The Boy is sick, so I decided to make him a big pot of chicken noodle soup since we have some bones and chicken breast meat. Since I didn't have egg noodles, I decided to use udon noodles instead.

Step one: Home-made chicken stock

Step two: Lots of veggies!

Step three: Patience…

Step four: Enjoy!

The Boy doing his “THOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!” pose with the Mt. Bandits chicken stick prop.

I got this recipe from Hero Material's friend. We tried it twice, and both times it came out well, so we wanted to share.

Ingredients

4-5 tbsp of shio koji
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp cooking sake
200 g of minced chicken (or ground chicken)
1 tbsp of finely chopped or minced ginger
10 cm of green onion, finely chopped
2 heads of bok choy
1/2 carrot (peeled)
1 pack of enoki
1 Asian leek (you can just use western leek or green onion if you can't find the Asian leek)
5 cups of water

Instructions

1. Chop up bok choy into bite-size chunks. Make sure to separate out the head part and the leafy part. Set aside.
2. Cut carrot into 5mm-thick half-moons. Set aside.
3. Cut the root of enoki and throw it away. Then cut the enoki in half. Set aside.
4. Slice the leek into thin diagonals.
5. Put the ground chicken into a bowl and add 2 tbsp of shio koji, 1 tbsp of minced ginger and 10 cm of finely chopped green onion. Mix them well and make them into small chicken balls.
6. Pour 5 cups of water into a deep pan and bring it to boil. Dump the chicken balls one-by-one into the boiling water and let them cook through.
7. Put the vegetables in the following order: carrot pieces, leek, enoki, head part of bok choy, then the leafy part of bok choy. When you add the vegetables, make sure that the carrot is soft enough for you before adding the rest.
8. Once the vegetables are cooked, add 1 tbsp of soy sauce, 1 tbsp of sake and 2-3 tbsp of shio koji. Makes 2-3 servings. You can serve it with steamed rice on the side if you'd like.

Note

You can add more chicken balls without adding more broth. If you do, make sure to adjust the amount of shio koji, ginger and green onion for the chicken ball mixture.

Metric conversion for Americans

200g = 7oz
10cm = 4″
5mm = 0.2″

I hope you enjoy this soup!

I want to share an incredibly inspiring and fascinating talk by Amy J. C. Cuddy about how our body language can shape who we are.

Most of us think that others look at our body language to judge us. But we too unconsciously are affected by our own body language and act accordingly. Our body language governs how we think and feel about ourselves.

So watch this amazing talk on body language and see how you can make yourself more confident:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks-_Mh1QhMc&w=560&h=315]

Happy New Year, everyone!

I hope your 2012 ended on a lovely note, and you're all ready for another productive and exciting year. I'm planning to do some serious work this year, mostly on improving my process. Looking back on the hours and time I spent on my projects, it's obvious that my process for drafting and revision is flawed and extremely inefficient.

This basically means I need to think about how I can write more efficiently. That won't always involve my sitting in front of a computer and typing away. Sometimes planning may be more important (and more time-consuming) than the actual drafting itself. But that's okay if it results in a cleaner and better first draft that won't require months and months of rework.

I'm hoping to have four books written, including the current WIP plus an Ever After novella. My family and I are also moving in January, but hopefully it won't suck up too much time, though I'm definitely budgeting at least 2 weeks of non-writing time for the big move, getting things cleaned up, etc.

What is your Number One Professional / Career Goal for 2013?