by : Reiko Beans/Lentils, Noodles/Pasta

A.T. Natto Kimchi Pasta
納豆キムチパスタ

One of the interesting things in the culinary world is that stinky things can be absolutely delicious.

One example may be blue cheese.

In order to appreciate those foods, you have to have an A.T. (acquired taste).

Well, you need plenty to really enjoy this pasta.

Although a lot of secrets about the Japanese cuisine are out now, Natto is still an “unknown” to many people outside the country.

Natto is fermented soy beans, and I don’t blame you if you instantly said “not for me” when you hear the description.

More people will say “no” when they see what it looks like, and almost everybody will be shocked by the strong smell of it.

Even in Japan there are a lot of people who do not touch Natto.

Like any other foods that require an acquired taste, the people who do eat Natto tend to really like them, and fortunately I’m one of them.

They sell small packages (individual size) in the frozen section at Asian grocery stores in the U.S. (I get mine at United Noodles; surprisingly they have so many options/brands for Natto and it’s a bit intimidating to pick one).

I keep them in my freezer and move to the fridge the night before when I plan to eat it for lunch or dinner.

Well, talk about acquired tastes, another main ingredient in this pasta bowl, Kimchi, also requires that.

Interestingly, these two with very strong personality(?!) and smell(!) go really well together, which is almost magical to me.

A.T. Natto Kimchi Pasta: cooked pasta, Natto, kimchi, shiso (Japanese basil), Nori (roasted seaweed), scallion, refined olive oil (or sesame oil), soy sauce, salt

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by : Reiko Noodles/Pasta, Salad

Mamma Mia Spaghetti Dinner
マンマ・ミーア・スパゲッティプレート

Who doesn’t like spaghetti dinner?!

I grew up in Japan, but “Spaghetti with Meat Sauce” was definitely on top of my list.

Since we don’t eat meat anymore, the preparation for the “meat sauce” takes a bit longer.

First I make a meatloaf, and then I crumble it into smaller pieces.

So, Spaghetti with Meat Sauce is usually made the day after a meatloaf dinner at our house, but sometimes I make a meatloaf just because I want to have the spaghetti dish.

Well, it’s worth it.

I keep my “meat sauce” simple with only a few ingredients.

My “must” is a can of “whole tomatoes”.

It always makes my sauce taste better than when a can of diced or crashed tomatoes is used.

The spaghetti was served with Carsar salad.

In my world, this is the best thing to go with this spaghetti dish.

Doesn’t it look tasty?

My trusted nutty parm was generously sprinkled.

Voila!

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by : Reiko Leaf Vegetables, Noodles/Pasta

Green Goodness Spinach Pesto Pasta
グリーンなほうれん草ジェノベーゼパスタ

One of the great things that came with my experience of switching to the 100% plant based diet is that it forces me to think out of the box.

Well, after realizing that so many foods that I believed were NECESSARY for many years are not only unnecessary but also easily replaceable.

So when I think of “pesto”, in my mind it can be made with anything, well, anything green.

So when I got this giant bag of spinach from Costco, pesto seemed like an awesome idea.

There is no meat on this plate.

Everything you see are plant-based, and this makes me smile.

So next time you are in a situation where you have so much spinach you don’t know what to do with, think of “pesto”.

A few evenings ago my husband and I were having dinner at fig + farro, a vegetarian/vegan restaurant, and we met a lovely young couple.

They were eating at the table next to us, and we noticed that they were ordering almost exactly the same dishes we did.

So that’s probably how we started a conversation, and we learned that the young lady is a college student and has been on a plant-based diet for a couple of years.

She said she was looking for nutritional yeast while she was in town, and I couldn’t help but recommend Trader Joe’s.

I’ve tried another brand, thinking it would taste the same, and I quickly realized that I was wrong.

So now I stick with Trader Joe’s.

I used to be a bit skeptical about nutritional yeast, but after I learned that it’s “not bad for you”, I now use it quite often.

(This is an interesting read about nutritional yeast.)

Red is supposed to enhance your appetite, but green does pretty much the same to me!

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by : Reiko Asian Food, Mushrooms, Noodles/Pasta

Zha Zha Zhu Zha Jiang Mian
ザーザーズー、ジャージャー麺

This is my take on the traditional Chinese pork noodle dish called Zha Jiang Mian.

 

My “meat” sauce is made of Shiitake mushroom as a main ingredient.

I used dried mushrooms, because they provide intense flavors.

This is how the Shiitake looked like when reconstituted and sliced (later it was chopped into small pieces).

This was so so good!

This is one of the dishes that I thought I would never get to enjoy when I switched to the 100% plant based diet.

But I when I made it and had the first bite, it was a “Zha Zha Zhu” moment for me all over again (lol).

This is definitely not the type of noodle you typically use to make Zha Jiang Mian, but lasagna pasta strips have been my recent favorite, and this was a good choice for this dish as well.

It’s such a beautiful dish.

Julienned cucumber is the typical garnish for Zha Jiang Mian, and it’s a well-thought one.

Not only does it give the fresh green color, but also its crunchy texture perfectly accompanies this dish.

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by : Reiko Noodles/Pasta, Soup/Stew

Lasagna Soup with V-Sausage and Nutty Parm
ラザニアスープ

When I discovered something called “Lasagna Soup” exists, I had to try it.

Freshly cooked lasagna sheets were cut into smaller pieces.

My homemade V-sausage was perfect to accompany the lasagna pasta.

Does it look tasty or what?

My nutty parm was made with the recipe from this book (slightly modified).

This soup was absolutely delicious, and I loved it.

Whoever came up with the idea is genius!

By the way, this is one of my recent favorite shirts to wear.

I bought it at Target, but I only recently learned that it is one of their new clothing brands, called “Who What Wear”.

I did notice that Target’s clothing section has gotten a face-lift lately, and I find myself looking at clothes at Target definitely more often than before.

I wore this gingham blouse with puffy sleeves in this post as well.

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by : Reiko Asian Food, Japanese Food, Main Dish, Noodles/Pasta

Wasabi Shiso Salad Soba
冷やし蕎麦はじめました。

We had a beautiful day today.

It was warm, but not too hot like the last few days.

So I took advantage of it and went for a long walk..

I mean, a really long walk!

I was out for over two hours, and when I got home I was tired and sweaty.

Walking in the city is my choice of workout, and I really enjoy it.

There are a lot of good things about working out, but one of the best things I think is that after a workout I want to eat something healthy.

When I’m hungry, I’m often tempted to have rich foods like something deep-fried or sugary.

But after a workout even when I’m hungry, I want something light and fresh.

So after a bath (I was too tired to stand in a shower, so sitting in the tub was more appealing to me), I began chopping vegetables.

You can really use any vegetables, but one of my favorites is “shiso” or Japanese basil which you see in the middle of the bowl.

This really gives great refreshing favors to the dish.

Another “must” for me is wasabi.

Wasabi adds a clean spiciness, and it’s too good to be served only with sushi.

The dressing was simply made with soy sauce, white vinegar, sesame oil, and salt.

So yum!

This is something I bought at the Japanese grocery store, Mitsuwa, in Chicago when we visited the city a few weeks ago.

It’s dried roasted sweet potato, and it’s absolutely delicious!

It has been my go-to snack the last few days, and I’m sad that it’s almost gone…

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by : Reiko Main Dish, Noodles/Pasta

Maharaja Macaroni and Cheese
マハラジャ・マカロニグラタン

When I make Japanese curry, I do enjoy it as it is (usually with rice), but often times I can’t wait to create a “secondary” dish with leftover curry.

When growing up in Japan, I would almost always ask my mother to make curry udon the next day, and it’s still one of my go to “second-day” curry dish.

But this time I decided to go for macaroni and cheese.

And I had perfect dishes to cook it in.

The leftover curry was mixed with freshly cooked macaroni and my cheesy cream sauce.

They were topped off with nutty parm and freshly ground black pepper.

They already looked so good before cooking!

As you can see, there are a lot of chunky veggies in the the curry.

I usually stay away from big brand names.

I refuse to pay extra just for the big “name”.

But I am willing to pay for quality: quality of design, quality of material, etc…

Today there are a lot of companies that make this type of small casserole dishes, but Le Creuset is still one of my favorites.

Particularly these yellow ones always make food look good.

Just out of the oven!

It’s a rich dish, and I enjoy it for it.

And another good thing about this dish is that it doesn’t make me feel “stuffed”.

That’s what I’ve noticed since I stopped eating meat and dairy.

Plant-based food not only tastes good but also “feels” good.

We are expecting a very warm weekend in Minnesota.

But I’m pretty excited.

Your attitude changes towards 90 degree weather after you hibernate so long (lol)!

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by : Reiko Leaf Vegetables, Main Dish, Noodles/Pasta

Yes Please! Lasagna
イエス・プリーズ！ラザニア

This lasagna is packed with all my favorite things.

I don’t mind all veggie lasagna, but since my V Meatloaf was such a success, I thought it would be fun to add something similar (but flavored with Italian herbs) to my lasagna to give a different texture.

Lasagna pasta is ready.

What else went into my lasagna pan other than the V Italian sausage?

Well, sauteed spinach, roasted eggplant, homemade tomato sauce, and homemade cashew cream!

If a restaurant serves vegan spinach/roasted eggplant lasagna (without any store-bought processed food), I will be a regular customer for sure.

Isn’t it beautiful?!

I have to take a picture of these layers even in the leftover, because I admire them so much (lol).

Have a great week everyone!

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by : Reiko Asian Food, Japanese Food, Noodles/Pasta

J-Style Sweet and Sour V-Balls
V団子の甘酢あんかけ

When I came to the US for college many years ago, there weren’t a lot of Asian restaurants.

My school was located in a very rural part of the country, so when I found a small Chinese restaurant that was a 30 minute drive away, I was ecstatic (lol).

Things have since changed, and now we have so many various Asian restaurants in our neighborhood; I did move to the city setting.

A Chinese dish called “Amazu-an” in Japanese was always one of my favorites, and I was hoping to find the same dish in the U.S.

Finding it was not much of a problem, because the name itself was so self-explanatory, “Sweet and Sour”.

But finding a high-quality sweet and sour dish has been somewhat more challenging.

I happened to have homemade V-meatballs, and I decided to make my own sweet sour using a Japanese recipe.

Even though there are a ton of veggies in my v-balls, I still like to have additional veggies.

Isn’t it beautiful?!

Make sure to coat the v-balls and vegetables with this scrumptious thick sauce well.

The sweet and sour is delicious over rice, but I decided to use my recent favorite, Japanese-style fried noodles.

I cooked the noodles over high heat until they were really crunchy.

This turned out to be a great lunch!

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by : Reiko Main Dish, Mushrooms, Noodles/Pasta

King Cauli Scampi
えりカリスカンピ

One of my Instagram friends (she may not think I’m her “friend” but I feel we’re!) had a picture of her cauliflower scampi, and I thought it was a brilliant idea.

And lucky me, I happened to have a head of cauliflower already in my fridge.

She kindly told me how she made hers, but you know me, I have a tendency to digress from any recipes.

So I decided to boil (and then sautee) my cauliflower instead of roasting it.

I also decided to add king mushroom.

The king mushroom has become one of my favorite foods, particularly since I started the plant-based diet.

Its texture and the flavor are so unique, different from anything else, and gives an interesting twist to any dish.

The texture reminds me of that of scallops, particularly used in this dish.

Isn’t it gorgeous?

My King Cali Scampi was served over freshly cooked linguine.

Is it just me that believe that scampi should be served over linguine but not other type of pasta?

I don’t even know where I got the idea.

Freshly squeezed lemon juice and chopped parsley are a must.

I remember one of the celebrity chefs (and I like her and a big fan) always says Italian parsley is more flavorful than curly parsley, and I would quietly disagree (well I don’t really talk to TV (lol)) every time she said that.

I feel that way probably because I grew up with the curly one, and I have a weird pride in using it.

I also like how they look especially when they are chopped.

(This is a completely different subject, but my mom used to deep-fry curly parsley and it was crunchy, flavorful, and delicious! You could really taste the condensed intense parsley flavor. I should make it sometime, maybe next time when I’m in a mood for deep-frying.)

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