Hey Blog Friends –

So, I’m flying solo tonight, and a lot this week. My mom is in Florida (it’s 82 degrees in the Tampa area right now!) and she is having a great time, and great weather 🙂

Tonight I went back to an easy and fun meal – ramen. On the train home from work tonight Tim was telling me about his favorite scallion ginger sauce that he makes and adds to his ramen noodles. It sounded wonderful (I just adore scallions and ginger – who doesn’t!?) so I was really excited to try out this sauce tonight. Here is the recipe (thanks Tim!):

Ginger Scallion Sauce
Makes about 3 cups
2½ cups thinly sliced scallions (greens and whites; from 1 to 2 large bunches)
½ cup finely minced peeled fresh ginger
¼ cup grapeseed or other neutral oil
1½ teaspoons soy sauce, preferably usukuchi (light soy sauce), found in Asian markets
¾ teaspoon sherry vinegar
¾ teaspoon kosher salt, or more to taste

I certainly did not make this recipe verbatim – but I used this recipe to give me an idea of what to go on. I really needed a very small amount, and I just sort of added a dash of this and a splash of that. I diced up a lot of scallions, and a good amount of ginger. I added just a small amount of sesame oil, a splash of soy, and another splash of red wine vinegar (I don’t have sherry vinegar in the house right now). This might not come as a shock to you – but I did not add the kosher salt (even though I might add a really small amount next time)…

This is what my sauce looked like after I mixed it up a bit:

Yum. It might be hard to see the liquid (the scallions really take over!) but it was there – but there wasn’t too much of it. Tim said that the sauce always seems more like a ‘salsa’ of sorts, so I did not feel badly that my ‘sauce’ was sort of chunky 🙂

For my ramen, I added a lot of veg (Jamie Oliver might have been proud!). The veggies tonight are: mushrooms, carrots, radish, red pepper:

Guess what is underneath that layer of veg?? A ‘fried’ egg! Can you see the yolk? You might be able to barely make out the yellow in this grainy, iPhone photo. This (the egg) was another one of Tim’s idea. I ‘fried’ it in olive oil cooking spray (how natural is that stuff, I wonder!?) I brought my small, cast iron skillet to a high heat and added the egg. It cooked in seconds, and then the hot water of the ramen cooked it a little bit more.

The final product:

Ummm, yeah. This was pretty frickin’ good, I must say! Dinner for one is certainly a success tonight.

I spent quite a bit of time leafing through a few of my cookbooks, working on getting inspired once again to get cooking. I am really looking forward to making some bread, crackers, pesto, and other dishes over the coming days. I’m going to start experimenting again in the kitchen. I think it will be fun! I am also getting excited for the upcoming Thomas Keller book signing in my neighborhood in a couple of weeks. I cannot believe I might actually have a chance to meet one of my favorite chefs! Even though I already have a beautiful copy of Bouchon (which I spent an hour with tonight!) I might pick up a copy of Ad Hoc for him to sign. That would be soo cool, in my book! I might have to roast another chicken this weekend…

I’m heading for bed to read a bit, and hit the hay. I have to get up rather early tomorrow morning, get to work, and then get to BSC by 6pm tomorrow night to meet with my trainer. Fun times! See ya’ll tomorrow.