Miso Soup

If you've ever been to a Japanese restaurant (sushi, or maybe teppanyaki where they cook the food in front of you) you are almost always given miso soup at the start. It's simple, quick and really good for you. The traditional version contains seaweed. I'm not big on seaweed, so I left that out.

• miso paste (you can get this at any asian grocer, or maybe even the ethnic section of a regular grocery store). Here's what it looks like:
  

• 1/2 block Tofu, cut into 1/2-inch squares. Tofu is often in the refrigerated part of your produce section with the salad dressings. You can get firm or soft or many variations in between usually, though, the soft kind is used for miso soup.
• 2 spring onions cut as thinly as possible.
• water.

Put a pot of water on to boil and add the miso paste first. I didn't put an amount there because it's really up to you. I used about 4 heaping spoonfuls, kind of a lot. I liked it but you may want to start with 2 and taste it before you add more.

Chop up your tofu in small squares (try getting some of the liquid out of it first by rolling it up in paper towels for a bit) and add. Add scallion/green onion before you serve.

Green Tea Ice Cream

I know it's winter, but I'm trying to get my old recipes up. This one is easy, provided you get your hands on matcha - Japanese green tea. The dark green powdered stuff that comes in a tin like this:

Sometimes you can find it at the grocery store, Whole Foods would have it, if nothing else, try any asian grocer and you'll be in business. It's insanely good for you and has all kinds of good junk in it like your B vitamins, vitamins C & E, antioxidants, beta carotene, and, over time, drinking this stuff can even boost your metabolic rate by 40%. If you know me, you know how much tea I drink. Well, this is the mother of all teas. So when you're eating it in ice cream you can tell yourself it's healthy....sort of.

• 1/3 cup water
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 2-3 tsp powdered green tea (matcha)
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 cup milk or half and half (I used 1%)

Combine the water & sugar in a small pan and cook over low heat. Stir constantly!

After the sugar dissolves, continue stirring and simmer the syrup over low heat for 5 minutes. Then remove from heat.

Add a tablespoonful of the syrup to the powdered green tea in a separate bowl and stir to dissolve. Then dump it all back into the sugar syrup & mix.

Add the cream & milk. Stir to combine.

Allow it to cool in the fridge, then pour into your ice cream maker & run for 15-20 minutes.

*not bad with a dash of vanilla, either