Give Me Bananas

Morning pals! Please excuse my absence yesterday. My laptop is still dead (though it might get fixed today, hooray!) and I had to work through lunch break. Fun times, I can tell you.

At least I managed to catch up with a few blogs though my google reader is still on +400.  Le sigh.

Anyway, let’s back up a little. Despite the fact that yesterday was super busy and a MONDAY, I had a good time. Don’t know why.. Some days are just good. Maybe it’s because it’s March? I seriously can’t believe that it’s already March. Time flies, doesn’t it?

Some bloggers asked about March challenges and I didn’t plan anything… until I saw soba noodles on Coco’s blog.

Now here’s a confession: Despite the fact that I’m 1/2 Japanese and speak it every day due to my job I hardly know anything about this country! First of all: I’ve only made sushi once. With my mum. Sure, I’ve made instant ramen (pre-veggie times) but who can’t boil instant noodles? And secondly I’m not very familiar with traditions and customs. They weren’t very important to my mum (she’s kind of a punk, hehe) and we never learned much about them. So my March challenge is going to be like this:

I’ll cook at least one (vegetarian) Japanese meal per week.

There are so many recipes that call for fish sauce and I’ll make some vegetarian variations of these recipes. I seriously miss ramen but to be honest: I could have made my own version ages ago! I think that also falls into the “I should try this and that recipe but don’t have enough time"-category.

Anyway, this is going to be a fun challenge. I hope you don’t mind my increased rambling about Japan but I realize more and more how important it is to know your roots. As a kid I was always embarrassed because other children teased me and asked me if my mum slaughters whales too.. I just wanted to be normal. It’s funny how we try to be(come) “special” when we grow up though.

Back to food!!

I fell in love with the Thrive recipes. They simple and with ingredients that aren’t too exotic. Basically it’s all I want from a good recipe. After the first round of goodies I made more Thrive-food.

First up the vegetable crackers.

It took me some time to make them because my food processor was way too small.

 

But after some work I got a nice mixture that I spread onto a baking sheet and baked as advised.

They turned out FABULOUS! Seriously, I never thought that they would be that good.

I also made some sunflower seed pâté to go with it.

It doesn’t look tasty at all but it’s so good (again a bit crunchy because of my lame mini-processor). I love the garlic flavour!

+ This morning I also made some tomato basil salad dressing.

While I was making the crackers and pâté, Selina made some gnocchi and tofu that she got from the organic food store.

 

We served it with some crunchy celery.

 

Loved the gnocchi! They tasted very authentic and worked well with the rosso tofu.

Afterwards we watched the first few episodes of season 1 of The O.C.! Did you watch the show too? It was so hilarious to see the old episodes. My sister and I always have the biggest party when we watch TV shows together and yesterday wasn’t any different. We commented on every single silly line and sang along to the theme song (“Californiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa here we cooooooooome”).

Ah, I love nights like these.

Today I cooked some oats and made some salad sauce (you’ve got to use every second of your free time ) + a sandwich for lunch.

It included sunflower seed pâté, spinach, yellow bell pepper and 1 hard boiled egg. Can’t wait to take a bite.

Q: Do you have any challenge planned for March?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010 at 11:22 am and is filed under Dinner, Lunch, Snacks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.