Food, glorious food

OK. These dishes all look rather similar. All over (or, under-) whelmingly ... green. Well, I'm going vegan, at last, and this is my first foray. As it turns out, despite sushi and yakiniku, Japan is good place to do it. For me, fish and meat are fairly easy to renounce (especially after a stomach-turning look at PETA's slaughterhouse footage). I envision cheese to be somewhat more of a temptation... but perhaps not so much in Japan where good cheese is expensive and hard to get hold of (and perhaps after a few more PETA-like horror stories). So anyway, I did a bit of googling for an accompaniment to our hijiki dish and found this great page, VeganYumYum, whence came the salad (Avocado Wasabi Salad) and wheat gluten dishes (Seitan and Broccolini with Clementine Teriyaki). And they were amazingly delicious. Seitan (wheat gluten) was not to be found in my local stores (I am wondering if this is not used in Japan as I've never come across it), so I replaced it with loops of grilled fu (kizami shonaifu - also wheat gluten). The combination of avocado and wasabi as a dressing for the salad was absolutely mouthwatering, and for greens component, I prepared very lightly simmered rape leaves. I also added gingko nuts, cooked in a little olive oil.

This week, while Urban Mugwort has been at Tokyo Fashion Week, Rural Mugwort has been in the mountains, stomping about in the snow (hence the blog-absence) - and savouring more vegan food - a vegetable nabe with soy milk in it at the temple, Koya-dofu and goma (sesame) tofu,...walnut rice cakes and baked sweet potato at the cake shop Miroku no ishi (Maitreya's Stone). Back in Kyoto I serendipitously discovered a Zen cookery book on the shelf at the research center. So the vegan thing is all coming together from different directions.

For the hijiki, then, I had to find a replacement for the pork, and used kyo-dofu (sheets of tofu), grilled till it was a little crispy, and then sliced. Hijiki is black seaweed, reconstituted in cold water. it's really good for a vegan diet as it's high in calcium (which is a major concern) and iron. It's most often used in this dish, where it is fried in a little oil, and mixed with juilenned carrots, green beans, soy sauce, mirin, and sugar.

Must get back to revision - massage exam this weekend. But please don't think I'm getting all smug and health-conscious. I have a long- and lovingly-cultivated collection of extremely unhealthy habits, that I wouldn't be without (this could, of course, be read: "addictions"...).
Everything in moderation, I say...

Menu:

1) hijiki, carrots, seaweed, beans, kyo-dofu
2) avocado wasabi salad
3) broccoli and fu with citrus teriyaki
4) Green overload