Breakfast, June 14, 2011

It's the middle of June, which is supposed to be early summer. But it's cold. Without another layer over a long-sleeve shirt, I would easily catch a cold.
There are so many recipes I want to try, but it's difficult to come up with a good combination menu without a clear sense of detail or enough information to get an idea. One new dish a day, that's something I can do. There was a small ball of cabbage in the fridge. Cabbage is a vegetable for cold times, just like today. I thought, there must be something I can make with this ball of leftover cabbage.

• Gobo donburi / rice with burdock root, mushroom, fishcake and egg
• Miso soup with daikon radish and potato, topped with sliced green onion
• Kyabetsu no umezuke / cabbage plum pickle

Cabbage was turned into a pickle with umeboshi or dried plum. Umeboshi is anti-bad stuff. It's rich in citric acid, which helps you to recover from fatigue and prevents body fat from accumulating. Umeboshi also stimulates appetite and controls acid reflux in your stomach, so that it is even a better ingredient when sick. It also prevents food decay (so it is found in onigiri rice balls and bento).

But, there are only three dishes! What a drab menu!
Still, we had Chinese with two dishes cooked with oil last night, ant they were quite rich. And assuming we will eat non-Asian (usually means fatty) food tonight, something simple is not a bad choice.
At very least, there are five vegetables, all contrasting texture and flavor, in this breakfast.