simple is delicious

Daiei had a great sale the other day. Almost all their veggies were 99 yen each! Sweet potatoes, eringi mushrooms, nasubi (eggplant), green beans...99 yen a package (about US$.99). Oh and gobo (burdock root) too. (There was more things on sale, but these were the veggies I bought.)

One of the benefits of having a hot, non-typhoon summer is that the veggies/fruit are plentiful...I'm so thankful that they are passing the lower prices down to the consumer, and not trying to be greedy to make a buck.

Friday was raining all day, the temperature dropped about 10 degrees. The guys from the window shop came to fix the window in the afternoon. Within 30 minutes (or less) they had changed the glass...zip...zap with their power tools...speedy! (Thank you!)

As it got closer to dinner time, I didn't feel much like cooking, but wanted something comforting, so I did something simple.

Did you know I only have one big pot? Everytime I cook something, I have to think of what order things need to be done. For example, if I make pasta, I need to boil the pasta before making the sauce, or I won't have a pot to boil the pasta in if I made the sauce first. Maybe a little troublesome, but I don't really have all that much space for a lot of pots or pans.

Anyway, I steamed the green beans first. Then I whittled some gobo, sliced a nasubi, cut up eringi and chopped some sweet potato. Threw everything except the green beans into the pot with some water, brought it to a boil and when everything was soft, I added several teaspoons of miso (soy bean paste).

The miso that I use has dashi (stock) blended in with it. Saves a step of having to make your own dashi before making miso soup.

Since I still had some green onion on the veranda, I cut some up to garnish.

This soup really hit the spot!

I also made a salad with the green beans and some leftover shredded carrots, heated up some leftover rice and topped it with a big umeboshi (pickled plum).

Simple is delicious.

UPDATE: I've sent this soup to join Deb's Souper Sundays. Check out her blog on Sunday for the full round-up.