Vegetable-Noodle Soup w/ Ginger Miso Broth

To make the broth, peel the ginger by scraping the skin off with a spoon. Cut the ginger into 1/4-inch-thick slices. Thickly slice the garlic too and chop the carrot into big chunks. Grab a medium pot and turn the heat on to medium. Once the pot is hot, add the ginger and carrot chunks and let them go on the bottom of the pot with no oil or anything. Keep stirring them around off and on for 2 minutes. It's cool if they stick, just rip them off with the spoon and keep going. Now add the garlc and do the same for another minute. Pour in the broth or water, add the cilantro, and let that veggie hot tub simmer for 15 minutes.

While the broth is doing its thing, cook the noodles, according to the package diractions.

When the broth has simmered 15 minutes, pull out all the ginger, garlic, carrot, and cilantro with a slotted spoon. Add the soy sauce and broccoli and simmer for a minute or two until the broccoli has lost its raw edge, then turn off the heat. Scoop up 1/2 cup of the broth and dissolve the miso paste in it, stirring until the chunks are gone. Pour that back in the pot and give it all a taste.

To assemble, grab a handful of the noodles and place them at the bottom of a bowl. Add a handful of the carrots, snow peas, and green onion. Ladle the hot broth and broccoli bits over and let it sit for a minute as the carrots and snow peas soften. Top with some more of the green onions and some of your favorite condiments.