Michael cooks! and, a package :)

This has been an interesting day.  Still dealing with some stabby tummy pains (but no nausea, yay!) and also having my first run with my....new....Diva Cup!  If you don't know what that is, click the link, but not if you're my dad.  You just might not wanna know, Dad.  But click it if you wanna - it's not bad.  So.  Yeah.  It's been interesting.

As you can see from the title of this post, this is all about Michael cooking for me.  And what a sweet and awesome boy he is!  (barf, i know, but it's true!)  Since I was a sickypoo yesterday, he made me dinner!  And what an awesome, brothy, spicy soup he came up with.  Oh yes.  This is a variation on a soup that my brother, Jimmy, and his wife once made for us when we had dinner together.  I have to hand it to them, it was a valiant effort at a vegan meal.  But...we were still hungry afterwards.  So this time, Michael amped it up a touch and we were fulll full fulllllll afterwards.  It didn't hurt that we ate the entire pot ourselves, instead of just one bowl, haha...  This is right up Michael's alley, too, because it is a Japanese inspired soup.

japanese veggie soup with soba noodles

Recipe?  Ok.

Japanese Veggie Soup with Soba Noodles

1 onion, diced

2-3 cloves garlic, minced

4-5 carrots, sliced

1 head of napa cabbage, sliced in big chunks (bok choy would be ideal here, so use that if you can find it...we couldn't)

1 small red sweet pepper, thinly sliced

1 pint oyster mushrooms, sliced in big chunks

1 packet soba noodles (you know how they come in a package with like 3 or 4 bunches?  one of those bunches)

3 veggie bouillon cubes

1 'beef' bouillon cube

8 cups water (you could also just use 8 cups of veggie broth, instead of water and bouillon)

1-2 tsps sesame seeds

1/4 cup (or more, to taste) tamari (he used part regular, part wasabi tamari)

cayenne pepper to taste

sesame oil, for sauteeing

scallions (thinly sliced) and clover sprouts for garnish, optional

Prepare the soba noodles and set aside.  In a big soup pot, saute the carrots, onions, garlic, and sesame seeds in the sesame oil, until onions are soft.  Add mushrooms, saute another minute or so, then add the cabbage (or bok choy) and saute another minute.  Add water, bouillon cubes, tamari, and cayenne, bring to a boil.  Take down to a simmer for  about 20 minutes, until carrots are tender.  Then, assemble!  Put a nice handful of soba noodles in the bottom of the bowl, cover with soup, add garnishes, eat. 

 It's so simple, and so delicious, and so perfect on a sick day when you want something other than a knocked-off chicken noodle soup.  Mm.  MMMMM.  We ate it with chopsticks.  I love anything I get to eat with chopsticks.  The oyster mushrooms are perfect too, but as you may know, I am partial ONLY to oyster mushrooms.  I dislike all others at this point, but I'm trying to get better about it.  They are nice and chewy, but they lack any real 'mushroom' flavor that grosses me out.  And they're thin, unlike portabellas, which almost seem to squeak when you chew on them, they're so meaty and ...blegh.  I kind of like shiitake mushrooms, but only just barely.  Someday, maybe, I'll be a mushroom lover, but for now, it's only oyster mushrooms.  Anyway, this soup was completely and totally rad, and Michael did an awesome job.

slurrrrrp.

Then!  I came home for lunch today, and Michael had lunch ready!

yes, i ate both those burgers.  what?

He put a combo of BBQ sauce and liquid smoke on the burgers from Monday night, and reheated them in the oven with the end of the tots.  The real totally cool part though, is that he made some coleslaw from scratch to go on top!  It was the hit of the meal.  And he had a big mug of my favorite tea (constant comment, yesssss) ready for me.  Is he not the most bestest boy on the planet?  I think he is.  

Last, but DEFINITELY not least, I received a package today from Amy of Vegan Addict.  Michael further showed how great and patient he is by not opening it until I got home from work.  We had arranged a package swap last week when I talked about how I'd never had Tings and wanted to try them.  Well!  I got much more than just Tings!

the most fabulous package

Here is what I got:

2 packages of Tings (2!)

a bag of vegan white chocolate chips (get ready for cookies, yo)

brown rice marshmallow treat (that if you look close, you can see that's just an empty wrapper, because we were so excited that we ate it before i took a photo...)

a bag of chocolates

elderberry witches (gummies!)

a badass foodfight sticker

and a handmade card!  with owls!

There was also a FoodFight button, which I promptly put on my jacket.  Yay!  The Tings are really good.  Not what I expected, but seriously delicious.  They're like Cheetos in that they are the same shape and have that corn crunch, but not really 'cheesy' which I am fine with, because the flavor they do have is really natural and yummy and makes you not feel like crap when you eat them.  Awesome!  The marshmallow treat was sooooo good too.  Michael's not a fan of the witch gummies, but I like them, so more for me, yeah!  I made Michael wait until after dinner to open the chocolates, but they look perfectly fabulous, so I can't wait to try them later!  Thank you thank you thank you, Amy.  This was just what I needed.  I hope you like your package!  And if you haven't ever headed over to Vegan Addict, please do so.  Her blog is super rad!

Now, I need to go make dinner.  So I'll catch ya later.  It's almost the end of the week, yesssss.