A warm hug, in soup form
The ramen recipe below is my penultimate cozy winter weekend meal. It also has a very hilarious backstory.
Four years ago, deep in the early days of the pandemic. We decided to go camping with a few friends. I thoroughly enjoy hiking, have done multiple day treks sleeping overnight in huts, and even spent a semester in college living aboard a 150-foot sailboat. But a big camper, I am not.
Naturally, I was tasked with planning our food for the trip. It was the pandemic. Time was aplenty! And I decided that soup would be perfect for our chilly camping trip. But not just any soup. This ramen.
Into the mountains we trekked, packs full of individual containers of bok choy, soy eggs, and homemade chili oil. When you make the below recipe, I hope you enjoy a little chuckle imagining this foolish camper heating up ramen at the campsite. My friends still give me a hard time for this very oblivious meal decision, but I stand by the fact that those mountains have never seen such delicious food.
I-Can’t-Believe-It’s-Vegetarian Ramen
The 411: Andy Baraghani’s vegetarian ramen is hands down the best veg ramen I have had. The broth is rich and creamy, made of pureed ginger, scallions, tomato paste, and dried shiitake mushrooms. The pièce de résistance is a homemade crispy garlic chili oil, which finishes off the dish alongside ramen noodles and bok choy (plus, I like to add carrots in there).
Zoe’s Tips: You’re already going all-in on this recipe, so take a few extra minutes and make some soy sauce eggs (just plan in advance, since they marinate for at least two hours). You can find dried shiitake mushrooms and kombu at Whole Foods, H Mart, or online.
Taste-to-Time Ratio1: 10:4
Lemon Orzo Bean Soup with Lemon Herb Gremolata
The 411: The night I made
’s lemon orzo soup I turned to Sam and said, “This is what my soul needed”. The soup feels like a warm hug, which I think we all need right now. Lemon orzo soup is nothing new, but this one is zhuzhed up with white beans and topped with a lemony, dilly gremolata. It’s a superbly cozy and filling meal.Zoe’s Tips: In step 2, I saved myself the blender dishes and pulsed an immersion blender a few times to blend up some of the beans. And if you’re making this recipe in advance of eating it, add the orzo to cook just before you eat.
Taste-to-Time Ratio: 8:7
Get excited! For the next edition of In Zoe’s Kitchen, I have two very special and talented guests taking the reins.
The Taste-to-Time Ratio is a ratio that evaluates flavor on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the highest) with time on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the fastest). For example, our family favorite mac and cheese that requires 2 types of cheese, toasted baguette breadcrumbs, approximately all your kitchen pans, and 2 hours of baking is a 10:3 - insanely delicious, but not a quick weeknight meal.
Camping has come a long way apparently. I spent a month hiking in my youth (I think Woodrow Wilson was the President). We had a pre-packaged bacon bar for breakfast, pre-package beef jerky strips for lunch, and freeze-dried beef stroganoff for dinner (we only knew it was beef stroganoff because that was what the package said). We needed you on our trip Zoe.
A camping trip to remember! The first and likely the last time I’ll have bok choy while sleeping in a tent! But we also can’t forget the bag of chili swinging from the back of Sam’s backpack on day 2…