Quick & Easy Hot Pot Meal

While busy wrapping presents and baking goodies, I have forgotten to eat lunch until my stomach growled mercilessly. I ate a lot of the scraps from the bake goods but the sweet can only do so much. I need something quick, easy and salty. That's when I opened my freezer. Instead of finding microwavable dinner, I found Trader Joe's Steamer Clams!

While these clams are good by itself, nothing can make this meal better than some carbs! Rice and pasta taste great with the clams, but would take forever to make with this busy holiday prepping schedule, so I ended up grabbing some dry vermicelli in the cabinet. Oh yes, and some greens from the fridge. Protein, veggies and carbs--a perfect and hearty meal.

1. Boil some chicken stock in a pot. Add hot sauce or soy sauce until soup is to your tasting!

2. Soak the dry vermicelli in warm water. When soften, add into the soup. After 1 minute or two, pick up the noodle and place it into a mini ceramic pot.

3. In a bowl, place some water and edamame (with or without the pods). Microwave. Set on top of vermicelli.

4. Using the same bowl from the edamame, stick some Trader Joe's Steamer Clams into the microwave. Since I cannot finish the whole box, I just took out a few clams and microwaved them in a bowl covered with saran wrap. Set on top of vermicelli

5. Boil some napa cabbages or vegetable of choice in the soup or in another pot. When cooked, place into the ceramic pot also.

6. Egg is optional, but I have some left from baking, I added it into the soup. Swirl the egg into the boiling soup. It makes a nice easy egg flower soup!

7. Lastly, pour the boiling soup onto the food in the mini ceramic pot.
8. Top with bonito, which is optional.

There are so many way to make this. If you like, you can actually boil everything in the ceramic pot OR you can just serve everything in a bowl! But yes, I love food with presentation! It stimulate the eyes as well as appetite!

The finished product!

Bon Appetit!