Recipe Tuesday: Hot and Sour Soup

Today's recipe is a bit late (sorry!) and it has WAY more ingredients than I normally bother with, but it is so delicious. Hot and Sour Soup is one of my mom's Chinese restaurant favorites and she asked me to make this for her a few weeks ago. I divided it up into 1-cup servings and froze the soup in individual plastic bowls (saved from Chinese takeaway) so she could pull them out one-at-a-time and heat them up whenever she wanted some.

Ingredients:
* 8 shiitake mushrooms
* 3 1/2 cups low-sodium vegetable broth
* 4 oz white mushrooms, cut into 1-inch matchsticks
* 4 oz extra-firm tofu, cut into 1-inch matchsticks
* 1/2 cup canned bamboo shoots, drained and cut into 1-inch matchsticks
* 1/4 cup carrots, cut into 1-inch matchsticks
* 3 Tbs rice vinegar
* 2 Tbs low-sodium soy sauce
* 2 tsp Splenda
* 1/4 tsp black pepper
* 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
* 2 Tbs cornstarch
* 3 Tbs water
* 1 egg white, lightly beaten
* 1 tsp sesame oil

Cut the stems off of the shiitake mushrooms and cut them into thin slices. Put the broth, shiitakes, white mushrooms, tofu, bamboo shoots, and carrots in a large saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Add the vinegar, soy sauce, Splenda, black pepper, and red pepper. Cook for another minute. In a small bowl, dissolve the cornstarch into the water and add this mixture to the soup. Stir constantly until the soup begins to thicken. While stirring, slowly add the egg white to the soup and cook until the egg turns white. Remove the saucepan from heat and add in the sesame oil. Serve and enjoy!