Ramen Noodle Recipe with Vegetable: 1

Even I try to eat so called 'healthy', it's not like I eat salmon, broccoli and brown rice all the time. I sometimes even eat instant ramen noodle for convenience! But every time I do this crime, I add or avoid little to the package and suddenly it will make meal not so bad. Just find any kind of hard leafy vegetable in the fridge and cook and add. Also, one very bad thing about instant ramen is the soup base comes with it. It contains amazingly high amount of sodium and long list of chemicals. For instance, the one package of Sapporo Ichiban Miso ramen shows sodium of 663mg per 1/3 block of noodles with soup. It looks like one package contains that much, but actually three times more. That means, if you drink all the soup base, you will consume 1,989 mg of sodium by eating 1 pack. The 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend limiting sodium to less than 2,300 mg a day — or 1,500 mg if you're age 51 or older, or if you are black, or if you have high blood pressure, diabetes or chronic kidney disease. I know the soup is what ramen makes good, but when I cook, I don't eat soup.
  
Miso Ramen noodle with Vegetables
( Serving: 1, Cooking time: 10 min.)

Ingredients

1. Instant Miso Ramen noodle: 1
   
2. Kale: 2
3. Broccoli crown
4. Organic carrots: 2 sliced
5. Shiitake Mushroom: 1 sliced
6. Organic green onion: 1 chopped
7. Sesami Oil (or Olive Oil): 1/2 table spoon

Direction:

1. Cut all vegetables and saute (except for green onion) with sesami / olive oil for 2 min with medium heat till some part of the surface of some vegetable (carrots) gets light brown. Cover and cook for additional 3+ min till vegetable is cooked. Don't cook to long. Cook vegetable as much as you desire if you like. Don't add salt when cooked. For less fat version, steam vegetable instead of sauteing.
2. Cook Ramen noodle as directed on package.
3. Add cooked vegetables and chopped green onion on top of noodles.

Carrot Cake after making Carrot Juice

After making carrot juice, I made carrot muffin using grated carrot bits left over from juicer. Even all the juice was sucked out from carrots, it was surprisingly very good. Since there are lots of left over carrot bits from making 2 litters of juice out of 3 kg of carrots. Here is the carrot cake I made using cast iron skillet. It's crispy at top and soft inside.

The Best Carrot Juice ever for me

I am not really crazy about carrot juice. The juice I have had from store is either too strong and bitter, or too sweet yet  too much "carrot" taste without any other taste. (of course it's carrot taste because it's carrot juice...) But I changed my mind after I had this one. I use organic carrots because then I don't need to peel the skin. Carrots have a lot of nutrition near skin. But at the same time, non-organic carrots have pesticide or other chemicals on the surface and it could make juice taste bitter. That's why I use organic carrots. Just wash well and cut the top and put in the juicer.

Carrot Juice
( Makes 2 litters)

Ingredients:

1. Organic Carrots: 3 kg (6 lb 8 oz)
   
2. Organic Strawberry: 7 big pieces or 200g
3. Organic Fuji Apple: 1

Direction:

1. Put everything in the juicer.
2. Save carrot bits from juicer for carrot cake or muffin!!

Chicken Drumsticks with Shiitake Mushroom and Tomato Red Wine Sauce

Another my favorite chicken drumstick recipe. It's fantastic dish for economically challenging time. It's fantastic dish for not so economically challenging time too. Again, easy. But this time I took time to cook chicken (1 hr) to make very tender. Make sure you take out skin before you cook (for health benefit = less fat). It will still taste really good without skin flavor.

Chicken Drumsticks w/ Shiitake Mushroom and Tomato Red Wine Sauce
(Serving: 3~   / Prep time: 5 min / Cooking time: 1 hr 45min)

 

Ingredients:

1. Chicken Drumsticks skinned (1 kg)
   
2. Onion: 1 medium-large (200 g) sliced
3. Organic ripe Tomato on the vine: 4 large (400 g) cut in 1/8
4. Shiitake Mushroom: 120g, sliced
5. Chicken Broth (low sodium): 1 cup
6. Red Wine: 1 cup
7. Bay leaves: 3 leaves
8. Sea salt: 1/2 teaspoon
9. Olive oil: 1 tablespoon
10. Butter: 1 tablespoon
11. (option) Marinara sauce: 2 table spoons
12. (option) Worcestershire sauce: 1/2 tea spoon

Direction:

1. In the pan (I use cast iron skillet to cook), melt butter and saute onion for 5 min and set aside.
2. In the same pan, pour olive oil and saute seasoned (sea salt) chicken for 5 min flip the drumsticks and cook additional 3 min till surface is lightly brown.
3. Add cooked onion, shiitake mushroom and tomato and saute for 2 min until mushroom is cooked.
4. Add red wine, chicken broth, bay leaves. Cover (mostly, but not completely) and cook with low heat for 1 hour.
5. Uncover and (add marinara sauce and worcestershire sauce for more taste if you need) cook with medium low heat till sauce gets thick about 30 min. Stair sauce occasionally.

* Sauce tastes better when you use fresh organic ripe tomato on the vine and it will make difference in taste where and when you get tomato. If the tomato itself is tasty, then you don't need to add marinara sauce.

* Originally this recipe was cooking with white wine. But I start using red wine and I like it. So I changed the recipe a little bit for red wine.You can substitute red wine with white wine.