It's Miso Month!

Let's use miso paste to make delicious recipes all month long!

Hi!

Welcome to April, the month when time starts moving faster again after the slow crawl of late winter. I’m trying to stay focused on spring without letting summer butt its way into my thoughts. I’m already feeling that slight flutter of dread that comes with the realization that school will be out in 2 1/2 months.

Let’s not focus our thoughts there quite yet. Let’s distract ourselves with some good food. Let’s get excited for Miso Month!

Miso month isn’t actually a “real” thing. It’s just something I came up with after staring at a container of yellow miso in the back of my fridge for weeks. I was determined to use up that miso, but I didn’t know exactly how.

I started playing around in the kitchen and came up with six truly delicious recipes that use miso paste to add salty, slightly sweet and nutty, umami flavor to your meals. From salad dressing to pasta to salmon and chicken, I know you’re going to love these miso recipes!

This week, we’re starting with miso butter salmon.

This super-flavorful miso butter is made from white or yellow miso paste, butter, stone ground mustard and lemon. It adds incredible savory flavor to salmon for an easy, fast weeknight meal.

The salmon is baked then quickly broiled which turns the miso butter into a browned and bubbling topping with crispy, salty edges. So good! You can find the recipe here.

What is Miso?

Miso is a fermented soybean paste that's made by inoculating soy beans with a type of mold called koji. The enzymes in koji break down the soybeans into a paste. Miso is often described as having funky "umami" flavor mixed with saltiness and a slightly sweet, nutty flavor.

Most often in grocery stores you will see white or yellow miso. These are the two mildest types of miso and can be used interchangeably. You might also see red miso, which has a stronger, saltier flavor and should only be used in recipes when specifically called for.

Two miso tips:

Miso keeps just about forever. You can ignore it in your fridge for a really long time without worrying that it will go bad.

Less is more. Miso has a strong flavor and is quite salty, so always error on the side of restraint.

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Dinner Last Week

We spent most of last week visiting family for spring break, so I don’t have a regular week of meals to report. I do have a few recommendations for treats and meals we enjoyed.

Hop Water: I’ve chosen hop water as my official summer beverage when I want the refreshing flavor of beer without the alcohol. Hop water tastes like sparkling water with the citrusy, bitter flavor of hops. I’m not a mocktail person because I don’t like sweet drinks, so hop water is the perfect non-alcoholic sipper for me on hot days. I like Sierra Nevada Hop Splash, which you can find at Whole Foods and some Target stores.

Bitchin’ Chipotle Sauce: I don’t want to admit how many chips I dipped into this creamy, spicy sauce last week. I also poured it over fajitas and grilled chicken and spread it on a burger. I was addicted. You can find Bitchin’ sauces in many grocery stores, including Target and Costco.

Barefoot Contessa scalloped potatoes: My sister-n-law has been making this recipe for years and it’s always a crowd pleaser. This year we had it with ham for Easter. Some recipes for scalloped potatoes are overly complicated, but not this one. It’s easy and delicious. You don’t have to add fennel and you can use any type of cheese you have in your refrigerator.

Peruvian Minestrone Soup: Another win for my sister-n-law! This soup was perfect on a blustery day when the Arizona sun wasn’t shining quite so bright. I LOVE the vibrant green broth made from blended basil and spinach. The soup is made from beef broth and flank steak, but I think it would be just as good vegetarian. One tip - cook the pasta separately and let everyone add as much as they want to their bowl. You can also skip the pasta completely for a lighter meal.

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Reading & Cookbooks

This is a light and fun cookbook for anyone who feels intimidated by cooking. The Cook’s Book by Bri Mckoy is meant to be cooked through chronologically because each recipe teaches a specific skill and the skills build on one another as you go. Cooking your way through this cookbook is like taking a beginner’s course on how to be a better cook.

There’s lots of genuinely helpful information that will make you feel more confident in the kitchen. You’ll also find a selection of delicious-sounding recipes for simple meals, salads and sauces, wine pairings and cocktails.

Reading Update

After really enjoying the first 100 pages of The Bee Sting, I ended up ditching the book a few chapters later. There’s a good and entertaining story to be found in its pages, but when the author stopped using punctuation entirely so that the book read like one, long run-on sentence, I was out.

Many people (especially “serious book people”) love this book, but it’s not for me. I found the changing perspectives and the writing style to be exhausting and a little annoying. Has anyone else read it? I’d love to hear what you think.

The great thing about books is that there’s something out there for everyone. As one podcast I listen to often says, “Reader, know thyself.” I’m moving on to Mercury by Amy Jo Burns, which I’m hoping will be a better fit for me.

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That’s it for this week! What do you have planned the weekend? We’re still working on painting a few walls in our house (we painted an entire wall blue then decided we actually want it to be white) and we’re having friends over for dinner on Saturday.

We’ll also be trying on our new solar eclipse glasses for Monday’s solar eclipse. You can put your city into the NASA eclipse tracker to see when the partial eclipse or totality will be happening near you. Have fun!

Jenny