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This is very similar to what I made yesterday.  I’m madly in love with udon noodles now.  Instead of dark soy sauce, I used sea salt and garlic powder.  I added a little more sesame oil and miso and used two different types of mushrooms: dried shiitake mushrooms and the other, I have no idea.  They have much fatter stems than the enoki mushrooms but taste a little like the oyster mushrooms.  So they add a natural seafood flavor to the noodles.  I have to share the photo here since I love how the noodle bowl looks.

This is a very simple dish.  We’ve been really busy so I haven’t really cooked.  I’m still trying to get back into our regular routine.  Somehow I was craving for some Japanese noodles and nothing beats the easy-and-simple-yet-flavorful udon noodles.

Udon Noodles with Bok Choy and Seaweed
(serves 1)

1 pkg. udon noodles (cooking time according to the package instructions)
5 cups water
8-9 dried shiitake mushrooms
1/3 block extra-firm tofu, cubed
4 cups of baby bok choy, roughly chopped
Some Japanese seaweed (any type you like), torn into pieces
1 1/2 Tbsp. white miso
1 1/2 Tbsp. dark soy sauce
2 tsp. toasted sesame oil

1. Add dried mushrooms to the water in a pot and cook together.  Bring to a boil and then lower the heat to medium.
2. Add tofu cubes and stir in the miso.  Cook for 2 minutes.  One minute before everything is cooked, add bok choy.
3. Turn off heat when the noodles are done.  Add soy sauce, sesame oil and seaweed.  Stir.  Serve right away.

* Feel free to adjust all the ingredients to your own preference

Am I the only person who’s ever thought of taking a cookie cutter to tofu? I doubt it.

However, this project didn’t turn out quite like I’d planned. I made the broiled tofu recipe from Veganomicon, dipped my tofu in braising sauce, placed it on a lightly oiled baking sheet, put it in the oven, and set the timer for 5 minutes. The total broiling time in the recipe is 16 minutes, but knowing my oven as I do, I knew that it would probably be 8 minutes, so I went and did something else and came back with one minute left on the timer to find the pan smoking. I think the pan itself started cooking at the edges.

I don’t have a broiler pan, but just used a baking sheet as the recipe said to do. However, my baking sheets are cheap and have been in that “ruined, but not enough to throw out yet” state for months. Well, tonight was the clincher. I’m getting some proper steel baking sheets before I bake anything else.

Since only the edges of the pan burned, the tofu came out OK. It didn’t have the broiled texture that the recipe describes because it was only in the oven for four minutes, but it came out like lightly baked tofu and was still good.

x-posted

I’ve been busy and haven’t been on the computer much, time to recap the first three days of my thing-a-day.

 Day 1: I spent about 3 hours in the ceramic studio and made 2 mugs, 2 bowls, and a pitcher. Also had a bunch of things that didn’t make it, I’m still getting re-acquainted with the wheel after being away for a month and a half over winter break.

Day 2: I made a pink sculptural peyote hairclip. I also made tofu in my fermented foods class.

Day 3 (today): I made a howlite bracelet using bead crochet.

Hi! My goal for Thing-a-day is to do a non-digital sketch every day.

Not sure why a tofu block, or why it’s dying. It just came to me.