Please Keep Trying!

When visitors come over, for some reason, some of them expect to eat at a table filled with udon and sushi. They’re disappointed if they realize they’ll be eating foods, with a twist, they can make at home. I don’t eat Japanese foods every night. How boring would that be!

Don’t get me wrong, I adore Japanese cuisine. I have one of the best stocked Japanese pantries in the area, and my freezer is filled with seafood, abura age, mochi and anko. If someone were to pop over now and demand an authentic meal, I don’t believe I’d disappoint. But making it every night? I honestly couldn’t do it.

However, every night, I do eat similarly to Japanese cuisine. I love almost all ethnic cooking, and even a few American down home recipes. I eat a wide and diverse variety of foods, from Indian to Mexican. I simply apply the basics of Japanese cooking to other recipes. Traditionally, the Japanese would eat tofu, seafoods, rice, and lots of vegetables at their meals.

If I wanted to eat a “Japanese-Italian” meal, I could use TVP “meat” for the tofu, noodles for the rice and add as many veggies to the mix as possible. Viola, I just made a meal following the basic pattern of traditional Japanese ingredients.

In today’s world, where the Far East is thankfully no longer referred to as the “Orient”, soy products are becoming a part of our food vocabulary. There’s soy milk in most grocery stores, along with tofu and the ever wonderful Gardenburger and Boca brand “meat” products, made from soy protein.

One of my secrets is I try and bulk everything up with vegetables. I can sneak a bell pepper or carrot in many things without people catching on to my nefarious deed of subvertly cleaning their arteries. If I’m serving kitsune udon, I add a bigger portion of spinach to my bowl compared to the abura age and noodles. In a stirfry, I tend to use very little seafood and more veggies and tofu. For my enchiladas, my ratio of vegetables (onions, peppers, spinach) to beans is pretty high.

I have a large food repertoire and I don’t eat Japanese cuisine every night. I enjoy a diverse selection of foods ranging from pescetarian to vegan, from Middle American to Middle Eastern. Eating healthily is like working out: you should never get bored with your routine!