Japanese Futari


Japanese Food

Roasted Daikon and Eggplant

Soft Tofu with Green Onion and Ginger

Even though there are many dishes, this is a meal prepared for two people!

Typically, each food item is placed in its own separate bowl, and then the group eating the food take from the bowl with their chopsticks and serve themselves as they go. Rice and tofu are typically served per each guest eating, and you use these bowls to eat from as you select different foods from the rest of the table.

Here is prepared, from top left and clockwise:
- Nori paper (for mochi)
- Roasted daikon and eggplant
- Green tea
- Adzuki beans
- Brown rice
- Tofu with green onion and ginger
- Butter (for mochi!) :)
- Mochi
- Sauteed kabocha with shoyu
- .. more tofu, beans, tea and rice

This is probably one of my favourite things to make and eat. It’s fun, whole food, and more socially interesting than just chowing down a huge plate of food and then stretching back uncomfortably from a heavy over feeding. With Japanese food, because you are constantly selecting little portions at a time into your bowl, the eating process is a lot longer, more mindful, with more variety.

You can do this with any food. Prepare lunch items, or Mediterranean food in many small dishes, and spend hours picking at the variety of foods.

Something that made this especially Asian – we sat on the floor! :)

Subscribe to Michael's Updates!

Fall is Squashing us into Soup

We picked up some squash at the market this week, and after being away in Bali for the month of September, the stark transition from spring/summer (in Bali) to fall (Canada) wasn’t anymore noticeable than at the local market. Hearty storing vegetables abound at this time of year, and my appreciation for gathering peaks as I imagine myself buying 50 lb bags of root veggies and squash to stow away in the cellar for the year. The idea of it sounds amazing, but the reality challenges me. I may look into what I need to get my cellar or sun porch set up to accommodate huge amounts of storing vegetables for the winter – besides, I have several rows of leeks waiting patiently in the garden to be pulled, but I love the fact that I can just leave them out there as they endure the cold weather better than I do. I wonder if this super-hero like ability to survive through cold weather is transferred to us when we eat it, but indeed, it does! Leeks are a warming tonic for the body, and especially kidneys, which have the hardest time enduring winter, and so yes, leeks do help us keep warm through the winter… which brings us to soup.
I’m eating a great deal of animal foods right now, which is a little unusual for me, but my kidneys are thanking me sincerely. I shed over 5 lbs at the Healing with Whole Foods retreat and the animal foods/fats seem to be just the medicine! So, this recipe turned out pretty rich, but thankfully acclimatized me to Canadian weather.
I feel like I need to write this in every post I write, food is to be created by you. A recipe is merely an idea – a sketch to inspire and illuminate the creative culinary process, and so as I start the dish off with warming butter in a pan, may I remind you that you can use other fats, or oils, or simply water (and which oils and fats to use is a WHOLE other discussion which I cannot get into right now), but feel free to use what seems right to you. Same with squash- because I used butternut squash doesn’t mean you need to. You could use any squash, or even cooked carrots, potatoes or whatever! This is my aversion to recipes, it seems to enclose people and keep them from being creative, which is not my intention. Also, I rarely use measurements and encourage trial and error, common sense and a little intuition. So here goes…
Recipe
Butter fried garlic and leek
Cooked butternut squash mushed into the pan
Curry, cumin, coriander, turmeric and chillies
Leftover rice (use just a bit because this made it REALLY thick!..)
Cashew butter
(blend)
Top with:
Bacon (the good kind :)
Toasted pumpkin seeds
Mochi
I almost don’t want to post this because of the heavy fat content in the dish, which most of my clients can’t handle. Fat will help build the body with the cooperation of a well functioning liver, but most folks don’t have this privilege and may make any conditions they have worse until the liver is improved. But that is not for me to decide. Here is the recipe and I hope it inspires you to make a fall soup!

http://www.michaelfisher.ca

Subscribe to Michael's Updates!

Foods to get better by…

OK – so I came down with a bug this month. I did alright, recovering in a few days, but what did I eat? I thought I’d take a picture for you!

From bottom left, clockwise:
  • Oven cooked oatmeal with apples and cinnamon and a bit of goat milk
  • Tea decoction including echinacea, ginger, lemon, fenugreek, thyme, fennel, flax, and a little licorice root (that was made for my condition on the day that I had it.. this isn’t a catch-all solution)
  • Sprouted bread, slightly toasted
  • Pureed leftover soup stock ingredients
  • Water with oxygen and a little apple cider vinegar
  • Mochi (white,.. it was a gift) with nori paper
This was on the day that I noticed I was starting to heal, otherwise in the acute stages I’d suggest eating very little or only teas or foods cooked in lots of water (thus the soup stock!).. once the body starts to feel like it’s winning, food is better suited if not overeaten, especially grains and cooked veggies. I picked at this tray all day… it was nice to have handy as I sat on my big pillow and let the healing juices flow.

http://www.michaelfisher.ca

Subscribe to Michael's Updates!

Mochi: the pounded rice cake you can cook!


What do you get when you overcook rice, slam it with a hammer, form it, mold it and let it dry. Mochi!! Yummy.. warming, building, harmonizing – and a festive food for those celebrating the New Year in Japan. Served with a little butter (goat’s), black pepper, shoyu and wrapped in nori  paper. Comfort food that came home with us from Japan.

http://www.michaelfisher.ca

Subscribe to Michael's Updates!