Wannabe Korean soup...or at least it's soup made by a Korean

Today I thought I would pick up quick tacos for dinner...this is something that almost never happens.  Not that I don't enjoy the occasional taco, but you would just never hear me say 'hey, let's go get some tacos'.  I thought that Cy would be overjoyed that I was willing to indulge in some Mexican fare, but no, he tells me he's in the mood for some hot soup, of course.  Life is never easy.

Since we had some Daikon (Japanese radish) on hand, we set out to make Cy's favorite childhood dish, Moo Gook - or Korean radish soup.  It was supposed to be something like this, but since we realized that we didn't have a lot of the ingredients, decided to wing it instead.  We cooked the beef with some garlic and ginger, then used a vegetable broth base, and added some enoki mushrooms and kale we had on hand to amp up the nutritional value.

As a side note, here's an interesting tidbit in regards to enoki mushrooms.  One of the towns with the lowest occurrence of cancer in Japan is also the largest producer of enoki mushrooms.  And as it turns out, most of the families that live there consume large quantities of enoki mushrooms at almost every meal.  Of course there are probably other factors that contribute to the town's good health, but mushrooms in general have been studied in depth (especially in Japan) and most researchers seem to agree that they are beneficial in the prevention of cancer.

In any case back to the soup! Though not quite the traditional korean soup, it was still delicious and perfect for a chilly night.