Hallelujah!

Hey kids. I'm back baby, back! I know, I know - you thought you had seen the last of me. You thought, That's it. She gave up on the blog. She got bored, distracted, busy. No more Chinese food a la Shannon.

And then you stopped by the blog today and got yourself a little holiday surprise: me. Here. Blogging. It's a Christmas miracle, almost too good to believe. But hey, it's the holiday season and I wanted to do what I could to spread a little cheer.


I can't take full credit for this post however. I have to give a quick shout out to Erin and Amri for gently (at least in Erin's case) nudging me back in the direction of the blog. Many many thanks ladies for the extra, and highly needed, dose of motivation.


I feel like I can't let my two month absence pass without an explanation of some kind. This is what happened - I got a bad case of extreme stubbornness. This happens to me sometimes, but this year has been worse then most. Earlier this year, I avoided my quilt room for 6 months because I didn't want to work on this one nightmare quilt I had started, but I refused to start another quilt until I had finished that one.

In the blog's case, I had one specific recipe in mind for my next post. It's one of my favorite things and I was so excited about sharing it with all of you. Unfortunately however, the recipe is, well, complicated. And a tad tricky. I made it twice (this was months ago) but felt the recipe still needed a bit of work before it would be blog worthy. I posted instead about my trip to China and shared another recipe I had ready to go. Then I was done, and I needed to figure out the recipe I was now dreading. I couldn't face the thought of going through the whole process again, making a few changes, and then (perish the thought) having to possibly make it again! So rather than do the rational thing, and just make something else, I stalled. And stalled. And stalled some more.

This past week, due to an unexpected case of the flu, I hit upon another recipe I wanted to try: egg drop soup. Growing up, whenever I got the flu, my mom would feed me the following easy to digest items: soft-boiled eggs, white rice, chicken broth. As I was laying in bed feeling miserable on Wednesday night, I got to thinking about how none of the above sounded appetizing. However, if I combined two of them as an egg drop soup, I might have something. The perfect sick girl's food; something with enough flavor to actually be appealing, but still easy enough on the system to not cause alarm. If you, like me, manage to catch a case of the flu this winter, give this baby a try. I'm quite pleased with it. So much so that I'm almost looking forward to my next bout of the flu so I can test its efficacy as healing food.


Egg Drop Soup
Adapted from this recipe.

3 cups low-sodium chicken stock, plus 2 tablespoons
1" chunk grated fresh ginger
1 T. soy sauce
1 T. corn starch
3 eggs, lightly beaten
3 green onions, chopped
7 oz. soft tofu, diced (optional)
Salt and white pepper, to taste

In a small bowl, make a slurry by combining the cornstarch and 2 T. of the chicken stock. Stir until dissolved.

Combine the remaining chicken stock, grated ginger, and soy sauce in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Slowly pour in the cornstarch mixture while stirring the stock. Stir until thickened. Reduce heat to a simmer. Pour in the eggs slowly while stirring the soup in the same direction. The egg will spread and feather. Turn off the heat and add the green onions. Season with salt and pepper and serve immediately.