Good morning!

Puffed wheat made an appearance at breakfast again. I’m in love with this stuff, it has the texture of popcorn with the flavor of wheat. I sprinkled it on top of fig yogurt with blueberries and puffed amaranth. Apparently, I really like puffed foods.

Tried something a little different for dinner last night. I make miso-glazed salmon about once every other week. As delicious as it is, it’s getting old. This time I used black bean sauce instead and it was really good!

This is the sauce, it’s very salty and slightly sour, not beany-flavored at all. I just spread a thin layer of the sauce over the salmon and baked it at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.

And served it with a stir fry of yo choy sum and shiitake mushrooms…

To make this, I heat sesame oil in a wok and first stir fry the chopped yo choy sum stems. Then the mushrooms and scallions go in, followed by some pre-cooked rice. Once the rice is toasted I toss in the yo choy sum leaves and add a splash each of rice vinegar, mirin, and soy sauce. I also threw some seaweed flake and sesame seed in this one for some added flavor.

This whole dinner is done in 20 minutes. It’s one of my favorite meals to make because it takes very little effort for a very nice result. That and I love cooking with my wok, it’s a fun toy!

Today I’m polishing up a few new blog features that I’ve had in the works for a while. I completely overhauled my About page because the story I had there has absolutely nothing to do with what I blog about now. And maybe you noticed that I changed my header image. Well, I don’t like it and I’ll probably change it again soon. The bright block of green is just too jarring.

What types of header images are your favorite?

July 20, 2011 Alayna Discussion 2 comments

Just as predicted, the nice weather didn’t last and this week has been awash in shades of gray and just literally washed with buckets of rain.

I’ve spent several days feeling a bit moody at being trapped indoors with the memory of sunny walks into town that took place such a short time ago. I’ve used the “opportunity” to practice a few extra-long yoga sessions in the dining room, trying not to fall out of pose onto one or more curious cats.

But sometimes you just gotta get out of the house!

We hit up Garlic Thai again this week for a spicy little reminder of approaching spring. I got the fruitiest, springiest cocktail I could find on the menu; one with lychee, ginger, and sake. It was fruit-tastic. The maraschino cherry makes it fancy. 😉

Jeff got a barley shochu that was a bit lighter than he was wanting, but it was still good.

We both shared a plate of the prettiest spring rolls I’ve ever seen.

Love the basil leaves pressed perfectly between the layers of soft and chewy rice paper.

I got a miso soup. This one was pretty salty and inauthentic. Pretty sure it was a powdered mix or something and it had the wrong kind of seaweed in it; tasted like thick lettuce.

I got a glass noodle salad called Yum Woon Sen that had minced chicken and grilled shrimp all in a spicy lime-flavored sauce.

Unholy gates of hell! This was the single spiciest thing I’ve ever put in my mouth! Jeff asked for his curry to be Thai hot, and my dish was listed as mild on the menu. I think they got switched because I was sweating and breathing hard and my lips were huge and painfully red.

Jeff’s panang curry, on the other hand, was sweet and delicious. It had some heat to it but not nearly as much as my little salad did!

Still love Garlic Thai though. I can’t wait until it’s warm out again so we can drink fruity cocktails on their nice patio.

Tonight we got out again for sushi at Sushi Avenue. It’s not the best sushi place ever but it’s only a mile from our apartment so I can’t complain.

I had an Asahi Black beer which I love. It’s so roasty and malty, tastes a bit like toasted buckwheat or roasted barley. We both got seaweed salads to munch on. I was telling Jeff how much I like the sound it makes in your head when you crunch on the seaweed! Yeah, he thought that was weird.

Of course we ordered takoyaki, and it was just as awesome this time as it always is.

For sushi we got 2 inari, a crunchy eel roll, a spicy tuna roll, and a scorpion roll. Sushi Avenue is bad about cutting their pieces too large and packing too much rice around the rolls. It all tastes great though.

And here’s something I made at home earlier this week…

Miso-glazed salmon with stir-fried bok choy and shiitake mushrooms. It was so, so, so good! I love this dish, it takes so little effort to prepare.

Well, the weather is supposed to perk up a bit for this weekend, so maybe we can get out a bit and not feel so cramped up in the house.

I’m excited that I’ll get to attend an Atlanta blogger meet-up at 5 Seasons this Saturday!

What are your weekend plans?

March 10, 2011 Alayna Discussion 7 comments

Jeff and I just had a delicious mixed lunch of various yummy things.

Our favorite Pacific brand creamy tomato soup. We go through a carton of this stuff every week!

Some quinoa with chickpeas that I made in the rice cooker. Making it with vegetable broth rather than water makes it so much tastier.

Smashed avocado on toast with seaweed flake. We don’t use iodized salt in our house so I try to sneak seaweed in wherever I can to get in our proper iodine fix.

And some leftovers from last night: honey mustard salmon and sauteed veggies. I sliced up some red bell pepper, shiitakes, carrot, and gai lon broccoli (found this at the market and had to try it, it has a broccoli-like stalk but with leaves rather than florets.) I threw in some leftover brown rice, just a touch of soy sauce, and toasted sesame seeds to finish it off. So fresh!

Jeff made us our third round of tea for today to have with lunch. He likes to use the black tetsubin I got him for Christmas when he needs to make a lot of tea.

Awesome lunch of many of my favorite flavors!

Trying to decide what to do with the rest of our day. The sun is finally shining after nearly a week of rain and/or gloom.

What are your weekend plans?

February 5, 2011 Alayna Discussion 10 comments