Tofu and Mushroom Stir-Fry with Peanut Butter Sauce

Chinese style stir-fry is quick, easy and perfect for weekday dinners. I often season stir- fry dishes with soy sauce and oyster sauce. Sometimes though, I get the hankering for stir-fry flavors. I needed a stir-fry make over.

I replaced soy sauce with miso paste and added some peanut butter. These two ingredients added depth to the sauce. I also dropped a bit of and hot chili paste to give it a good kick. My carnivorous husband said he didn't miss the meat. Based on that, I guess this recipe seemed like a success.

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Egg Drop Corn Soup

When I was a kid, egg drop corn soup was one of my favorite soups.  I asked my mom to cook it very frequently, and she never said no, even when she was very busy.  Now I know why.  This soup is incredibly easy to make.  With few ingredients,  you'll have a bowl of delicious soup within 10 minutes.  Try different kinds of toppings such as scallions, black pepper, crispy noodles, or a drop of sesame oil.

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Chinese Style Soup with Bok Choy, Shiitake and Dried Bean Curds

I often ask my husband for help when I'm deciding on what to cook for dinner.  In fact, deciding on the menu is the toughest part of the dinner preparation process.  He is helpful, well, 30% of the time.  Trust me.  It's better than nothing.  For him, eating was more of a necessity as opposed to an enjoyment.  He eats because he has to, not because he wants to.  He never really had much interest in food before, but I've been trying to open his eyes to the pleasures of food.  Now he spends a lot of time in the kitchen as my designated sous chef, and one day I showed him how to cook his favorite soup and revealed the secret ingredient; vinegar.  Since then, he repeatedly asked for the vinegary soup, and I made it so many times.  Last night, his request was again the vinegary soup.  I normally make the soup with collard greens with apple cider vinegar (he likes it so much that he now even cares what type of vinegar I use!), almost like soupy southern style collared greens.  But it's boring cooking the same thing all the time. It was the time for a change. So I made this Chinese style vinegar soup using dried mushrooms and dried bean cards.

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