TBT, baby!

One of the new directives we are taking to heart with our revamped nutritional plan is to not waste food. Whether it is leftovers, fresh fruits or vegetables nearing the end of their life span in the crisper, or sheer boredom, we are newly determined to use our food more thoroughly, more creatively, and not waste our resources.

A yen for the yin...

I remember with clarity my love affair with fresh shiitake mushrooms, how I wanted to eat them in everything, and the ensuing furor when my macrobiotic counselor found out that my next door neighbor and I were sauteeing them by the pan full and consuming them with gusto. At that time it was rare to find them fresh, but we had found a unique little grocer not far from us owned by an Asian man that also carried tons of organic groceries we needed for our new lifestyle. So each week we loaded up bags of the mushrooms, and enjoyed them...that is, until Mina found out.

Daikon blossoms and miso happiness...

It is not uncommon for us to start our day with soup, a hangover from my days as a macrobiotic cook. There is something so comforting about a bowl of miso, something so centering for the start of the day, that we generally have this dish three times a week, supplementing it with a bowl of greens and sometimes a grain dish.

What's in your bowl?

This is what has been in our bowls for breakfast this week. It's not unusual for us to eat a breakfast of miso soup, grain and greens a couple of times a week, a holdover from our macrobiotic days, and we also have a love of Vietnamese and Indian food as well. We had planned a trip to T&J down in Little Saigon, but other things intervened, so I pulled out this Thai seasoned stock which includes a healthy dose of lemon grass and sriracha...yum! This stood in for my usual homemade shiitake ginger broth as the base for our morning soup. If you can find this at your super, latch on to some...it's delicious!

We'd had soup for dinner last night, something Alain had been wanting to try, an Indian recipe made of sweet red peppers and tons of spices. I guess we still had a hankering for those flavors this morning...here is what we ended up having...a multi-cultural breakfast!

On the right, our bowl of morning soup, jazzed up with that Thai soup stock, and loaded with vegetables: onion, carrot, and translucent slices of daikon cut in flower shapes. There are a couple of vegetable dumplings floating in there, all topped with a generous handful of cilantro and mint, cut chiffonade.

At left, is our Indian inspired side dish. There were no greens in the fridge, so yams stood in for our vegetable, wet sauteed with sliced onions, and seasoned with garam masala and some sweet curry. At the last minute we tossed in some sliced scallions and slivered almonds, for an extra little burst of nutrients. There's a whole wheat chapati, toasted on our tortilla roaster, and a dollop of non-fat Greek yogurt...sort of like the sour cream on your baked potato.

Bon appetite, Kalí óreksi, and बोन अप्पेतित !