Day 3 - the most exotic (??) day yet...

Well, day 3...was interesting. As noted in day 2, I didn't get around to making dinner on day 2, and I'm way too type A to let that mess up my lunch for Day 3 which was supposed to be leftovers. So, I dragged myself out of bed at 5am to make the meal. Now, realize I would NEVER go to this much trouble to make a special lunch to take to work on a normal day...but I'm determined to follow the experiment to my best ability.

Oh - and I just had leftover breakfast from day 2.

So...here is what I made. So weird....

Above is hijiki-tofu croquets...yeah, I think they look and sound gross too. Plus, hijiki is seaweed and I'm still getting used to this whole sea vegetable thing. PLUS - I have never fried a food in my life. So as I pour oil into a pan, the dietitian in me was disgusted, and the frugal person in me was thinking how much of a waste I am making with using all this oil. THEN, when the oil started bubbling, I was all panicky that the whole thing was going to just explode. Terrified, I threw in the croquettes (tofu, hijiki, carrots, and burdock root) into the oil standing as far away from the pot as I could. Shockingly - these were pretty darn good!!! You dip them in a mix of mirin (diluted sake, basically), soy sauce, and lemon juice....DELICIOUS!! The recipe made enough that I could freeze them for another meal...
Scarey-weird food #1 - really good

Then we move on to the Pressed salad. Now I tried to figure out why pressed salads were so important for macrobiotic diets. I found this on about.com:

Pressed salad is a dish indicated for promoting flexibility and can be made anytime of year. Salting and pressing has the effect of "cooking" the vegetables in the sense of making them more digestible, but preserves the active living enzymes.

I think the main thing is that macrobiotic diet pickles a lot of things, and its supposed to increase "good" bacteria and help with digestion...I'm going to keep eating this salad because its weird and it tastes good. Isn't it pretty??

So I sliced cabbage, scallions, radishes, cucumbers and a sliced orange added a few vinegars and pressed it with a full tea kettle for a half hour, and voila!! Delish! I added sunflower seeds just before eating for a crunch. This I recommend for veggies and meat-eaters alike.

Lastly I made Quinoa and Walnuts with fresh basil from my garden. It was a very simple side dish, and again, not too weird for anyone to eat. Just cook up some quinoa, add some oil and walnut, then add fresh basil, shove into mouth.

Needless to say it was a LARGE (but fabulous) lunch. I was very satisfied at the end of the meal. No complaints for this one, and I will probably make all of these dishes again.

And FINALLY it was time for Sushi. This is one of those things that I swore I would never eat. Yuck! Freaks me out...but going to a sushi restaurant was on the list, so I had to do it of course. I enlisted the help of a friend of mine, and sushi-lover, Kris. We went to a little sushi place, and she helped me order some veggie sushi rolls. I got the vegetable roll and the asparagus roll. We had my personal favorite - edamame - for an appetizer.

Below is our pretty sushi plate!! Kris got all sorts of raw fish sushi, which freaked me out a little, but as far as I know she hasn't died yet, so I guess its okay...hehe...mine were the bottom two sets of rolls on the left and middle. I will say...it was different. We couldn't figure out what was in the vegetable rolls, but I think there were some pickled radishes and avacado. I didn't like those too much, but the aparagus rolls were pretty good. I dipped them in lots of soy sauce and wasabi. I also tried pickled ginger. As Kris said - "It kind of tastes like you're eating perfume." uh... it was...strange.

Overall, Day 3 has been the funnest day yet. I tried all sorts of crazy things that I would have never thought of to try before - and I liked most of it!! I think sushi will be an acquired taste, but I will definitely try again. Plus I had excellent company :) Thanks, Kris!

I'm doing my best to keep up with my dishes...its starting to slack a little, but I think Day 4 I will have time to catch up. Even if its not this weirdo food, think about trying something new this week. You might be as surprised as I have been!