

I do like crispy gau gee and gun lo mein with vegetables. We always order that when we go out.

I don't really like chicken noodle soup, so I rarely eat it.

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Pasta sauce is usually my biggest contribution to the winter freezer although I've been doing a lot of freezing individual servings of winter squash along in January. It carries the squash through the final months and is really necessary since I have been growing larger varieties with only a 2 person household.

Spaghetti noodles are not usually a first choice. Angelhair pasta isn't either but DW always goes for it rather than spaghetti.

This summer, I began making a quick lunch with a nice tomato or two and angelhair pasta, cheese of course. The tomato was my only veggie but nice Italian sweet peppers are still in the fridge and there are tomatoes still ripening in the kitchen ;). Here's what I did with only a few minutes to spare.

I set water boiling. Slid angelhair pasta out of the box, broke it in half so I wouldn't make too much of a mess eating it, and tossed that in the water. It got a couple of stirs over its 4 minute cooking time.

Turning to my cutting board and lovely, heirloom tomatoes! Chopped, mostly peeled, and the tomato went on top the cooked and drained pasta in a bowl. Into the microwave for 3 minutes at 40% power. While I'm nuking those two, I gathered the remaining ingredients.

Maggi sauce, garlic salt, shredded cheese, and my cheat - catchup.

Teaspoon of Maggi, tablespoon of catchup, sprinkles of garlic salt ... toss and back in microwave for 30 seconds. Half a cup of cheese, 30 seconds more, toss lightly ... another 30 seconds.

I've got a meal! Good too and under 10 minutes of cooking time ...

:D Steve

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sounds yummy.
If my basil doesn't get downy mildew I like pesto on penne pasta with romano cheese and sundried tomatoes.
I have tried lemon pasta since the lemon basil is more tolerant of downy mildew, but it was a little to tart for me, I need a better recipe.
I grew spaghetti squash once, but I did not know how to clean it and I threw the stringy part away. I never tried it again.
My mom likes the wide egg noodles it works with most leftovers and it is like making your own hamburger helper.

I do like ravioli, but I don't know how to make it.

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It is amazing how fast a dish can be made using rice noodles! They only need to be soaked in warm water, not boiled, until softened, but still firm, then stir-fried, adding enough water to soften them the rest of the way. Besides the classic Pad Thai, many other types of dishes can be made this way. When I was starting out with them, and following those early recipes, calling for boiling the noodles 5 min. before stir-frying them, they would turn into a sticky mass of starch, but this method is perfect for them.

Glass noodles are another favorite of mine, and one of my favorite recipes is the Chinese dish Ants Climb a Tree.

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Have you tried making a ramen sandwich?
I have had the burger and the grilled cheese ramen. The burger was o.k., but the ramen with the cheese and the soup base was too salty for me. Next time I have to nix the soup base and try some other seasoning, maybe some herbs or furikake. Furikake is salty too, but not as salty as the soup base.
https://www.instructables.com/id/ramen-b ... Cook-buns/

I like fried noodles and it works with fresh saimin or yaki soba or ramen noodles.

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My first thought was that you meant noodles between buns!

Okay, you are using the fried noodles in place of buns. There is no bread to your sandwich. Might be okay.

The seasoning mix that come in the packets that I've tried is just about twice as much as I want, too salty especially! And, that's with adding a big handful of green vegetables to it and, maybe, an egg as well.

For fried noodles, most often we use Asian noodles without the packets. They are made from wheat like the ramen noodles but are thinner.

Steve

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“I am the bartailed godwit of poets.
I fly 7,000 miles from the Aleutians to New Zealand without stopping.
Unknown to ornithologists I pause in China for a bowl of noodles.
I can’t help it. I am full of noodle love.” ~ Jim Harrison, in Whimsy

:D Steve

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:lol:

Now I'm hungry for ramen noodles.... :P

Also, I missed the ramen burger post before. Looks very interesting and I sent the link to DH and DD :wink:

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Yeah, all this noodle talk is making me hungry. I think noodles are a health food aren't they? And so is apple pie with cheese. And all good tasting food.

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It is cold for me so I decided to make me a plate of fried noodles.
I got sun noodles (a fresh version yaki soba). I added some sliced ham, char siu, beansprouts, carrots, onions and broccoli for greens. Stir fried it with some oyster sauce and pepper. I don't need to add salt because of all the salt in the oyster sauce and meats.

Yesterday, my mom and I went out for lunch after her doctor's appointment. We stopped at Shiro's Saimin Haven and had won tun min with vegetables.

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I have some soba noodles. I think I will cook with them this week. I have the 100% buckwheat variety. I guess there are packaged soba noodle imposters that contain wheat ingredients.
I have never heard of yaki soba noodles and I have never had fresh soba noodles. I need to try both. And I also want to look into trying 'won tun min', which I hadn't even heard of until now.
Am getting ready to have some home made apple pie. Mmmmm. No noodles today.

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There is buckwheat soba noodles which are grey-brown and there are somen soba noodles which are thin and white. I use both kinds. Both can be used for soba salad
This recipe uses the buckwheat soba and it is the kind I usually have with seaweed, sesame, and soba tsuru which is a soba noodle base. (fish stock also makes a good soba base)
https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2015 ... ecipe.html
This uses the thin white somen noodles. I don't know the origin but I think it is a modern salad. It is good for parties and can be the whole meal.

https://www.quora.com/Japanese-Food-2/W ... -and-somen
https://kapalama.ksbe.edu/foodservices/r ... salad.html
Yaki soba really is literally fried noodles. The yaki soba I buy is an egg noodle, but can be made with ramen, chow mein, or any kind of wheat noodle including the buckwheat noodle. You might be able to fry spaghetti noodles but the texture is different and might break up more.
https://www.japanesecooking101.com/yakisoba-recipe/
This is what the sun noodles looks like when I buy it.
https://www.theramenrater.com/2013/02/08 ... red-sauce/

Apple pie sounds good too.

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Thank you for all this great information and recipes, imafan26.
I love trying new recipes. Japanese recipes are new for me, so it will be an adventure.

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If you haven't had seaweed, it might be an acquired taste. You could use other toppings.
https://justhungry.com/basics-cold-soba- ... ping-sauce

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Egg noodles are what I put in soups. They're rich and hearty and stand up well against the chicken.

My kid is a carb junky so stir fries and ramen for dinner are always met with smiles! :)

Anybody ever do a bone broth? I use beef marrow bones, pig trotters, leftover chicken bones from a roast chicken, even lamb necks. Takes hours but it yields a rich and soul-comforting broth that melds perfectly with good noodles.

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Yeah, that is usually the way saimin broth was made. I accidentally made a good pork broth when I boiled the ribs before finishing them off in the oven or on the grill.

The marrow bones are the best. Roasting the bones first brings out more flavor but it makes a darker broth. Whole celery, carrots, onions with skins added to the broth; simmered and strained makes it very tasty. Especially the next day.

Saimin broth is usually made with bonito shavings or shrimp shells but chicken broth works too.

Most of the time, I am not planning that far ahead so I use dashi no moto or a portion of the packet in the dried ramen noodle. Ramen noodles are handy to have around since they are quick to fix and really nice on a cold day or night with some garnishes (fishcake, char siu, green onions, sliced ham).

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Yeah, tastes a-MAZING when some of the bones are so de-calcified they crumble. :D

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LOL! I've boiled my bones as much as 24 hours. The taste is indeed amazing and so is the creamy nature of it. I had never really explored ramen when I lived in San Francisco. So I came late to it. The revelation happened about a year ago when I had Japanese ramen in midtown east in NYC. It's called Hide Chan. Apparently this place is fairly authentic, the founder's father opened his first ramen shop fifty years ago in Japan. I wasn't expecting anything but after the first sip I was astounded and made a pig of myself! :) Needless to say I returned the next day and later that summer I brought my wife and afterward returned again with my wife and daughter!

So yeah, I had to learn how to make this stuff! :) Here is the recipe I used as a reference. Let me know what you think!

https://norecipes.com/tonkotsu-ramen-recipe

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The packaged soba noodles that I have in my pantry are tan, or grey-brown would work to describe the color. They are Eden brand, and are 100% buckwheat. I just noticed on the back of the package that these soba noodles are made in Japan and then imported by Eden Foods in Michigan. I am trying to eliminate wheat from my diet so I was glad to discover these noodles. I need to practice cooking them. They turned out mushy the last time I made them. The directions say 'don't overcook'. That's probably what I did. Sometime I'd like to try rolling them up in nori sheets to make soba sushi. When I have some spare time. It doesn't sound too complicated.

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I was thinking, "now you are making it too complicated." Maybe not.

Barbequed pork by another name ... Garlic flavored oil ... I'm sure I over-simplify but I need to start somewhere and it can't be in the fast lane ;).

I probably won't be boiling bones for 24 hours. Maybe, I'm trying to make better use of our slow cooker. Still, 90 minutes on top the stove is enough to ask of me when I have things to do. A broth is made!

My policy is that no bone leaves the house un-boiled. Whatever the bone and however large or small, broth is plenty important since my from-scratch cooking relies on it. A good deal of broth is used in my kitchen for soups, casseroles, and even stir-fries. Ingredients may not vary much :), just the amount of broth and cooking technique.

:) Steve

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These are not "noodles" so maybe wrong place to post... :P

Canned salmon and spiral pasta salad (Almost gone now.... :> )

Image


Started with a bit of EVOO in the bottom of the bowl, cooked organic whole wheat spirals, fresh from my garden torn red russian kale, chopped celery leaves and stalk, frozen organic peas from Denmark via Trader Joes, ... More EVOO, lime juice, minced onions, rice vinegar, not too much -- maybe 3 Tbs. -- Safflower mayonnaise, pink himalayan sea salt....

... Amost reached for canned tuna, but the Wild Alaskan Pink Salmon cans caught my eye. Drained the liquid into kitty's bowl, then de-skinned (VERY easy to scrape and pinch off using rough bamboo chopsticks)... soft bones left in.

...just happened to have four hardboiled quail eggs left in the fridge, so they went in, peeled and quartered.

I like my pasta salad to have hidden surprises of intense flavor in every bite so --
• Marjoram from upstairs bedroom window (since the downstairs one was harvested to give to MIL for Christmas), finely minced
• fresh from the garden parsley leaves, torn into big pieces rather than minced
• a couple of soft dried apricots, diced into 1/4" bits to add sweetness (this could have been dried cranberries or blueberries)
• freshly toasted pine nuts
• a little bit of grainy Dijon mustard
• one fresh from the garden shiitake, diced and briefly roasted in toaster oven with EVOO

Then added torn pieces of maroon Cardinal chard leaves for extra punch of color. Image

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Yeah soba and somen noodles cook really fast they only need 2-3 minutes in boiling water. As soon as you can cut them, they are done. Rinse and cool. If you try to cook them like spaghetti they will be mushy and pasty.

The dried ramen noodles can be boiled longer because they have already been fried before they were packaged. It is one of the reasons that while I have ramen in the house for a quick noodle fix, I keep the soba and somen noodles around too. and if I made them more often, I'd go to Chinatown and get fresh noodles and freeze them. I would rather the other noodles instead.

Most of the people here will boil the ramen noodles in water. The water turns white from the oil from the ramen. That water is thrown away; fresh water and the dashi broth are used in the final cooking of ramen. Some people here like miso ramen, but I find it too salty for me.

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Yep. Very fast and you HAVE to stand by the stove and watch them as they cook because they boil over.

The way I cook soba is to have a large glass of water ready by the stove. When the pot is boiling, add the soba, then when the water starts to rise and foam, hold the glass over the pot and the moment the foam reaches the top of the pot, pour 1/3 of the water in the middle. This will settle the foam back down.

I do this the second time when it starts to boil over, then taste for doneness.

If done, then turn off, remove from heat and drain. -- actually I usually lift out of the pot with tongs into a large bowl of ice water because I use filtered water from the fridge -- THEN drain.

If on tasting/testing, they need to cook a little more, then let the pot boil up one more time and use the last 1/3 glass of the water. Most of the time I don't need the third.

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AppleGate, I had almost the same a few days ago.

We had both beef and salmon as main courses at Christmas. What to do with leftover baked salmon after using it in omelets ..?

If you google Sea Shells Salmon Casserole, I think it will be about the same recipe. A Seven Seas casserole is what occurred to me but with pasta instead of rice :).

Steve

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Having some Wild Chanterelle Ravioli today. It is soooo good. I'm not sharing.

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Oh!

That sounds ..

. good!

Steve

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digitS' wrote:AppleGate, I had almost the same a few days ago.

... Sea Shells Salmon Casserole ...
That dang autocorrect! "AppleGate" ... :roll: ? I wonder why it would even know Applegate! I grew up near the Applegate River in Oregon. Maybe, it is a subconscious thing.

Anyway, I'm back here trying to figure out my "pumpkin & pasta" casserole recipe I tried about a month ago ... I thought that there was a chance I mentioned it here but it was the salmon recipe.

I think someone used Williams Sonoma pumpkin pasta sauce and I modified it. And, I didn't write it down. Shoot! Guess I may have to wing it again ... plenty of people using that commercial sauce for lasagna but that's not what I did. AppleGate, do you have any ideas ..?

;) Steve

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AppleGate, PumpkinGate.... PropaGate.... :lol: (I figured you meant me :wink: )

I get the W-S e-mail promos on one of my accounts, but I've been systematically deleting without reading for quite a while so as not to be tempted to spend money. Had not heard of this sauce, which apparently they don't sell any more.
Williams-Sonoma Pumpkin Parmesan Pasta Sauce
0 Reviews Be the first to Write a Review
No Longer Available
SUMMARY
INGREDIENTS
Pumpkin, cream, butternut squash, onion, parmesan cheese (milk, cheese culture, salt, enzymes, cellulose), butter, water, salt, garlic, roasted chicken glaze (chicken stock, mirepoix stock [carrot stock, celery stock, onion stock], roasted chicken stock, dried chicken stock, modified food starch, water, gelatin, salt, white wine, chicken fat), lemon juice, sugar, sage, chicken stock, pepper.
SHIPPING
Looks very interesting. Mostly picturing thicker, more condensed version of pumpkin soup though?

Before looking up the sauce ingredients, I was imagining something else....

- At first I Misread your description and thought you were going to make home made pasta with puréed pumpkin... Puréed food milled pumpkin, eggs, and semolina flour? But thought there might be too much moisture and was even beginning to wonder if dehydrating or roasting would eliminate some of the extra moisture....
- then I thought you were making something like lasagna with thinly sliced or mandolined ribbons of squash as pasta substitute or in layers with lasagna noodles....

If you can described the finished dish, I might have better ideas?

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Actually, I did't know about the sauce! Completely caught me offguard that there would be lasagna or any other pasta dish with pumpkin in it.

I think I used the same little pasta sea shells as with the salmon but macaroni should have been about the same.

Not writing it down was probably because I was so unsure if it would be any good. It was simple with few ingredients, about that, I'm sure.

Somehow, it wouldn't surprise me if pumpkin was used as a pasta ingredient quite as much as learning it is/was used as a sauce. BTW, DW had no idea that there was pumpkin in my casserole :D.

Steve

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Thank you for the 'Ramen Hacks' link, Steve. I saved that link for exploration later. I have been thinking about experimenting with noodles anyway. I can buy the packages of noodles that come with the instant powdered broth, but it seems like it would be easy to just make something like it from scratch. And it would be an improvement over the instant packaged stuff.

I'm having some 'Wild Chanterelle Mushroom Ravioli' again. And once again, I'm not sharing.

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I wanted to make gun lo mein with gravy but I never went shopping and it is getting close to dinner time so I raided the frig. I found some roast beef from New Year's dinner, char siu. I know I threw some yaki soba in the freezer last week and I know I saw some bean sprouts yesterday (which is why I wanted to make gun lo mein anyway.) So I winged it with a shorter version of the recipe, minus a few ingredients and no won tun.

I cut the roast beef into thin strips, sliced an onion, I could have put some garlic and ginger in but I was lazy and left it out. I would have been better with it. I fried up some bacon and I boiled a package of ramen noodles since I did not have enough yaki soba. To the bacon, I added the roast beef and half moon sliced onions and sauteed until the onions were transluscent.

I put the whole bag of bean sprouts in the pan and realized it was too small, so I tranferred it all to the Dutch oven. This happens to me a lot. I seasoned the noodles with about 2 tsp of hoi sin, 2 tsp of soy sauce, 1 tablespoon of mirin, a tablespoon of sweet chili sauce, a generous sprinkling of pepper, 1 tablespoon of oyster sauce ( I love oyster sauce.)

I added the drained noodles but the color was still kind of bland so I went out into the yard and decided it was a good time to try the komatsuna. I discarded the 2 ft outer leaves and I used the 18-24 inch inner leaves. I know the stems are edible but I did not want to deal with them so I opted just for the green parts. I chopped them up and blanched them in the water I used to boil the noodles and drained them. I added 3 packets of splenda and 1/2 the packet of chicken bullion from the ramen package. I probably could have used less sugar. I was expecting the komatsuna to be bitter since it is part mustard cabbage but the flavor was more like Swiss chard or spinach and a lot less earthy.

I added about a cup of water and then I made a slurry of cornstarch and water and thickened the gravy. I wish I had some shrimp to go with this, but I don't and I probably could have gotten away with one packet of sugar and maybe more heat. But considering I dreamed this up on the fly and I am a person who likes to have a recipe to follow this was pretty good. I did not add salt. The bouillon, hoi sin, oyster sauce, and sweet chili sauce already have salt and I rarely add salt to my food. Other people may want to add some salt.

Besides the garlic and ginger, a sprinkling of green onions and cilantro would probably have kicked up the flavor more.

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And, the bacon and mirin also had salt? I guess the mirin sometimes does not.

I like growing komatsuna really early. Am I missing out not having it in the late garden? It's really a good grower in cool weather but, yeah, I have no interest in using the stems.

Yes, a little sprinkle of pepper flakes ;) ... All those different sauces and you didn't bother with a little garlic to cook with the onions ;). Probably okay. I bet we could find garlic in that bullion packet, for one. It all sounds good! No bean sprouts but we have a few snow peas from the market in the fridge ... :)

Steve

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I actually don't like garlic or chopping them. I don't like the smell. Ginger, I have pickling in sake in the fridge, I just am lazy fishing it out to grate it. I wish I had snow peas. Mine are just 8 inches tall. There was a lot of salt in the ingredients and for most recipes I leave any optional salt out. This still probably had more salt that I should have. I also forgot to mention, shitake mushrooms would have boosted the flavor here too. I ended up saving the char siu for another day, so I had a little bit of salt savings there.
I was pleasantly surprised by the flavor of the komatsuna and it looks like it will cut and come again a few more times. I put the older leaves and the stems back in the garden to decompose. I would give them to my worms, but I think my worms are gone. I need to get more and start the bin again.

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I'm getting all kinds of ideas 8) Looks like noodles for lunch today! :D

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Location: ID/WA! border

I often don't eat something I have put into noodles. Basil is an example. I want it in there, but no way do I want a mouthful of it! Big sprig for my bowl - push it outta the way ;).

Ginger would be in that group, too. Okay, I like ginger bread and cookies :). I'll often substitute ginger for another spice I don't have. Big slice in my noodles - push it outta the way!

Sound like a spoiled first worlder, eh? Okay, shiitake mushrooms, any mushroom, I think is too special to not eat! Dried shiitake usually have great flavor. I slice them really, really thin so that they aren't so difficult to chew! Chew, swallow :).

I've done marinades quite awhile. You can actually toughen fish if you leave it too long in a marinade ... May as well slice it real thin to start with so that the risk is lower ... I'm guessing ... or, will it just toughen quicker? Yeah, I'm afraid it's the latter :? . Better just carry the fish in marinade around for 20 minutes so that I don't forget it ;).

Steve

imafan26
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Posts: 13947
Joined: Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:32 am
Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

I marinade fish which I don't have often for 4 hours but they were o.k. The main thing with fish is not to over cook it.



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