I hope you are not tired of seeing all my leftover makeover dishes from Thanksgiving.
What can I say?
I did make too much food, although I tried not to.
It’s never easy to make food just for two people.
This macaroni and mushroom walnut gravy turned out great!
I even added cranberry sauce (and nutty Parm) at the end.
Yes, the gravy and cranberry sauce do go well.
Black food is cool, and they typically taste good.
I love sesame, and this noodle dish is full of black sesame flavors.
So good!!
I also added onion, king mushrooms, and Renkon lotus root slices.
The lotus slices are so unique and pretty.
Udon noodles in curry soup with sautéed mushrooms.
Thick chewy Udon noodles always go so well with rich curry soup!
So good.
A picture from this foggy morning.
I just chatted with a neighbor in the elevator.
It’s crazy that we get excited about the upcoming temperature of 40F degrees.
She is right though, about Minnesotans getting soon excited about 20F degrees!
Seriously, I think we can officially call us survivors.
I eat soba noodles all year round.
But this time of the year I like them in hot soup.
This mushroom soba soup was fantastic.
It’s not only tasty but also warms my body (and soul!) so well.
I’m the only one who does this around here, but it’s a habit.
This is the Japanese way to start a meal.
Put the hands together like this and say “Itadaki-masu.”
I love mushrooms, and I always buy some kinds of mushrooms every week.
This time I used Maitake and Enoki.
Have a great week everyone!
Yakisoba time!
Chinese chives from the local farmers market.
Mung bean sprouts also from the farmers market.
I didn’t cook much even when I was old enough, because I always lived with my mother and she was a fantastic cook.
But yakisoba was probably one of the dishes I would make myself as a teen for a quick lunch.
So good!
I’ve said this many times, but eggplant is one of my favorite vegetables.
I’m a happy girl when eggplant, tomato sauce, and pasta are put together.
I even made pasta myself.
Homemade pasta is the BEST!
Completed with nutty parm.
Yum!!
Believe it or not, mac and cheese was never a popular dish at our house when we were still eating cheese.
Why did I make it then?
Well, when you luckily end up with the most delicious vegan cheddar cheese, you want to make something to showcase the cheese.
So here it is!
Creamy cheesy (seriously!) plant-based mac and cheese.
Served with spicy-sweet beef and broccoli.
This turned out to be so good, and we both loved it very much.
This west-meet-east type of dish is typically a good hit at our house for some reason (lol).
The thick chewy Udon noodles go so well with sticky Natto beans.
Typically I will just drizzle soy sauce over this, but this time I decided to try something new.
I drizzled olive oil as well as slightly sweetened soy sauce and then sprinkled my vegan nutty Parm generously.
This was a beautiful kind of “West meets East” dish.
Also adding Japanese Shiso basil leaves makes this dish super tasty!
I love variety of vegetables, but I do have favorites.
Eggplant is one of the vegetables that I really enjoy, and whenever I see a dish made with eggplant on a restaurant menu, I almost always order it.
(Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen very often. Apparently not many restaurants serve eggplant dishes…)
I was lucky to be able to find beautiful fresh eggplant and zucchini at the local farmers market to make this Mapo dish.
The “meat” part of Mapo was made with tempeh and walnuts.
My initial plan was to use only tempeh, but I didn’t have enough, so at the last minute I added walnuts.
This decision was a great one!
I really loved the result.
The texture and the nutty flavor from the walnuts were wonderful.
I don’t always have time, but when I do, I try make my noodles myself.
For this dish I wanted flat and wide noodles, so I kind of needed to make them myself, too.
Absolutely delicious!!
Served with Japanese Shiso basil leaves and chili pepper threads.
