vegan chicken salad...

wasn't good. My daughter likes their dumplings but not this salad.

Here is the rest of this week's lunch.

-red beans and rice

-vegan chicken salad (from micro vegetarian, tasted like ice cream..) and spinach and carrot, dates

-Aunt Gussie's gluten-free cookie (gussie...)

-Sea Chips

The red beans and rice this butch was good. I'll share my recipe soon. Even born in New Orleans husband said fantastic. Yay!

-brown rice with nori

-kinpira carrot

-sesame garlic tempeh

-boiled broccoli

Kinpira is sweet and soy saucey, Japanese favorite flavor. (especially kids)

(for 2 people's bento)

1 carrot -cut into fine strips

sesame seeds

a bit of sugar

a bit of soy sauce

a bit of water

pan and rid

1. Sesame seeds in a pan, over medium heat. Roast a bit.

2. throw carrot strips in the pan.

3. Stir fry about 1 or 2 minutes

4. Pour about 3T of water and put rid on to steam until the carrot is tender . The water will be almost gone, I think.

5. Put about 1t of sugar.

6. Put about 1T of soy sauce.

7. Taste it, and add more soy sauce or maybe sugar.

You might already notice, I didn't measure...

-wild rice mix

-boiled broccoli

-coconut curry tempeh

-spinach saute with garlic

-chips(from wholefoods, it's non-GMO!)

-salsa (from a bottle, Green Mountain Gringo)

Taking a picture is difficult.

Today's lunch :

-curry pilaf with tempeh and spinich
-cumin and mustard seed potatoes with cashew from last night
-nuts and dates

-3 slices of apple
-half of coconuts bread muffin

Monday dinner is Indian food. I recently decided. So Tuesday's bento is curry kind of flavor.

She has eating all her lunch lately, so the muffin was a little treat. Other half? I ate it, of course. I eat left over's left over every lunch, I should deserve it. We don't eat wheat much any more other than my bread, so it's special.


I took two pictures of today's lunch. One was too dark, almost brown, one is this one. Plastic wrap got all the light...

stink bug

I got information about the stink bugs on our screen doors and windows.

They are trying to get warm.

The global warming is making different cycle for stink bugs. Summer now is just long enough for them to reproduce another generation. The stink bugs on our screen door are trying to survive from cooler temperature.

I'm sure there are more lives around us that affected by the global warming. Where is the toad that I saw last year? How about the turtle? I hope they are happy somewhere safe and also hope human can make better decisions for them to live too.

Today's lunch.

-quinoa

-left over from Saturday night's steamed kale with Greenlife dumpling sauce, hot and sweet and sesamy.

-sunshine burger

-garlic sesami tempeh

-bit of shredded beets

-one baby carrot

-two baby leave of spinich

Daikon Dinner

Today, I pulled a few daikon raddishes from a community garden where I go:-) Daikon tastes like a bit of turnip, a bit bitter, but juicy.

This is our special dinner:

Tofu no mizore ae - fried tofu with grate Daikon soup

Use tip of tofu. Top part of daikon is sweet, but the tip is spicy. Some people like to use the tip (bottom) part fresh putting on chicken or beef steak with soy saucey sauce. Today, I used the part for making thick soup with tofu.

1. cut tofu, bite size

2. cover the tofu with corn starch, lightly

3. pour some oil in skillet, and fry the tofu all the sides(I fried just two sides, because there isn't enough patient;-), but it works okay). The point to make nice golden brown is not touch the tofu until the corn starch part stick to tofu, instead of the skillet.

4. in a small sauce pan, put some soy sauce, a bit of sugar, sake and mirin if you have, some water, grated ginger, and a piece of kombu(a kind of sea weed). bring to boil, gently, so the kombu makes nice flavor to the soup.

5. put the fried tofu in to the small pan, and put some green onion for garnish.

It makes you warm from inside.

Daikon Salad

Used not tip part of daikon.

1. cut daikon in strips

2. mix some mayonnaise to lightly cover the daikon

3. a bit of salt and pepper to it. I put some tuna for richness(scallops make good daikon salad too!), and edamame for color

Today's our Daikon Dinner

The left brown bowl one is stir fried Garden greens, cabbage, daikon leaf. Fried with sesame oil, salt and pepper. Garnish with sesame seeds. The greens are sweet.

Daikon contains diastase, it helps your stomach. Also My aunt told me to use for easing coughing and soar throat. Cut daikon really thin, pour some honey on to it, mix to cover the daikon with the honey, and wait a while. The daikon makes juice after a while, and drink the juice. You can get these results when you eat daikon fresh, because diastase isn't survive with heat.

Japanese eat daikon often as a pickle. Also cut thick and simmer cooked with dashi(sea weed or/and dried fish stock), fry like a steak with teriyaki style sauce is good too. I hope you enjoy this magical vegetable!

wondering.

I made them for 4-year-old boy who isn't fun of birthday cakes. I'm not into a "American" store birthday cake either, it has unnecessary thick coat of butter cream on it. It makes my teeth squealing. Even healthy teeth.
So, I tried Japanese recipe, because it's light, and uses whipped cream instead of butter cream.

Maybe too girlish or toddlerish...? I couldn't see his expression well when he saw these cakes. Maybe he just doesn't care about cake, like my husband was when he was little.

Anyway, I baked cake with egg in it, and I whipped heavy cream first time in my life.
I found a nice easy recipe from COOKPAD. When you whip, put jam instead of suger. Just a minite of whipping by hand. The cream gets a bit harder than I wanted, but taste like fruity cream cheese. I like it:-)
The link is here. The ladybug idea is also from COOKPAD.

I named them Totoro Cup Cake, because there are acorns, and kind of nature theme.
I tasted just now, and it was good the top part, but dry the bottom part... It was moist before I put it in my refrigerater, though. It's a disappointment.
Now, I'm in a journey to a recipe that is good for refrigerating, or that makes non-melt decoration for summer time.

I wonder the boy liked them...

9/3 : vegan quiche

We love this vegan quiche, especially my daughter. It's made with tofu. What I like is that the pie part is made out of brown rice. Beans and rice, and some vegetables too! It's balanced meal:-) I got this recipe from here.

I'm still getting help from fake meat for almost every meal. My friend and I were talking about how we could eat healthy yesterday, and we both were against process food. I'm inconsistent.
Last night my husband point out if I make twice much of dinner, I won't need to use fake meat so much, like this quiche. He also said I will have more time. I agree.

6/30

yesterday's left over (spinich and potato w/vegan cheese)
Earth Fare Almond Grain Burger
Kuma-san Maki (Bear roll..) from COOKPAD --this is NOT vegan...it has fish.


Carolina Wren(?) made a nest in my husband's birthday present. The plant isn't well..., but the nest is getting bustling~