Last night for dinner we had a simple winter favorite: miso soup. The photo above is from a couple of weeks ago, but I make this soup for dinner frequently enough that I don’t feel too terrible about posting it now. (And the shots I took last night were sort of uninspired.)

Miso is easy to make and almost endlessly variable. It’s a standby for lazy winter evenings when there isn’t much in the fridge: just about any vegetable you can think of can be diced and tossed into the simmering broth, and soft greens like spinach work well if you don’t happen to have wakame. Here’s my basic recipe, which will serve 2-4, depending on how hungry you are.

• A handful of frozen, responsibly-harvested shrimp, thawed
• 1/4 lb. buckwheat soba, udon, or spaghetti
• 3 tbs. wakame, soaked in cold water
• 4 tbs. miso (I get mine from South River Miso, a local business that adheres to the old-fashioned miso-making tradition)
• Sliced scallion, green and white parts
• 1/2 block of tofu, cubed
• 1 carrot, sliced
• A handful of frozen peas or snow peas
• Tamari
• Dulse flakes (a dark red sea vegetable)
• Sambel oelek thai chili paste (found in most asian markets and health food stores)
• Sesame oil
• Sesame seeds

Bring a quart of water to a simmer in a medium pot. Bring 3-4 quarts of water to boil in another larger pot. When the large pot of water reaches boiling, add the soba and cook according to package directions.

While the soba is cooking, add wakame, dulse, carrot, peas, and tofu to the small pot of water and cook for a minute. Add the shrimp and cook for two minutes. Remove the pot from heat. Take a bit of the broth from the small pot, and add the miso to it. Pour the diluted miso back into the pot. Stir in tamari and sambal oelek to taste, and drizzle with sesame oil.

Using tongs, remove the cooked soba from its cooking water and divide among 2-4 deep bowls. Ladle miso soup over the noodles and sprinkle with sesame seeds and sliced green onion.