Yummy Miso

Back in THE DAY when we were all poor and in college (wait, I'm still poor and in college...) Michele used to make us "Yummy Ramen"; which is pretty much ramen with chicken and mushrooms and any other veggies you have in the house. It makes something that is a cheap base into a decent meal, which is always welcome in my book.

Recently I've been on a kick to look for new recipes to try in an attempt to make my recipe repertoire have a little more variety. I picked up a lot of Asian cookbooks including Japanese Women Don't Get Old or Fat which is a rather hilarious book about a Japanese-American's reflection on how she ate in Japan and how she ate in the USA. One of the recipies she mentions is a delicious Japanese breakfast: Miso soup and an egg. That's it! It's really good, trust me, you should try it.

All you need is your local supermarket or local Asian market packaged miso soup mix, an egg, and your prefered cute bowl to serve it in. Boil your water and make your miso. Fry the egg to your preference and slide it right into the soup! Eat it with a spoon or eat it with chopsticks and slurp the soup right from the bowl. That's how they do it and so do I!

It's really good for you and far more filling and satisfying than a bowl of cereal. The miso soup alone is only 25 calories with .5 grams of fat. For those of you doing Weight Watchers...it's all of .5 point and the egg is just 2!

Miso is made from bean paste and the mix usually has things like dried onions, spinach, nori (seaweed), and dried tofu in it. If you want to make it even better add veggies yourself. Onions,

pea pods, baby corn, bamboo shoots, carrots, spinach, broccoli, and celery are all good additions. If you want you can even throw in some of that sushi wrapping seaweed you might have around. Seaweed is practially the ocean's version of spinach. It has vertually no calories but is FULL of nutrients and vitamins.

So give it a try and tell me how you liked it! You don't even have to have it with breakfast, try it as a side with dinner, or a mid-afternoon snack. Either way it's a cheap and easy way to get a little satisfaction without eating empty calories.