Soup and Sushi

A light and quick meal that includes homemade soup and store-bought sushi.

The Theme

“Light” is the inspiration for this meal. Since my husband bought a pellet grill, household meat consumption has gone up. After a few suppers that were heavy on meat, I wanted something vegetarian. For those who like fish and seafood, you can easily adapt this meal to a pescatarian diet.

The Vegetable–Edamame

Edamame is technically a legume but we often serve it as a vegetable. Buy frozen, shelled edamame and cook it according to package directions. Drain and toss with a little salt, if desired, then serve. For this meal, you could also serve lightly steamed broccoli or green beans as well.

Notes & Tweaks

• If you feel the broccoli or beans need a little more flavour, try a few shakes of low-sodium soy sauce.
• When steaming broccoli or green beans, cook them only until the colour brightens and they still have some crunch. You should be able to pierce them with a fork but still get some resistance. Overcooking can lead to a plate of mushy green stuff.

The Main–Hot & Sour Soup

Homemade hot & sour soup is quick, easy, and very customizable. I’ve been using this recipe from Chatelaine for years which you can pull together in less than 20 minutes.

Notes & Tweaks

• If you don’t have a small can of chicken broth, as suggested in the recipe, not to worry. You can mix your own using powdered stock mix. Use vegetable broth mix to keep this meal vegetarian. Mixing your own means you can control the amount of salt in the recipe, since broth tends to be salty.
• My son loves ginger, so I add a ton. Start with the suggested amount and increase as needed.
• You can use just about any variety of dried mushroom, although we use porcini most often.
• As with the sushi, you can go pescatarian here and use shrimp instead of tofu. Again, we do the vegetarian version, but my husband has added shrimp to his soup and quite enjoyed it.

The Side–Sushi

Store-bought sushi isn’t cheap, but it’s also more filling than most people realize, so a little goes a long way. We aim for about 4-5 pieces per person, although you may need less when you combine it with this whole meal. We tend to choose vegetable sushi, but if you lean pescatarian, buy sushi with salmon or seafood.

Sushi image 100630763 / Sushi © Irina Iarovaia | Dreamstime.com