No recipe, just blabber.

Ahh Windchimes. I haven't heard you in so long. It's slightly breezy out for the first time in a long while. Seriously! Triple digits all week, and the air doesn't move. Then I heard the chime just outside my window and it reminded me that there's less than a month til fall. I want autumn to be here so bad. Pirate Party, HALLOWEEN, Costumes, campy horror, wind and leaves! The Pecans in my backyard are almost ready to drop. I'll have to get to them before Bernie does. She eats them faster than they can fall. I don't blame her.

The green husks will dry up and open, and the pecan will fall to the ground. From there you set them out to dry in the sun a few days and roast or eat raw.

And this is Bernie. I always end up not fitting her tall ears in the photos!

I also had the urge to sketch out a design for a pirate ship cake... I really want to post a cake here, and Pirate Party is coming up mid-September. So anywho, we'll just see.

Oh and I made this for breakfast.

It's Garlic and butter crostini with hollandaise and green onion. It was rich and garlicky. The cold cantaloupe complimented it really well. I failed to plate the hollandaise immediately and therefore it looks overworked. It still tasted great though despite the texture being a bit off. I'm not here to be cocky folks. Not that anyone cares to read this! I kid. I read it.
Gina

Ramen? More like nommin'.

It's been a long time since I last posted. I cleaned up and rearranged some things around here feel free to click around. My old blog archive is gone except for a couple of posts I left. Oh, and this happened...

 1951 O'Keefe & Merritt stove. You'll be seeing  some cool things coming out of here soon. But in other news, I have been sick with a summer cold so my throat is feeling downright nasty. Lets have some ramen eh? No not packaged ramen, silly. The good stuff. 

Now I wish I had some kind of magic recipe to give you all typed up right here but it's kind of just something I know. I read about ramen all the time. If you can make a really good stock broth then you are pretty good to go. But to give you a rundown on how I happened to do it today...

In a stockpot bring to a boil:

1 Whole chicken, quartered.

3 quarts of water

1 medium onion sliced thinly about 1/8".

4 cloves of garlic, crushed then minced.

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1 pork bone

1 tsp salt

1/2 C Soy Sauce

I let this pot simmer on medium for 4 hours but the best stock takes about a day to really come together.

Once you are ready to assemble the ramen you need to make sure you prepared the other ingredients beforehand. For instance, my ramen has a boiled egg, bok choy, carrots, mushrooms, and edamame. I prepared them all quickly on the stovetop about 10 minutes before we ate and set them aside. Once your noodles and accompaniments are in the bowls and you pour hot broth over them everything will warm just fine. Still, my oven stays warm because of the pilots in it so I just keep the warm ingredients in there til needed. Now.. you do need noodles.

Now it depends on who you ask but I prefer Kumamoto style ramen the best. It's just my favorite. I have a preference for land animals in my broths and it is one of the easier types of ramen for the average American like myself to make. Anyhow! Back to noodles. The type of noodle used  in Kumamoto type ramen is egg based and is easily made at home with a pasta cutter. We'll save that for another time. I am feeling under the weather so I grabbed a freshpack of fine egg and flour pasta at the grocery store. The plus side to using fresh noodles is that when they are as small in diameter as these are it will only take 60 seconds to cook once dropped in boiling water.

Once you have your hot cooked noodles in a bowl with broth you can arrange your other ingredients in a manner which pleases you.

A bowl of ramen in itself is so simple and yet so complex. The sweet onion cooked for hours in the broth paired with the fresh spring onion garnishing the dish adds a whole new layer of flavor. It's fun to explore what's in the fridge and what you can make out of it.