Wow, it’s been so long since my last post (10 days!!).

Truth is, I’m not very moti­vated to write or cook as of late. Food­blog­ging has always been a stress relief for me, a cre­ative out­let of some sorts. With all those excel­lent local restau­rant blog­gers and fan­tas­tic recipe blog­gers out there, I’m not sure if this is really the thing for me any­more. Plus, I’ve been really slug­gish after work, so dinner’s been super sim­ple and not very blog-worthy.

So what I do to purge myself of day-to-day stress — lately, watch­ing a lot of Japan­ese tv shows on Youtube (watch from 5:03), crush­ing on tall, lanky men, and read­ing online comics — just being a blorp and for­get­ting about cook­ing, really. I don’t even go out any­more because when my friends want to go out, I have to work. When I’m done with work, I’m spent. I know, I’m awe­somely sad.

Even­tu­ally, lazy lazy days of watch­ing tv on a lap­top and read­ing online comics about fat cats become, well, old.

And when things get old, you yearn for the really old stuff because that seems refresh­ingly… New. That’s when the author of the afore­men­tioned online comic series, KurunekoYam­ato, posted her recipe for Tomato Shio Ramen and Tomatam­abon. The recipes quickly caught my atten­tion because they seemed ridicu­lously easy and rea­son­ably tasty.

So, I tried it this slug­gish, lazy Mon­day evening. And it was frickin’ delicious.

The orig­i­nal recipe is in Japan­ese, so I’m leav­ing you with an Amer­i­can­ized adap­ta­tion. You must try it, because I think this is going to be your favorite lazy day food.

Tomatam­abon — serves 2

adapted from the orig­i­nal Tomatam­abon recipe of KurunekoYamato

2 large toma­toes, some­thing sweet and juicy like romas
2 bunches somen
1/2 cup chicken soup*
2 eggs
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil

*chicken soup

The orig­i­nal recipe calls for instant Chi­nese Chicken Broth, but that’s some­thing that’s a lit­tle hard to come by in the states, espe­cially if you don’t have access to a Japan­ese mar­ket. Sub­sti­tute with an instant soup: Boil together 1 cup chicken broth, a sliver of gin­ger, a hefty table­spoon of scal­lions, 2 tbsp sake/chinese wine (any cook­ing booze), and a drop of sesame oil. When the scal­lions turn clear (10 minutes-ish), strain the liq­uid and use for recipe. Reserve the rest in a tightly lid­ded tupperware.

To make tomatamabon:

1. Boil the somen noo­dles and strain, set aside. DO NOT RINSE (this is essen­tial)!
2. Cut the toma­toes into eighths. Warm up sesame oil over high in a large fry­ing pan. When it smokes, throw in toma­toes and quickly stir fry for 10~15 sec­onds.
3. Pour in chicken soup and soy sauce. Bring to a gen­tle boil.
4. Crack the eggs and beat lightly, then pour into the boiled chicken-soup-tomatoes mix­ture. Turn off the heat and let the eggs cook up.
5. Plate somen, then scoop the Tomatama (tomato-tamago/egg) mix­ture over.
6. To eat, toss every­thing very well — somen has a bit of salt to begin with, and the mix­ing will add more fla­vor to your food. Nom and then laze around like a fat cat after your meal.

Tagged as: Japanese, pasta, Vegetarian