Food doesn’t have to be pretty to taste good, but if it tastes good AND pretty, that’s better, right ?
Bright colors are great on a plate particularly in the morning!
Beet hummus, arugula, spinach, and radish.
Salt and pepper.
A drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.
Served with scrambled turmeric tofu.
Chirashi literally means “scattered”.
Chirashi-sushi is a bed of sushi rice with various things (usually fresh fish) scattered over rice.
As I said above, it’s usually fish (especially those found at Japanese restaurants in the U.S.), but in Japan a lot of people use other things, including a lot of vegetables.
The one you find here is still a bit unusual even for Japanese people, mainly because it contains fruit.
I actually really enjoy fruit with sushi rice.
It’s delicious, especially when they are also with wasabi soy sauce!
Yum!!
I always like to have a bowl of miso soup with my sushi.
This one has a lot of vegetables and Wakame seaweed.
And more seaweed!
This one is called “Hijiki”, braised.
I love eggplant so much that any dish that has eggplant makes me smile.
If I’m not pressed for time, I make my own pasta.
It’s so easy to make, and it tastes so good!
Loved the combination of eggplant, lentils, mushrooms, tomatoes, and Shiso basil.
Delicious!
Why not paying extra attention to lunch when you have extra time.
I could have just make a rice bowl, but at the last minute I decided to make sushi.
Pretty ones.
Pickled beet slice with homemade vegan cream cheese and parsley.
Teriyaki tempeh.
Vegan egg with a seaweed belt.
Kiwi.
(Surprisingly makes a delicious Sushi.)
Strawberry.
Lightly picked radish and black sesame seeds.
Sauteed Enoki mushrooms with a seaweed belt.
Homemade vegan bacon.
In addition, there are tomato x Shiso basil and Edamame.
I wish I could have lunch like this everyday, or rather someone could prepare it for me!
But I had fun making this.
Whenever I got to make bagels, I like making sandwiches.
Yesterday I made these beautiful vegan, gluten-free bagels.
They were not only tasty but also smaller than the regular size, which worked well because I wanted to make two different sandwiches (and eat them).
One was the savory one.
In this sandwich you’ll find homemade vegan cream cheese, crispy homemade vegan bacon, vegan egg, avocado, cilantro pesto, and arugula.
This was cocoa bagel with homemade vegan cream cheese and fresh strawberries.
I purposely did not sweeten the cream cheese, as I simply wanted to enjoy the natural sweetness from the strawberries.
I’m making so many of these folded tortilla wraps that I can’t keep up with posting all of them, but this one has to be posted because it was so good!!
On the left side are cashew butter, banana, cinnamon, shredded carrot, coconut flakes, and raisins.
On the right side are homemade vegan cream cheese and walnuts
As you can tell I put all the carrot cake inspired stuff.
Carrot cake is one of my favorite cakes, and I’m always looking for ways to enjoy the flavors without the extra calories.
You probably noticed, but I didn’t add any sugar or sweetener to this wrap.
I didn’t want it to be a dessert but a meal (breakfast), so I kept the sweetness minimal and natural.
The natural sweetness from the banana, raisins, and carrot was just perfect.
I’ve learned that as much as I want to load with a good stuff, it’s better to not put too much.
Perfect color and crunchiness!
This was SO GOOD!!
Tortilla wrap again！
Now you know the drill, right (lol)?
Sauteed green pepper, vegan chicken with chipotle sauce, mashed black beans, avocado slices, tomatoes, vegan cheese, and cilantro pesto.
Another success.
I’m not on the gluten-free diet, but gluten-free baking recipes that include interesting ingredients intrigue me.
So when I found this recipe posted by “痩せレシピ研究室” on YouTube that uses tofu and rice flour as the main ingredients, I knew I wanted to try it.
This recipe (Japanese) is not vegan, so I did have to veganize it, but it was a minor change.
This time I made two versions, plain and cocoa.
It’s not exactly like the bagel, but it has nice chewiness, and more than anything else, it’s tasty as what it is!
(If you exactly follow the recipe without veganizing it, the texture may be more like bagel’s. Next time I will adjust the changes I made to veganize the recipe to see if it helps improve the texture.)
If you can make a wrap with a tortilla, why not make a wrap with roasted seaweed sheet?
I used the same idea.
Vegan “egg”, tempeh steak, homemade vegan cream cheese, pickled beets, avocado slices, sushi rice, and Aojiso Japanese basil leaves.
To tell the truth, this is my second attempt on this sushi wrap.
The first time I placed sushi rice to cover the whole sheet.
As a result, it got too “fat” and I was not able to fold it nicely to make a wrap.
Learning from this mistake, this time I placed rice only on the left side that becomes the top and the bottom layer when folded.
Ta-da!
This time it’s folded beautifully.
This was a fun project, and it was delicious!
I call this “pancake”, but this is a much thicker version that I grew up with eating.
We call it “hotcake” in Japan, and whenever I eat it, it brings back all the memories from my childhood.
I still remember exactly what pan my mother would use to make us hot cakes.
I was in the mood for a hot cake, and when I found an interesting recipe that uses Mochi, I had to try it.
Remember a few days ago I said I used the last pieces of Mochi.
Well, I still wanted to eat more, and I decided to make some myself.
I learned from my Instagram friend, Ms. Tomomi, that it is possible to make Mochi in the U.S. without a Mochi maker.
It turned out great!
It is somewhat a shame that you cannot really see the Mochi in the first dish I made with my first homemade Mochi, but I was super happy with how this Mochi pancake turned out.
It’s soft, moist, and slightly sweet.
It’s thick but not heavy at all.
It was so good that I only used vegan butter.
It was delicious as it was, and I didn’t want to cover it with syrup.
I thoroughly enjoyed my first Mochi pancake.
This black tea was the perfect beverage to accompany the pancake.
This is my absolute favorite black tea, “Hot Cinnamon Sunset” by Harney & Sons.
The sweetness and warmth created by the blend of spices is so wonderful.
It’s so sweet that I have to check the ingredients listed on the tin frequently to make sure there is not added sugar or sweetner.
The ingredients listed are…
“Black tea, orange peel, natural and artificial cinnamon flavor, cinnamon, cloves.”
