Start Your Day with a Slurp!

I made a colossal pot of miso soup on Monday night.  I love this stuff, and the whole week I've been eating it for dinner and breakfast.  Am I strange?  I don't know.  But my morning dose of soup has been doing me some good!  So then I got to thinking, and sometimes thinking leads to blogging.  
So here I am with  5 reasons to start your morning with a slurp,  and then I'll share my miso soup recipe.

My Miso Soup.  Does this look healthy, or what?!

Starting Off Savory
Soup can be the breakfast of champions!  Here's why:

• Veggies in the A.M.!  With soup, it's never been so easy to get an early start on your daily veggie count!  I  struggle to eat the recommended 5 servings of veggies per day, so starting with some cabbage at meal #1 certainly helps!    
• Protein for the long haul.  Carbs take 1/2 an hour to digest, while protein takes 2 hours.  Protein wins, and leaves you satisfied for longer.  So pack in the protein with soup!  My miso soup has tofu, but any soup with lentils, beans, or chicken can also power you through the morning.
• Fiber for fullness.  I added white rice to my miso soup, but if I was smart I would've added barley for soluble fiber.
• A warm wake-up call.  A steamy bowl of soup warms my belly on these chilly winter mornings.
• Savory trumps sweet!  I'm usually a sweet-tooth, but sometimes it's nice to change the daily routine of cereal or oatmeal.  Even poptarts can get old after a while.  : )

So what do you think?  What's your favorite soup, and would you eat it for breakfast?   Well, I have two more breakfasts left in that big pot of mine.  I guess after I'm done with the miso, I'll go back to oatmeal, hehe!

Miso Soup...or Stew?
Maybe you've had the dainty bowls of miso soup that come with the bento meal at a Japanese restaurant.  These palate cleansing elixers feature snippets of green onion and whisps of seaweed with cutie squares of tofu-all served in a delicate lacquer bowl.  Well, if that is miso soup then my version must be miso STEW!
Let's Mix It Up!
1 Tbsp Hondashi-fish stock
2 Carrots-chopped
Extra Firm Tofu-cut into squares (add as much as you want!)
1 head of Napa cabbage- cut into large pieces
1/2 cup Miso paste, white or red kind
Enoki mushrooms, optional
1/8 cup dried Wakame (seaweed), optional
Rice

1. Boil 6 cups of water with 1 Tbsp of hondashi fish stock.
2. Add chopped carrots.  When carrots are halfway cooked, add Napa cabbage.
3. If adding seaweed, soak peices in water to hydrate.  Then drain and add seaweed after Napa cabbage.
4. Lastly, add tofu and enoki mushrooms.  These do not need to cook, but simply heat up.
5. Turn off heat and stir in miso paste at the end.  It is best to dilute miso paste with a little water in a coffee mug first, and then pour the miso into the large pot.
6. Serve with rice.  Enjoy!