tempura with the best soy sauce ever...for breakfast.

after a week filled with ballet lessons, crafts, parks, bubbles, slides, swings, and sandboxes i was exhausted (i know all those things rock, but pair them with children 1-4 years old, while still a blast, takes a bit of effort) all i wanted to was sleep in today. no alarm just wake up whenever. that illusion was shattered by the car alarm going off outside my window at 8:00am. after an hour of car alarms, and me telling pugsly, my cat, how i was going to toss the car into the east river i decided to count my losses, get up, and get to work. well, i first i called my rad parents to chat for a bit, but was denied. they were getting ready to do some yardwork, but had time to squeeze an encouraging "you haven't had a blog post in a while." on to the kitchen. what supplies did i have for my saturday morning breakfast? tempura. awesome. breakfast of champions.

Tempura

• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3 tablespoons oil
• 1 cup water
• veggies of your choice
• oil for frying

1. mix flour, salt, sugar, and baking powder in a bowl.
2. slowly add oil, and water. i add the water little by little between mixes, and usually have a little leftover.
3. pop batter in the fridge for at least 15 minutes.
4. while that is hanging in the fridge chop your veggies. i always have sweet potato and broccoli. i also like cucumber, peppers, & mushrooms. i say go to town. you like something try tossing it into the batter. i mean doesn't frying help everything taste better?
5. speaking of frying start heating up some oil in a pan on the stove. you are going to want this to be deep enough to so that the slices are covered. if not they might stick the bottom of the pan. but with larger chunks, like the broccoli, i never get them completely covered, because that's a lot of oil! i also have a legit "frying pan" that i will store in my stove with the oil in, and but it out when i need to fry things. you have to toss nastiness after a few fries, but frying is frying is frying.
6. get your batter and toss your veggies in. get a good coat on them.
7. place pieces into the oil. the oil should be hot, and the batter on the veggies should start to sizzle when dropped in.
8. once you see the edges getting crispy give 'em a flip-a-roo. i would say try to flip as little as possible, but i love the little crispy pieces of the batter that will come off. i always scoop them out and munch on them. my roommate dani will testify on the goodness of those crunchy bits.
9. have a plate ready with paper towels or coffee filters on it to soak up that extra oil. we hardly ever have paper towels, so i am often using the filters (and i don't even drink coffee. thanks roomies!).
10. dip in this soy sauce:

Best Soy Sauce Ever

• soy sauce
• water
• scallions
• lime

1. mix equal parts soy sauce and water.
2. squeeze lime juice in the mix.
3. add chopped scallions.
4. dip. yum.

you can play around with the amount of lime, and scallions you like. i also add serrano peppers sometimes to give a kick. anytime i have soy sauce i do this. i LOVE it.

at dinner one evening with our awesome friend matt, ashely and i had banana tempura. it rocked our socks off. i would definitely try that. i might also serve it as a dessert. plate it with the tempura bananas on the bottom with a scoop of vanilla soy ice cream, and bit of chocolate syrup drizzled on top. yeah... i'm going to try that, and get back to you!

all in all i guess being awoken by a car alarm, and having tempura for breakfast wasn't that bad. have a good saturday!