Mimi Update and Quick Udon Noodle Soup

I've been trying to get my act together and make some progress with Mimi (my cropped spring/summer jacket) which I started last September. I keep putting it down or procrastinate on the next knitting step. So far, I've knitting the two front sections and I'm currently knitting the back. It is knitted in one piece, so I'm knitting the sleeves as well as the back which is so time consuming (I'm a slow knitter), so I've set myself a target of knitting five rows of the back each evening, so by the end of this week I should have knitting the back sleeves and half the back. This will just leave me with the bottom section, pockets and collar. I'll hopefully have it ready by this spring or latest summer. :)

Front view
Back view

As it has been so cold lately, I've been eating a lot of hot soup noodles (inspired by Lisa's blog post). This is my favourite and it is really based on one of my Mum's recipe. I don't have a name for it, but I call it Quick Udon Noodle Soup . Here's the recipe:


Ingredients

• A pan of hot water for the stock (you can use the soup bowls to measure how many water you need depending on the number of bowls you need to make and an additional half a bow)
• Another pan of hot water to cook the udon noodles I have used diced pork but you could use chicken, ribs, beef, fish balls or mushrooms and carrots if you are vegetarian.
• Pak Choi
• Garlic
• A small amount of vegetable oil
• A pinch of soup
• Ready made Udon noodles (you can get packets of these in Chinese Super markets or you can use egg or rice noodles if you like)

Method

• Boil the pan of water for the stock and add the pork (chicken, beef, ribs, fish balls or mushrooms and carrots) and salt and leave to simmer.
  
• Mean while cook the udon in the other pan of hot water according to the packet, the one I buy says 3 minutes. Drain.
  
• Meanwhile heat the oil in a small frying pan or sauce pan and fry the garlic till it is golden brown. Then leave to cool.
  
• Add the pak choi to the stock and simmer for about 4-5 minutes, then add the udon noodles.
  
• Drain the garlic from the oil and add to the noodle soup.
  
• Serve

This noodle is not very salty, so you may want to add a bit of soy sauce/fish sauce, but I like it as it is, because if the meat is fresh, this should be enough for it to taste good. The vegetarian version will take about 5 minutes longer as we want to cook the carrot and mushrooms (you can use any mushrooms). I also like to add carrots to the non-vegetarian version, but from the photo, you can see that I didn't have any in the fridge.

Let me know if you have any questions, but happy cooking and knitting/Sewing. :)