Miso, Goji & Seaweed Soup (in a thermos!)

Hello :) This idea for a healthy portable soup came to me, when I was at uni spying on people eating packaged chicken flavoured noodle soups. I'm a bit creepy like that (not really...) So I decided to make something simple to take to uni, in a thermos. There's a place to access free hot water at uni, which is great & I'm thus always taking teabags with glee, knowing I can have tea for free. Brilliant rhyming, no? Well I took this soup with me when I was feeling sick last week. And here are the ingredients I used:

Miso: a fermented soy product, high in sodium, but also full of nutrients such as zinc, which supports the immune system and can shorten the duration of colds. A bowl of miso soup is always soothing!
Goji: a Chinese superfood packed full of antioxidants! I used medicine-grade goji berries, which we sell as part of Little China Teas. These one's are dense and sticky and tend to clump together. In tea and soup they expand and become soft & yummy.
Seaweed: I used wakame which according to the packet is rich in calcium, iron, folate, potassium and beta-carotene. The seaweed expands quite a lot in hot water, it's awesome!
Chinese red dates: although I didn't add these to my soup, I sure will next time. They are sweet (but not overly sweet like other dates) and are high in iron and fibre and also have warming properties. As with the gojis, they expand and soften in hot water and are the perfect addition to soups and broths. I'm working on a Traditional Chinese Medicine energy mix at the moment with Little China Teas, and these are one of the ingredients. They're just so dense, chewy and delicious to snack on.

So basically the night before I just add the dry ingredients to the thermos. And after I've filled it up with hot water, I just pour a little bit at a time into the cup. I take a long spoon to scoop out the gojis and seaweed and sip on the rest :) 

 I'd add a few more ingredients if I was at home (some which require cooking) such as Chinese spinach, buckwheat noodles, dried mushrooms, ginger and coriander. 

A bowl of warming soup was perfectly soothing and nourishing, just what I needed. Especially with this chilly weather, those packets of miso are just so handy! Definitely going to take my soup mix & thermos tomorrow to uni. Fun times.

Hannah x