The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

After a few weeks where temperatures hit 107 here in San Diego, this past week something amazing happened. It rained for three days straight. Highs were in the 60s. Pumpkin beer showed up at the grocery store. And I realized that before I had even had the time to stop and notice, it had once again become not only my favorite season of the year (fall), but also my favorite month (October).

Now I realize that I might be the tiniest bit biased in making the previous statement (seeing as my birthday is in a week and all), but even for those of you out there who are not lucky enough to be Libras, what's not to love about fall? And of all of the many things that I love about this glorious season, I think my favorite part has to be the return of hearty comfort foods.

When I think of comfort food, one of the first things that I think of is soup. All week I have been having a serious craving for egg drop soup. If you come to this blog often, then you'll know that I tend towards Italian style dishes. It is extremely rare that I branch out into more exotic cuisines. But with the initiation of student loan repayments looming in less than a month (eek!) and a trip to Hawaii coming up in a few days for my birthday, I decided that grabbing take-out was not an option and so I decided to make some egg drop soup for myself.

I found a highly rated recipe on epicurious and was all set to copy it step by step, only to get home from work and realize that I lacked some of the most vital ingredients (no ginger? REALLY?) Since I am on a strict budget, going to the store for the lacking supplies was not an option, so I had to improvise. They say necessity is the mother of all invention, right?

Readers, in addition to the missing ingredients, I messed up this recipe in almost every way possible (I added too much of one ingredient, too little of another, etc.). I know that anyone who actually knows anything about Chinese cuisine will probably look at this recipe and shake their head at how wrong it is, but you know what? It actually turned out pretty darn tasty for a first attempt.

Although it's not traditional, the recipe I found suggested adding egg noodles to add some texture (this is just about the only part of the recipe that I got right). This package contained 4 "nests" of noodles - I used one nest in my soup:

Mish-Mashed Improvised Egg Drop Soup

5 cups low salt vegetable broth
1 Tbsp soy sauce
2 Tbsp cooking sherry
1 tsp dried allspice
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 "nest" of dried egg noodles (or about 1/4 box)
2 eggs, beaten
1 bunch of green onions, chopped
1 tsp sesame oil

Combine broth, soy sauce, sherry, allspice, and garlic and bring to a boil over medium heat in a large pot. Add noodles and cook for the time listed on the package. Slowly pour beaten eggs into soup while stirring in a circular motion. Cook undisturbed until egg strands start to form (approx. 1 to 2 minutes). Remove from heat and stir in green onions and sesame oil. Serve immediately.