#5 Soup of Bundles

Yum yum. This is the first soup in this food blogging adventure. I love a good hearty soup. And just so you, the reader, know every fifth recipe I blog about will be a soup. So if you are into soups check out #5, #10, #15, #20 and so forth as they come. This dish should really be called "Soup of Unbundles" because I was lazy and didn't tie those bundles up. So much for that, but I have things to do, ok? Also, I didn't have the strings.

Easiness: 4/5 (if you leave them unbundled)

Tastiness: 4/5

Verdict: I like soups and how easy this one is. If you have this as a stand alone dish, you can easily add noodles to give it more substance. I didn't have the dried gourd strings so I couldn't get a taste of every ingredient in each bite. This would have been nice but tying up all the bundles with gourd strings would probably put the easiness rating down to a 2.  To tie or not to tie that's up to you. I didn't tie.  

Recipe Link

Ingredients:
2 small handfuls of baby carrots
4 oz pickled cabbage
4 oz bamboo shoots
4 shitake mushrooms
4 oz of veggie ham
dried gourd string (if you decide to tie)
3 lily bulbs

5 cups water
1 to 1.5 tspn vegetable seasoning
a dash of salt, pepper, and sugar

It seems you can get bamboo is zillion different ways: dried, jarred, canned, frozen,  packaged cold, fresh. Today I choose package cold.  

The pickled cabbage I got is on the spicy side which I think is tasty. It's the same one I used for dish #3: Stuffed Tofu also went into this dish. The veggie ham, baby carrots, and shitake were also from the same grocery trip.

Cut the carrots, shitake, bamboo strips, cabbage, and veggie meat into similar sized 1-1.5 inch strips. And (if you wish) tea each of the five items together into bundles with gourd strings. Alternatively, you can be lazy like me and dump it straight into the pot.

I also added in fresh lily bulbs. I had a mix up in the grocery store and bought lily "bulbs" instead of "buds". The buds are actually the flower. In any case, I'm not about to let good bulbs go to waste, so it goes into the pot too. The bulb is made up of petal like sections, similar to a artichoke. Below is a picture of the bulb broken up into pieces.

Throw all the ingredients into the pot. Add the water and the vegetable seasoning. I experimented that 5 cups to 1 to 1.5 teaspoons of vegetable seasoning was about the right proportion for the amount of flavor for the soup base. To find out your own preference slowly add the vegetable seasoning. If you add too much you can add more water, but don't do this too much or you get more broth than you really want. Add dash of salt, pepper, and sugar. 

Boil for about 30 minutes. Serve.