Roast Pork Miso Soup

Our attempts at meal planning this week have not been a raring success.  Don't get me wrong, the meals we have cooked have all been great but they have not necessarily been the meals that we had planned to eat.  Today was no exception to this trend and I am happy to take full responsibility for the forced change of plan.

As it's the weekend and the weather wasn't too bad, I thought it would be nice for us to go out for lunch.  We wandered down to the Midnight Bell ready to tuck into some of their delicious sandwiches.  It wasn't until we got there that we remembered that it was Sunday and therefore only the Sunday menu was on offer.  It was a main meal or a dejected walk home so we sat down and ordered more food than we had bargained for.  I had fish and chips, Z had a chicken and mushroom pie and R had everything that was within his reach.  The food was really nice but it put the kibosh on roast pork with all the trimmings.

Unfortunately, we had already defrosted the joint of pork so we had to cook it, but there was no way that we were going to sit down to a second stomach-bursting meal in one day.  Instead we made a light miso broth with fresh vegetables, udon noodles and some of the roasted pork.  One of these days I'll plan a meal and actually cook it, but until then I'll just keep enjoying the food we cook.

Vegetable Miso Broth with Udon Noodles

When faced with a fridge full of vegetables what do you do? Panic? Make soup? Cook a curry or a stir fry perhaps?  We have ended up with said fridge of vegetables by buying too much for any particular meal.  This isn't our fault for a change, when cooking for two it is frustrating when things like pak choi come wrapped in threes.  Half a pepper is plenty for a lunch time salad.  We didn't need all of the aubergine for the satay kebabs at the weekend.  I can't remember why we have such a small amount of broccoli left over, but you get the idea.

Tonight Z managed to combine two of the above options to make a light and delicious meal. Without a whiff of panic Z stir fried broccoli and ginger with a splash of water, then added the pak choi stems, green beans and peppers. Lastly the shredded pak choi leaves and aubergine were added to the pan with dark and light soy sauces and rice wine vinegar.  In a separate pan she rehydrated udon noodles in a miso broth then added this to the vegetables.  Garnished with spring onions and toasted peanuts this was a great meal.  Although it's tagged vegetarian this is a vegan meal and probably one of the healthiest things that we cook.  Perhaps we'll go back to meat tomorrow.