BAKING SUGAR COOKIES

I was actually able to get a little bit of verizon wireless here in the campground.

So, my first batch of Mostly Organic soup rocked the house. Actually you get so hungry most anything rocks the house.

To make:
Start 2 cups of water boiling
Add a tablespoon or so of olive oil if you want. This is good to get some more calories out of it, and the fat calories last a while so it will help keep you warm on a cold night. It's true!
Add an appropriate amount of chicken bouillon. I'm not sure there is an organic/fresh/whatever equivalent for "dried cube of chicken essence", and I don't really care. If you don't want to do this, you'd at least need to add salt here.
Add some of the dried veggies. I had this dried veggie soup mix, which they had in the small ultra-hippy section of the organic grocery store, where there are the glass jars of strange things like ground dried dandelion root and what not. I had never been in there before, but I came unharmed and not smelling funny. Lacking the mix, I would have gone for some assortment of spices, like celery seed, garlic, onion, etc. You could mix a bunch up at home and put them in a ziplock type bag (I do this with some salt, too)

Once boiling, add a bunch of pasta. I got smaller stuff that would cook quickly.

Add chili flakes to suit


It turned out AWESOME, and in a practical sense was no more involved than using a packaged mix. With more planning you could carry a mix of dried veggies and flavors and vary the soup quite a bit - they all take up very little space and weight.


I'd like to get some kind of quick cooking (10 minutes) barley and maybe rice to toss in also.

The soup, plus whatever stuff you munch on while the soup is cooking, end up being quite filling

Mesa Verde NP has a store, right next to the campground, with beer. Joy of joys! Soup and beer! Sometimes it's nice to be way out there. Sometimes it's nice to just be a little out there.

One downside - the moon has been nearly full for all my camping. The night skies are not very intense.

Ingredients
About 800 gr. of fatty pork(bara niku) (App. 2 lbs)
1/2 of a daikon
Boiled eggs
2 naganegi (or leeks) Save the green tops
Sliced ginger (4-5 slices)
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup sake
1/4 cup awamori (Okinawan rice vodka) If not availabe, use 1/2 cup of sake.
3 tbs. sugar (more if you like a sweeter taste, to your taste)
In a large pot, place your meat fatty side down and brown on all sides. Sop up any grease from the meat with a paper towel. add about a liter (quart) of water and your ginger slices and the tops of the negi. Bring to a boil and skim off any scum from the top of the boiling water, cover, cook for one to one and a half hours over a low flame. In a separate pot, place large chunks of daikon, bring to a boil and simmer for an hour, I usually add my eggs with the daikon during the last 15 minutes or so for boiled eggs. After the meat has simmered, remove from the flame and let it set for one hour. During this time, drain your daikon and eggs and set aside also. Cut your negi into app. two inch lengths and roast until browned. After an hour has passed, your meat will have cooled down enough to cut into large chunks. Place the chunks in another large pot along with your daikon and peeled boiled eggs and negi. Strain the broth from the boiled pork and add to the pork, and add enough water so that there is about one inch of broth above the meat and daikon. Add the soy sauce, awamori, sake and sugar and bring to the point of boiling. Bring flame to low and cover partially with a lid that is slightly smaller than the pot, because you want your broth to boil down. Simmer for at least one hour until the broth has become a sauce-like consistancy. You'll want to turn the meat and vegetables two or three times while simmering. If you let this cool down once after cooking, you will be able to scoop out any lard that hardens after cooling to cut down on the calories. Any questions, feel free to ask!!