Black Bean Salsa Soup
27 April 2025 02:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Here you make the salsa part yourself, rather than using a store-bought jar.
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Purchased today, at the extravagant discount price of $3.50(AUD) for one pot of lumlum Thai Green Curry flavour pot noodles. These are labelled as vegan, non fried noodles, no preservatives, gluten free, no MSG. Product of Thailand.
caveat: It's been a while since I've had two minute noodles, and I'm not entirely sure if I've previously had pot noodles, so I don't have a good reference to compare these to. Plus, while the instructions say 'leave for five minutes' I left for significantly longer, because I forgot about them. Which is to say that my upcoming complaint about the texture of the noodles may be entirely unwarranted.
So: prep - getting in to the packaging was a little frustrating, as if there was a perforated tear line in the sealing plastic I didn't find it. Similarly opening the flavour sachet. Not recommended for people with hand issues.
Flavour: there was a generous amount of flavouring paste, it smelled great, and it was sufficient for the amount of water added. I ended up drinking it all before eating the noodles, and as a soup it was wonderful. Definitely the bit that I would want again. Importantly for me, this was really good flavour, not passable flavour with lots of salt to make it feel like more flavour. 5 star flavour.
Noodles: These were uncanny valley levels of wrong. Slightly flat rather than round noodles, the mouth feel was slightly gritty (this is commonly my experience with rice based products). Even if they weren't overcooked, these two complaints would still be there. Impossible to scoop out with the fork - after drinking the soup, I just supped them from the pot. Grudgingly, I'm giving the noodles 2 stars, because of the user error involved.
Overall: worth it as a one off. I really needed something as a pick me up, and buying a treat at this price was worth it. I would not be buying it as a regular item, partly because I don't really like 'cup' noodles (I do like two minute noodles in the pressed blocks. Yes, I realise they aren't functionally different). If you like cup noodles and you find them at a reasonable price, then I think I recommend them. 3.5 / 5 stars.
ingredients: brown rice noodles (74%) (organic brown rice flour, water), Green curry flavour paste (26%)(coconut milk, cane sugar, cumin, chilli, salt, lemongrass, garlic, shallot, galangal, tumeric, soybean, coriander, lime peel, citric acid).
In the spirit of North American holidays: Brian Lagerstrom just posted three recipes for alternatives to pumpkin pie, that retain the spicy pumpkin flavour but are easier (he says) to make. I'm guessing that's compared to making all aspects of a pumpkin pie from scratch.
Apparently this is a “thing” on some social media at present - who knows why as it’s pretty basic and something I’ve made before across the years. But anyway, here’s my version of the recipe.
Prep Time: 15 mins | Servings: 6-8
( Read more... )Makes 4 servings.
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I have this low-effort way of making oatmeal, developed as I got fed up with burning it in saucepans on the stove, or having to stand over it stirring, and then all the tedious clean-up of the pot.
In a medium-to-large microwave-safe bowl (mine's about 8" across):
1/2 cup rolled oats (ordinary rolled oats/oatmeal - if you use steel cut oats you need to cook it almost twice as long or remember to soak it overnight first)
3 heaped tsps skim milk powder
1/3 tsp salt
1.5 cups cold water
Stir well until the milk powder is dissolved. (Stir it throughout this process with a spatula as that's what you'll eventually use to dish it up and it saves washing a spoon.) Then microwave for 3 min (my microwave is cheap and not very powerful so I always use it on full). Wander off and do something else. It's good if you forget the oatmeal for at least 30 min. It's now half cooked and soaked. Stir well, then microwave again for 2 min. (Longer cooking periods make it boil and splatter all over your microwave, and you don't want that!) Probably forget it again. When you remember it again, if it's cooled, can do another 2 min blast. If it's still hot, just 1 min at a time between stirrings. Repeat this a few times until it's as cooked as you like it. Use the spatula to get it into a serving bowl if you're feeling posh, or if not, eat it from the microwave bowl. Serve it how you like it - I like mine with cream and muscovado sugar - this also doubles as a dessert. :) Put the microwave bowl and spatula in the sink and fill with water. Wander off and do something else. They'll just need a quick rinse when you remember later.
This pumpkin bread from Snixy Kitchen bakes up into a lovely brown loaf with warm spices and a tender, moist crumb.
I got serious and bought a metal 9 x 5 inch loaf pan for this one, since glass conducts heat differently and can dry out the crust of a quick bread, which did seem to be the case for the last pumpkin bread I made. I used Libby's canned pumpkin again and followed the recipe exactly—except I used apple cider in place of the milk component, and I again left out the cinnamon for reasons—and I was very happy with the results. In the metal pan, the outside of the loaf turned a deep brown (next time I might give it an aluminum foil tent near the end of the cooking time), but didn't get tough. I cooked it 65 minutes, let it cool on a rack for 20 minutes, and then removed it from the pan to cool completely.
Compared to the Pumpkin Bread with Maple Glaze from The Bojon Gourmet that I brought you last month (and baked in a glass pan, which might have contributed to some of the textural differences):
Both are easy to make, bake up well, store nicely in the fridge (and freezer!), are undetectably gluten free, and have good flavor and texture, but I think the Snixy might be my new favorite due to its almost squishy softness and gingerbread vibes. The Snixy recipe doesn't have an accompanying glaze, so I made one with powdered sugar, orange juice, and a splash of vanilla. Next time I might do something more like Bojon's maple glaze (with maybe less maple syrup), which, since it has (vegan) butter in it, is thicker, sets better, and has a more appealing look when poured over the loaf.
Anyway, I'm thrilled that after years of going without pumpkin bread I now have two really great recipes for it. AMAAPB (Ask Me Anything About Pumpkin Bread).
makes 12–15 balls, 3–5 servings
prep 30 - cook 40
2 large eggs
1 lb ground turkey
1/2 c grated parmesan
1/2 c minced fresh parsley
1 c GF rolled oats
1 Tbs olive oil
1 Tbs tamari
2 Tbs red wine vinegar
1.5 Tbs ground basil
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground mustard