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, Mushrooms, Sandwiches, Tofu

Truly Awesome Blue Cheese Burger
凄いヨ！ブルーチーズバーガー

Blue cheese burger has always been one of my husband’s favorite burgers.

Remember?

I just made plant-based blue cheese using the recipe from this book.

Well, there was a reason my husband asked me to make the blue cheese first.

 

Since I couldn’t decide if I wanted to use tofu or portabella mushrooms for the “burger”, I decided to go with both.

Can you tell how beautifully the blue cheese melted?

Onion slices were placed first, and then teriyaki-balsamic glaze was generously drizzled over everything.

I mean, really, how awesome does this look?!

These burgers were prepared for the Memorial Day Weekend, and it was a perfect main dish.

Happy Thursday everyone.

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by : Reiko Other

Vegan Blue Cheese
乳製品を使わない手作りブルーチーズ

Can you believe this beautiful Blue Cheese does not contain dairy?!

Who knew you can make vegan cheese this easily?

It was such a fun project for me to work on.

It all started when my husband found this book at a local bookstore.

 

As you can see, it has blue veins just like the regular blue cheese does.

I wore my brand-new apron I just found during my recent trip with a friend to a vintage-antique store in St. Cloud.

This looked hand-made, and I loved the country look as well as the colors.

If you ever visit St. Cloud in Minnesota, check out this store.

Okay, back to cheese.

This is how it looked after rested for a day.

You may ask if it tastes like blue cheese?

My answer would be “Not exactly”.

But it does taste good as something different.

I’m probably a bit more critical, because my husband says it’s “dead-on”.

I do agree with him that this is definitely a good plant-based alternative.

And it looks pretty similar to the regular blue cheese.

It’s supposed to “age” with time, so I’m interested how the taste changes over time.

These stitches are so pretty.

I wonder if you can do this by hand or by using a sewing machine?!

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by : Reiko Main Dish, Sandwiches

Memorial Day Lunch
メモリアルデー・ランチ

I slept in this morning.

I went for a looooong bike ride in the late afternoon yesterday.

I didn’t think I was that tired, but apparently my body needed the extra sleep to recover.

So I’m very proud of myself because this morning I got up and then went for another bike ride!

This time it was not as long as the yesterday’s but I had a nice sweaty workout.

After a quick shower and a big glass of ice water, I began preparing lunch.

Menu:

-Portabella Tofu Gorgonzola Burger
-Mustard Potato Celery Salad
-Green Salad
-Corn on the cob
-Watermelon
-No Layer Trifle

Mustard Potato Celery Salad.

For my potato salad, a must ingredient is celery.

Since I put so much celery, I don’t know if I should call it “potato salad” or “celery salad”!

LOVE watermelon!

Only problems are 1) I can only buy one when my husband is with me (too heavy to carry with other groceries); 2) It’s often too much for myself (my husband is not a big watermelon fan, so usually I end up eating the whole melon myself).

Dessert was a no-layer trifle.

Cubed sponge cake was served with almond flavored cream and fresh berries.

I do own a lot of gingham clothes, don’t I?!

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by : Reiko Sweets

Peach Raspberry Kind Cake
ピーチラズベリー優しいケーキ

KIND (yes, the company that makes bars) says there is a difference between “nice” and “kind”.

According to them, “nice” is polite, but “kind” is honest.

A few days ago my husband spent an afternoon with his father.

They had lunch, worked on his computers, and then went shopping together.

When they went to Costco for shopping because each needed something there, my father-in-law, without telling my husband, bought an extra large jar of peaches for my husband to bring home.

He used to get us meat or homemade ice cream.

It makes me appreciate that he still tries to get us something even after our diet changed.

That really warms my heart.

He always does things to make you feel that you matter.

My father-in-law is truly a kind man.

When my husband came home with a jar of peaches, I happened to have just baked a sponge cake.

We looked at each other and said “peach cake!”

We even had the same idea of adding raspberries to our peach cake.

Instead of using whipped cream, I decided to make vanilla cashew cream.

The Peaches were generously used for this cake.

They were placed on the top and also between the cake layers.

This cake tasted delicious and “kind”.

I truly believe that this no-egg no-dairy cake is “kind” to our body.

I’m anxious to finish this post and send a picture of the cake to my father-in-law.

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by : Reiko Beans/Lentils, Soup/Stew

T’s White Bean Soup
お気に入り白豆スープ

I like bean soup, but this white bean soup is my husband’s absolute favorite.

We haven’t had it for a while, so when I received a formal request, I was happy to make it.

I usually don’t add too much to my white bean soup, but this time I had this idea of putting a few things.

And one of them was my V-sausage.

Other than sausage, in this soup are potatoes, corn, and kale.

Oh, and a little crushed red pepper on top.

I made a big batch, and I can take a little break from cooking for a few days (or not).

Usually the problem is the opposite, because I come up with too many ideas and make too many things for just the two of us!

This soup was delicious!!

I absolutely loved it.

I’m so glad that my husband suggested bean soup, because I really liked using beans to thicken the soup instead of using flour-fat based roux.

By the way, the lovely soup bowl you see in this post is one of my recent purchases.

This is Ms. Ree’s brand, and I fell in love with their colorful and rustic look.

Her TV cooking show, The Pioneer Woman, has been one of my favorite cooking shows for a few years.

Although I no longer eat meat, I still enjoy the show; well, she is married to a cattle rancher, so her food is definitely NOT vegan (lol).

I watch her show because I like her food “ideas” for sure, but mostly I’m really interested in the country life she lives.

I’m definitely a city girl, and I will probably never live in country, but I always like “imagining” a country life.

I guess I enjoy vicariously experiencing a country life through her show.

Happy Saturday everyone!

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by : Reiko Sweets

Lady W’s Jar Cake
レディーWのジャーケーキ

A lot of good things come in a jar, if you ask me.

And this is definitely one of them.

Since I’m more confident in making vegan sponge cake, I don’t get stressed out much anymore.

I found this recipe a few months ago, and I’ve made cake using this recipe so many times already.

I trust this recipe, because every time it comes out of the oven perfect.

I wasn’t sure if these jars I already have would work for jar cakes, but I decided to go with them.

I Thought smaller but taller ones would be better, but these actually worked just fine.

You can see the layers well, and since they are not too tall, it’s easy to get to the bottom with a regular spoon.

I guess I haven’t told you exactly what kind of cake it is that I made.

Well, this is basically a red wine dark chocolate cake.

Rich dark chocolate mousse was sandwiched with delicious moist cake soaked in heavenly red wine syrup.

(And extra wine syrup was drizzled later as well!)

This is definitely a dessert for adults.

Or specifically the adults who can handle the decadent flavor combination of dark chocolate and red wine.

You may ask “How did you come up with the idea?!”

Well, it all started with our leisure stroll to the specialty food store, Golden Fig.

When I saw this chocolate covered wine grapes, I knew I wanted to make a cake that would combine dark chocolate and wine flavors together.

This jar cake was absolutely wonderful.

Moist yet light cake, sweet yet slightly tart red wine, and rich yet not-overly sweet dark chocolate…

Each component was great, but when they were put together?

Well, unbelievably GOOD.

Have an awesome weekend everyone!

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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 Main Dish, Pizza/Flatbread

Fun Fun Fun! Waffle Pizza
嬉し楽しいワッフルピザ

When I saw Ms. Ree making Waffle Maker Pizza on TV, I was fascinated and couldn’t wait to try it!

This was such a fun project for me and my husband to work on together.

We went back and forth, and it took us a while to decide if we wanted to cook the whole thing (after putting toppings) in the waffle maker or not.

Finally, we decided to make pizza in both ways; after I agreed to clean the waffle maker.

Oh, and we also made two types of dough: regular and rice flour (just for fun; we are not on the gluten-free diet).

And, this time we used our home-made mozzarella cheese.

The cheese was made with this recipe, and I really liked it.

This is my first homemade rice flour pizza.

The crust is crunchy and chewy at the same time.

I actually really liked it (it’s overall lighter than the regular one).

And this one is the regular crust, cooked completely in the waffle maker.

It was messy, but DELICIOUS!!

Did I say messy?!

I really liked the pizza texture that the waffle maker creates.

I think it’s a brilliant idea!

Besides, am I the only one who has this much fun making pizza in a waffle maker?!

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by : Reiko Asian Food, Breakfast, Japanese Food, Rice/Grains

J-Style Country Breakfast: Onigiri
田舎めし

I just got back from a two-day trip to Chicago.

Love the windy city.

It was a short trip, but I ran into the fabulous donut shop where I had one of the best donuts (vegan) ever: Firecakes Donuts.

If you visit or live in Chicago, go there!

I had dark chocolate donut and it was insanely good.

The donut alone was worth traveling to the city.

I also got to try delicious Korean food at Amitabul.

I had their Dr. K’s Cure All Noodle Soup and All-Vegan Pizza, and they were both delicious!

But there is always a must-stop place in Chicago when we drive there, Mitsuwa, a Japanese grocery store.

Although our Twin Cities local Asian grocery stores carry a lot of Japanese foods now, there are still things you only find at Mitsuwa.

I got several goodies, and these are one of them: traditional Japanese fermented pickles.

I decided to make onigiri (Japanese rice ball) using these pickles for breakfast this morning.

The dark one is “Pickled Melon with Bake Less”; that’s what the package says.

And the lighter one is “Natural Nuka Takuan; Pickled Rice Bran Radish”.

I love Japanese pickles, and I grew up eating a lot of these.

My parents used to call me “Miss Tsukemono (pickles in Japanese)”.

Freshly cooked brown rice.

This country style breakfast was exactly what I wanted to create after a long drive home from the city.

I even made miso soup, and I was proud of myself!

This is something my husband picked up at Mitsuwa.

This is a type of sencha green tea, called “Gyoku-ro”.

Gyoku-ro is the king of sencha green tea, and of course, the “Grower’s Reserve” sign got his attention.

We tried a cup last night, and he really liked it.

But he said it’s going to be a weekend tea, because it’s special (well, it’s expensive for sure, lol).

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