Thing-a-day.com

I watched one of the movies I had recorded on the tee-vee tonight.  To be honest, The 47 Ronin part II was hard for me to get through and not a favorite.  Maybe it would’ve helped if I had see part I?  I wanted to check it out because the synopsis looked promising: samurai seek revenge and all 47 of them are sentenced to death by suicide based on a true story. Visually the film had some nice stuff to look at (costumes, hair, a look into different country and different time period). 

This drawing is a paused screenshot from the movie jotted down on paper.  I roughly sketched out the courtyard that these two dudes were sitting in, but later decided to paste over the green-blue notebook paper background instead.  As the movie was in black and white, I was also able to color it however I liked.

 When I am down, what helps me survive: SWEETS!

This is called ‘Ichigo Daifuku.’

Mochi (rice cake), sweet azuki beans and a strawberry inside. I sprinkled a bit of matcha on top.

Tea is becoming popular in coffee mecca Seattle. I hope wagashi (Japanese sweets)  will be introduced soon.

Another small thing for today.

Miso soup is a staple of Japanese cooking. Miso is a fermented paste made from soybeans, rice, barley, or other beans. Chances are, if you’ve eaten at a Japanese restaurant, they brought you out a little complimentary bowl of soup with weird stuff floating in it. That’s miso soup.

I like miso soup because it’s simple and comforting, and you feel all healthy when you eat it. Since I’m vegan, miso soup is sort of my chicken noodle soup. I personally just like it with seaweed, tofu, scallions, and miso, but some people put chopped vegetables and mushrooms in it. Miso can be found in Asian groceries, health food stores, and might even be found near tofu in large grocery stores. At home we use brown rice miso, which is dark brown and has a strong flavor, but you can use whatever kind of miso you like. The seaweed can be found in Asian groceries, health food stores, and probably in the “ethnic” section of large grocery stores. The advantage to keeping the soup simple and leaving vegetables and mushrooms out is that it only takes a little while to prepare, but if you want to add them, put them in before the tofu and scallions and adjust the cooking time accordingly. So, here’s my recipe for

Simple Miso Soup

• 6 cups water + 1 more for diluting the miso
• 1 large (5 or 6 inches) or 2 small (3 or so inches) pieces of kombu, wakame, or nori (leave the kombu whole, but chop the wakame or nori into small pieces)
• 1/2 cup chopped scallions
• 7 0z. firm tofu (1/2 pack of the stuff like Nasoya sold in grocery stores) chopped into 1/4-inch dice, no need to drain it
• 3 or more tablespoons miso, depending on how strong you like the miso flavor and what kind of miso you have
• soy sauce or salt to taste

1. Put the seaweed in a pot with the water and boil for 5-10 minutes. If you’re using kombu, use tongs to remove it from the pot and discard it or use it for another recipe. If you’re using a more…edible variety of seaweed, just keep it in the pot.
2. Add the tofu and scallions and simmer for another 5-10 minutes. Then turn the heat to low.
3. Take a glass measuring cup with one cup of water and microwave it for a minute. Add the miso to the warm water and use a spoon to mash it against the side of the cup and dissolve it. Once the miso is mostly dissolved and the water in the pot is no longer boiling, add it to the pot. (Miso’s healthful properties are destroyed if it’s boiled.)
4. Chances are that the miso flavor will be OK, but the soup won’t be salty enough. Don’t use more miso as a means of salting the soup! By the time it’s salty enough, the miso flavor will be way too strong and you’ll have wasted half a container of miso on one pot of soup. Instead, use soy sauce or salt to season it.
5. Serve hot. This makes 3-4 regular size bowls of soup, or twice as many small bowls if you’re using it as an appetizer.

And here are my results from today:

x-posted

I decided to start early today. Busy day planned ahead with cleaning, seed, planting, crafting, and watching super bowl commercials. Taking pictures of my dog is my favorite thing to do. She interesting to me and getting a good shot is hard because she is always moving and always really close to me.

The photo session started out okay. It was rather difficult to get her a nice distance from me so I could take a photo. I tried to get her to sit and stay far away but this made her get upset. Instead of sitting she was jumping up at my hand. She started to show her little teeth ha. She gets like this when she is annoyed.

In the end she gave up and let me have a nice picture.