8 ounces (1 package) fresh Udon noodles
2 cups Chinese ginger soy broth (see Dinner Entry)
8 baby corn
1 stalk and leaves of celery, sliced
4 ounces pork tenderloin, thinly sliced
8 prawns, shelled and deveined
3 scallions, chopped

1. Bring broth to a boil in a sauce pan. Add baby corn and celery and boil for 1 minute.
2. Stir in pork and prawns and cook until pork is no longer pink, and prawns have turned pink.
3. Remove from heat and stir in the noodles, breaking up with a fork. Allow to cook for several minutes in hot broth.
4. Ladle into bowls and garnish with chopped scallions to serve.

Makes 4 servings

I don't know if it's really frustrating as a reader to see the 1 dish dinners or not, but I always feel like it's a cop out when it actually happens. The same goes for when I eat away from my kitchen, which tends to be happening more frequently lately. Part of it is because I've become more lenient and part of it is because it's summer and opportunities/reasons to want to go out to end are more plentiful. Perhaps it's not particularly important at all and I'm just being too hard on myself. Either way I find it disappointing that this month is nearly completely filled with 2 dish dinners at best, which is diminishing the grand total of recipes for the end of the year. Perhaps this is a blessing in disguise when it comes to publishing costs. We shall see!

Of course, the reason I mention this is because tonight was another 1 dish dinner. I've been asked several times whether or not what I had for dinner was really it, if it was enough to fill me up for the rest of the night and so on and so forth. My answers were always something akin to, "Surprisingly, yes," or "It was actually more than enough." Tonight's dinner, not so much. What it did do, is hit the spot. From what I gather, the spot is somewhere in the middle of the stomach where you've eaten enough to be satisfied, but could still potentially at least double the quantity of food you just ate until you actually felt stuffed.

We liked the Shanghai Noodles yesterday so much that we went back and bought some Udon noodles to experiment with. There was also a clearance on Campbell’s Chinese ginger soy broth, so I bought some of that, too. I combined the two and made a Ginger Soy Udon Soup. I have no idea why the Asian line of the broths have been discontinued (I bought the spicy Thai lemongrass one as well, but haven't tried it yet) because this one is very good. The flavor is basically that of ginger and 5 spice infused miso broth, so you could make that to duplicate this recipe when the commercial variety is unavailable. I liked the Shanghai noodle preparation better, but mostly because there was no real broth involved and it was much easier to eat with chopsticks. I could not find a proper utensil to stop dropping noodles in my bowl and getting broth everywhere.