Wednesday, December 15, 2010

prayers answered and a yummy winter soup

it may be odd that i'm putting these two things in the same blog post. but here goes...

after a few years (?) of fighting, chris's mom was finally awarded disability insurance today. this is huge, folks! she really is incapable of sustaining a job. and she's been living off of her ever-dwindling savings, which are not too far from drying up. we're not sure of the details or how much her new income will be, but we're just pleased that she'll finally have an income! prayers of praise! and big ups to my sister-in-law for heading down to MS to help with the hearings!

and, i made an amazing kimchi soup tonight, if i do say so myself. i love kimchi and i love kimchi soup. but i hadn't ventured to make it yet because i thought it would be hard to do. boy, was i wrong. here's what i did:

kimchi soup

heat a soup pan on medium heat and coat the bottom lightly with olive oil. add 1/2 onion sliced and saute until fragrant. add 4 chopped garlic cloves and a jar of kimchi (without it's liquid) (about 1 1/2 - 2 cups).

cook until fragrant (about 5 minutes). add whatever liquid came in the kimchi jar (about 1/2 cup), 2 cups of water, 1/2 tsp ground ginger, 1 TBS cooking wine (i use cooking sherry), 2 tsp chili paste (i used thai chili paste), and 2 tsp soy sauce. stir everything together and turn up heat to boil. (oh, i also added a little bit of vegetable broth because i had it in the fridge and felt like it needed a little more liquid. but the broth is not necessary.)

once boiling, add more spice as you see fit. i added a few pinches of red pepper flakes for a bit more zing. add a package of diced tofu (i like to squish out the water first by putting paper towels around it and putting something mildly heavy on it.) reduce heat to a simmer and cook about 20 minutes. once done cooking, add 2 chopped green onions and 1 TBS butter.

good served with rice.

**none of these things are exact. i adapted this recipe from here. and i pretty much used what i had in my cupboard. so if you have something different, i'm sure substitutions would work for you too.

1 comment:

St. Elizabeth of Cayce said...

I've never had the nerve to try kimchi in any form. Someday I'll have to.

Very glad to read that "the system" has recognized that we all (i.e., society) need to be helping to care for Tricia. I'm glad she'll be getting the help she needs -- kudos to all the Reid family that worked hard to get her situated and cared for.