Natto as part of a complete breakfast

This is how I presented the Japanese chicken-chested man his breakfast the second time I made natto-spinach egg rolls. Or well, not egg rolls, but rolled up eggs. Like curly omelets. On the left you will find our green hand-felted brontosaurus from the craft fair that we went to with the very artsy-fartsy Robin, admiring and thinking about yoinking T's breakfast. On the main plate there's the spinach-natto-ponzu rolls (protein), in the upper left is kinpira gobo (fiber), and in the upper right is boiled sweet potatoes (fiber and starch). Like every complete Wa-foo breakfast, this is accompanied by miso soup (this one has enoki, tofu, wakame (the usual flat and dark green miso soup seaweed), and possibly something else, I can't remember), rice topped with shirasu (sweet, dried sanjeel fish), and Yama-moto-yama (a nice brand, nicer than Trader Joe's not-even-green) green tea.

Here is a closer-up shot of the main dish:

Learning from T's mama, the consummate Japanese housemommy, everything but the egg thing is leftover from the day before.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "WHAT IS KINPIRA GOBO?!?" I will tell you so you don't have to go and Google it. First, kinpira is pronounced "keeM-pee-ra" because of what geeky people call place assimilation. Next, gobo is burdock root (the long, as in 3 to 4-foot-long, 1" diameter tapered brown stick things at Asian supermarkets that you can get for about $0.80 each,) and kinpira gobo means you stir-fry it Japanese-style with carrots and top with sesame seeds.

I will post the complete recipe in another post once I have a nice close-up photo of it. But that won't happen until after the next time we buy gobo. So gimme about a week or two.

CAN YOU WAIT THAT LONG?!?! がんばって、ね！！

And I will conclude with a picture of when I caught the dinosaur sneaking into the green tea:

BAD BRONTOSAURUS, BAD! GET YOUR OWN TEA!!!

Natto & spinach breakfast egg rolls

This item was inspired by a photo of a sample breakfast on a package of natto. In case you don't know yet, natto is sticky, slimy, fermented soybeans. It is infamous among non-Japanese as the ultimate, authentic Japanese, "um, yeah...I can handle/love wasabi/red bean paste/uni/raw horse meat (more on that later) but I wouldn't touch this with a ten-foot-pole" breakfast food. I think natto has this reputation because we foreigners try to eat it PLAIN, which is quite the horrible idea, since it's slightly bitter, stinky, and otherwise mostly tasteless. But if you buy the kind that comes with sauce, and add hot mustard, and maybe a raw egg yolk, then hooooo lordy lord, it is soooooo gooooood!

Here is a closeup of le "egg roll" (photos courtesy the cute Japanese man):

I made this like an omelet, and the filling is natto (with sauce), chopped (frozen) spinach, and a bit of ponzu. I made this for breakfast for T and he actually loves it so much he has declared it his favorite breakfast food by Gi. やった！

Tomorrow, I will post a photo of this item as part of a more complete wa-foo (i.e. Japanese) breakfast. Get excited! じゃ、またね！

Sail Forth, Ye Ship Full Of Homemade Japanese Food

Welcome to Gi's new blog about something sort of more interesting than how boring it is to be a housewife, i.e. her homemade assemblies/creations of Japanese-inspired GRANDE CUISINE. Or should I say, "GRANDE CUISINE!!!" Or no, better yet, "~☆GURANDO KUIJIIN☆~".

What led up to this blog? Well, since I don't make money, I can't afford to go out to restaurants, so I eat at home. And since I am married to a cute (and skinny, chicken-chested) Japanese guy, I have to make cute food. And since I think Japanese food is super-duper yummy, I try to make cute Japanese food. AND, since I need a hobby, I am going to post pictures of my work for the enjoyment of the entire universe. Et voila, GURANDO KUIJIIN!!!

I have quite a backlog of photos, so what I post will be stuff from this past year mixed with more recent stuff.

ENJOY!! 　いただきま～す！ごちそうさま！