ramen on steroids

I finally have some good eats to share with you. Mikey has been working a lot of prepping/cooking shifts at work so his enthusiasm for cooking at home has been dismal. (I don't blame him:)
But, tonight I begged for him to make something for the week. He came up with what he described as "Ramen noodles on steroids."
The highlight of the meal was a brand new (to us) Japenese broth/sauce called Dashi:
It includes a couple of new ingredients to our pantry:
I gotta tell you the Bonito Flakes freaked me out a bit. BUT, they were the key ingredient to the sauce. It's basically dehydrated fish. Combined with the seaweed, it imparts a fantastic beef broth taste minus the beef! To die for!! Per usual, Mikey tried telling me that I was loving something very similar to dried anchovies. Bad move! I can't stand the thought of eating eyes and fish parts. Blech! He was totally kidding, of course. The sauce was strained and so it was a nice smooth broth. It was also pretty spicy thanks to the addition of Sambal (chili garlic sauce).

I actually helped out with quite a bit of tonight's meal. I started the charcoal chimney for the grill so that Mikey could grill up some veggies & shrimp.
Fire roasted bell peppers (I peeled & gutted them after they came off the grill):
I also skewered the baby portabellas:
The shrimp are not pictured but Mikey peeled & de-veined them and then I skewered them.
Next I julienned some carrots & cut up the red cabbage:
Afterward I got a lesson on cutting the cabbage in a way that makes it more like the size of the carrots instead of squares:)
While I was doing some chopping, Mikey grilled up some asparagus that was drizzled with olive oil, S + P. The start of a beautiful rainbow of colors:
Next I snipped the ends of the pea pods and peeled away the seams (not sure how else to describe this process):
The grill master!!
Green onions over the fiya:
The asparagus was my favorite veggie off the grill tonight:

So, the "stew" is built starting with a bed of soba noodles:
Then, topped with the "soup" which consisted of all the veggies & shrimp added to the dashi with some garlic & ginger & miso. The end result:
Cilantro to garnish.
Mikey's bowl:
My bowl:
YUM!!
I can't wait to eat this for lunch this week! I was so impressed with the dashi. Definitely a keeper!