In need of Time? Let's make Beef Noodle Soup

        It has been a while since my last post. Oh well, I have been really busy fulfilling responsibilities, overcoming challenges and attaining goals. Why today? Why did I decide to write an article for my own blog again? I just wanted to reward myself a bit, I guess I just realized that things around me started to grow, that finally I think some of the effort that I have done for the past years started to yield desirable results.

        I spend most of my time attending to family responsibilities and completing work tasks which includes writing on behalf of someone, organizing data and making sure all little things are completed smoothly, this is of course of on top of my 8 hour job. Oh well, it makes me happy to be really productive.  As I move along my path, emotional blocks  can sometimes cloud my ability to continue. As a response of course, a prayer would be the first course of action then I start to add more task in my life as a way to remind myself that there is still a lot of things that I can accomplish, that there is more to life that I need to fulfill.

        Enough of the reflection, for today I just wanted to share something that could show a bit of some strategic actions when it comes to dealing with life’s adversities. In this COVID-19 pandemic, we spent most of the time together as a family—at home. Work as well was also brought home. Every morning we spend our weekdays in one long table in front of our laptops. Time is precious thus, we should always spend our time wisely, no matter how busy we are. On top of that being creative in managing expenses is also essential. During the hard days, resources may be scarce, but we can always be creative in life-- after all we can always bring quality in life, we just need to make the effort to do so.

        And so to make more time for laughter and family moment at home, I always make sure I spend time in the kitchen during one of the weekends to prepare for the week ahead. For today I am sharing recipe for my Beef Noodle Soup—which is actually a left over recipe.

Chive Dumplings

        This one is not store bought, but if you need to buy those ready-made chive dumplings, it is not a problem. It is an option in case making dumplings is not your forte.

Ingredients:

flour, water, chives, pork, salt and pepper.

1. Make the wrapper: just mix flour and water, form a dough and set aside. Make little wrappers using a rolling pin. If this is too tedious to do, just buy store bought wrappers.
2. Grind pork, chives and salt and pepper for the filling.
3. Make the dumplings. Flash fry the dumplings to prevent them from sticking from each other before storing it in the freezer.

Beef in Soy Sauce (Beef Pares)

Ingredients:

beef cubes, five spice, premium soy sauce, sugar, salt and pepper. 

1. Just boil the beef in soy sauce, five spice, sugar, salt and pepper.
2. Store the beef once tender.

Beef Broth

Ingredients:

beef bones, water, merpoix

1.  Just boil beef bones with celery, carrots and onions. Once beef is tender, strain the broth. If you have no time to do this, just use beef cubes or instant broth.

Beef Noodle Soup

1.  Boil some egg noodles.  Top with chive dumplings and beef cooked in soy sauce.
2. Sprinkle with green onions.
3. Add in boiling broth.

         How strategic is this recipe? Well the chive dumplings are made in advance and it is stored in the fridge as a snack for the week or served on top of steamed rice with some chili garlic sauce for breakfast. The beef in soy sauce on the other hand is also a known Filipino dish called Beef Pares. It can also be cooked in advance and it is also served as a breakfast dish during the weekdays.

        And so on weekends—when I am too tired to cook. I just assemble the stuff together and a new hearty dish is born. Now instead of spending countless hours in the kitchen preparing something special for breakfast, I am able to spare myself some extra hours-- and finally on our weekend breakfast as a family, we now have some extra time listening to each others stories.