Moving the Kitchen

It's been a long time since I've posted, you say? Where am I, you ask? Well, I haven't fallen out of the blogosphere. Quite to the contrary, I've been blogging up a storm on my other blog The Mommy Spot. But I still love blogging about my recipes and sharing healthy eating suggestions, so I'm simply moving the recipes to The Mommy Spot.

The Mommy Spot is a blog featuring natural cures and home remedies for babies, but it also deals a lot with health - health for babies, families, worn-out mothers who don't know which end to diaper by the end of the day. So putting my recipes there was the "natural" thing to do. I'll still keep Nature's Kitchen here, but newer recipes will be posted on The Mommy Spot.

So stop on over and see what's cooking. The kitchen hasn't closed - it's just moved!

Shiitake Spinach Soup

Every week I make a big pot of soup. It's lunch for the whole workweek, so I tend to get creative. It's fun to just start dumping stuff in the pot to see what comes out. Today I made a soup my husband deemed a winner, so I thought I'd share it with you. I've been really into dried mushrooms and other fungi lately, so this recipe was an excuse to play with dried shiitakes and some leftover raw spinach. By the way, shiitakes are great brain food. I need brain food.

6 dried shiitakes, broken into pieces
1 large onion, diced
1/2 carrot, sliced
about 10 cups water or chicken stock
2 Tbs. soy sauce
Japanese noodles (I used the kind that come four bundles in a package - 1/2 a bundle was plenty here)
1/2 tsp. ginger
2 cups raw spinach leaves
sea salt to taste
fresh ground black pepper

Put everything but the noodles and the spinach leaves in a big pot, bring to a boil, and turn down heat. Simmer until the carrots are soft; turn off heat. Add noodles and spinach; let sit until spinach wilts.