Dinner With Relatives And Yum Leftovers.

Last night we had some special guest visit us. Motozo's wonderful Cousin and her adorable family are visiting Japan along route to their holiday in Australia and we had to have them over since its only once a year we get to see them. The last time we saw them was at our wedding. They flew out all the way from Holland and spent a few days extra with us at the hotel.

I love this photo! It really shows the young boys personalities and everyone looks happy. Ah, sweet memories! I remember this photo was taken right as our 6 hour party was ending and I think Motozo and I were so happy it was almost over haha.

Alright, back to present day. I spent over a week thinking about the menu. Since I was told by Keiko (Motozo's cousin) that the boys like carbs, I decided to go for Italian. Motozo said we could order food, but I took this as a cooking challenge and it was quite a lot of fun looking at thousands of recipes and finally deciding on the menu. I kept it simple. I really am not a talented enough cook to do countless dishes so this is what I decided on.

Appetizers

Pomegranate Spinach Salad

Vegan Bruschetta

Store bought taco chips and pretzels

Main Course

Avocado Pesto Pasta  

I followed this recipe almost to a T Chef Chloe

Dessert

Vegan Oatmeal Banana Cookies

Non-vegan chocolate from a box 

(We have so much milk chocolate in the house that neither Motozo and I eat, so this was a great opportunity to get rid of some.)

Drinks

Assortment of Wines

Beer

Mango Juice

Apple Juice

Orange Juice

I didn't exactly plan things as well as I should have. I had the table ready, decorated to the best of my ability. Salad and Bruscetta made. But I wanted to wait for our guest to arrive before getting started on the pasta since Motozo likes warm pasta. Although, tecnically Pesto Pasta is a Summery dish, so serving it cold is more appropriate. I really should have prepared the pasta before hand, because it was really hard to prepare it while having conversations and serving everyone drinks etc. I have to mention that this pasta I found was extra special. First time for me to stumble upon gluten free pasta in Japan!  SCORE!

I'm not a huge pasta person, so when I make pasta I want it to be as healthy as possible. Kosher Certified as well! My Jewish relatives would be so proud of me! :)

Things got a little crazy in the kitchen. The pesto turned out WAY too thick even though I followed Chole's recipe exactly.  I had to keep added more and more stuff to make it a better texture. I got way too busy to even think about taking any photos, so unfortunately there are no photos of the end product as they were last night. The salad and bruschetta turned out well, but I still would have liked the pesto sauce to have been slightly thinner. It was made with avocado's, pine nuts, basil leaves, garlic, olive oil etc.
Luckily, the adults seem to like it and even went back for 2nds, but the young boys choose to munch on the bruschetta and chips. Ah, well. I can't please them all.

For lunch today I enjoyed the leftovers. Minus any bread. We managed to finish all the bread last night, but still had lots of tomato topping leftover.

YUM! The pasta tasted better today for someone reason. So creamy and full of healthy fats. The tomatoes were extra tasty too marinating overnight in their delicious basil leaves/garlic/balsamic vinegar/olive oil sauce. The pomegranate on the spinach really made this salad interesting. Who said salads are boring!

A close up. The pasta doesn't look that appealing, but you have to trust me that it was tasty. It takes a good pasta sauce to make me eat pasta. Mm....tomatoes and fresh basil leaves! Perfection!

 Why I took a photo of the bread before I topped it with the tomatoes last night I have no idea! But you can imagin how the bruschetta looked like last night with the tomatoes from the above photos :)

Another photo of the glorious salad! I told you I'd let you know when I eat that pomegranate from Mt. Takao. This was a nice way to use it!

Dessert: Banana Oatmeal Cookies. These are fat free but still soft and very moist. Not dry or bland at all! I added dates to sweeten it up and the fat free part balanced out the heavy avocado pesto pasta.  These are nutritious enough to be eaten as a breakfast cookie! mmm....cookies in the morning make me happy. If you care, I followed this recipe Banana Apricot Spelt Oatmeal Cookie The only adjustment I made was using dates over apricots. I have a feeling I'll be making these often :-) A guilt free cookie is always good to have around in the house.

  

And that concludes our dinner! Ignore Motozo's pissed off facial expression. I guess he's really disappointed that they had to leave when they did, ha. Come back soon Keiko and family! You're welcome anytime! 

Random things.

Bullet point day.

• I hate raw onions.

• I used to not be a breakfast eater (shock, unthinkable now!)

• I've never been a pasta fan.

• I'm quite a grouch until I have my morning coffee.

• I hate decaf! (Ack, gag!)

• I used to be a chocolate addict.

• Finally, after 6 years, I now can honestly say I love running.

• I was instantly infatuated with my husband the first time we met  5 years ago.

• I should keep some thoughts to myself. (ie; Motozo: That's a cute looking kid. Me: Really? I don't think so.)

• I'm obssessed with food blogs.

• I hate the smell of eggs, pork and most female perfumes.

• I love the smell of shaving cream and aftershave.

• I'm terrified to swim in open water of sea creatures.

• I'm a total dog person.

• When I was a little girl (does that sound weird or what?!) I used to daydream that I had a pet Tiger.

• I used to be dead certain I'd be a hairstylish.

• I'm so glad I'm not.

• I enjoy vacuuming, but hate dusting.

• I love pickles.

Weekend long run and hike. Whew, I'm tired!

Happy Monday Everyone! Its raining and cold today, a total change from the sunny weekend we just had!

Saturday morning started very early for me. Only time for a quick cup of coffee and stuffed a banana in my mouth before heading out the door for a long run. I met up with 3 fabulous ladies at Yoyogi park and my what great company they were! The time just flew by as we chatted the usual girl talk while running an easy gentle pace.  2 of the runners are training for Tokyo Marathon so their goal was to run 2 1/2 - 3 hours. My goal was to see how I feel through 90mins and continue running only if my body felt up to it.  I made it 1 hr 50mins and only stopped for precautionary reasons. I was feeling pretty good and damn happy that I was in good enough shape to go that far with ease, but more then anything, my growling stomach prompted me to go home.
I was super sleepy after the run and could not seem to fill the hole in my stomach. I ate A LOT and was hungry only 2 hours later. Eating has got to be the most rewarding thing after a long run :-)

Sunday was another early morning. Motozo and I planed this hike a week ago and we planned to start our hike from 10AM. Our weekly Skype call with the in-laws last longer then planned, so we got out the door a little late.

I was uber excited for the hike! All geared up and ready to go!

Only 15mins later then originally planned. Not too bad! I got a little snap happy and in my clumsiness dropped my precious pink camera and chipped a bit off the corner. Thankfully, the camera still functioned and Motozo and I were both relieved we choose to leave the big expensive camera at home :)

 

Just a bit over an hour on the train we found ourselves at beautiful Mt.Takao. Takao-san has a couple trails and we choose to be conservative and take a 3.1k course to the peak. Our goal was to breath in fresh air, have fun, and not worry about breaking a sweat. We had a fair bit of hills but an equal amount of flats. It was so enjoyable!

  

Major dorky photo of me. These stretching arm pics aren't too flattering, but whats a girl got to do when hubby finds photo taking too めんどくさい (troublesome) to bother with. 

Half way up we got to see the view of Tokyo. Not THAT spectacular, but we appreciated it long enough for me to take photos.

The map said it would take us 90mins to the top, but we made it up in 50mins. oh, yeah! We were rocking it! 

We weren't extremely hungry, but there was an adorable little shop so we stopped for a couple of bites and toilet breaks.

Motozo and his after lunch coffee

I munched on my pre cut veggie sticks.

After relaxing for a bit we consulted the map again and decided which route we'll take back to the bottom. This time we choose a 3.9k course and off we went.

The majority was flat or down hill so I wanted to keep a pretty brisk pace to stay warm! It would be a different story if we were going up hill. But Motozo's knee injury started irritated him not long into the hike and we had to take it easy. Going down hill is definetely harder on the joints.

We admired the very few trees that had any Autumn colors. 

And other random stuff.

After making it to the bottom. Motozo gave me his very best Warrior 3 pose.

And I had to take a congratulatory stretchy arm pic.

Motozo refueled on soft cream.

I got me a pomegranate! I haven't had one of these in YEARS and they were selling them at the base of the mountain. How random and utterly fabulous! I've yet to eat this beauty, but when I do, I'll let you know (whether you want to know or not) how it was.

Beer is mandatory after a hike on the train ride home!

Two sleepy, but happy people. We got home fairly early and ended the day with lounging on the couch and watching a lame movie. Ah, a fabulous weekend!

Yoga And Healthy Eats

This morning I woke up with an urge to do some serious yoga.  To be honest, I've been a bit of a slacker lately with my yoga. It usually consists of 30-40min after my run. I really should take advantage of being able to take free yoga classes at the studio where I teach, but it all comes down to convenience. I can do yoga easily by myself and I can do whatever posture I feel like doing. If I go to a class on the other hand, I'm at the mercy of the teacher and what he/she wants to teach. I'm usually never disappointed when I take a class though.

Today I needed to get out of my head and have someone tell me what to do so I took a yogalates class. Yogalates is a fusion of yoga and pilates. The two really go well together and the teacher teaches this fabulous routine. First we warm up with some Astanga Sun Salutations, followed by a few standing forward bends, and warriors etc. Then we spent a good amount of time doing some serious core work laying down. We then finish up with more standard Astanga poses; seated forward bends, shoulder stand, back bending, and all the while were told to focus on our core and engage it.
Its a physically oriented class, but it was very therapeutic for me. For that 1.5 hrs I was able to forget about my issues in life (we all have then don't we?!) and after the class I felt relaxed and rejuvenated.

Yoga is SO healing! I love it!

Other things I love are yummy foods. I can't end a post without some food related thing can I! Recently, I've been keeping it really simple in the kitchen. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have a lot of produce to use before they go bad. Yesterday I did a pretty good job of making a dent in the fridge. The variety of vegetables and fruits I had yesterday made me proud :)

•  spinach
•  kale
• sugar snap peas
• green pepper
• carrot
• cucumber
• apples
• pear
• banana
• tangerine
• lemon
• tomato

 Some simple things I enjoyed today.

Pear & apple w/flaxseed topping

 

Roughly pureed tomato and avocado topped on a rice cake - mmmm ,this was SO good! 

 

My current favorite nut is pecan! Raw pecans and raisins. 

 

I'm SO excited its Friday! I've got a full sporty weekend planned. A long run with girlfriends tomorrow and a hike with Motozo on Sunday. I hope the weather continues to be as beautiful as it is now. Crisp cold air and clear blue skies. 

Have a wonderful weekend everyone and if you're feeling some sort of stress....never underestimate the power of yoga and healthy food :-) 

Night Out On The Town.

 Last night, Motozo made a special effort to come home early to spend time with little ol' me. :-) oo, did I feel special!
He called during his lunch break, asking if I wanted to do something at night, maybe see a movie. I was all over the movie idea, but absolutely NOTHING good is showing right now. The only thing with a slight promise would be Harry Potter, but sorry, Motozo and I are not into that in the least bit. We both aren't into Sci-fi, Magical (Lord of The Ring) type movies. Sometimes the special effects are cool, but we'd rather just stumble upon it on cable TV rather then pay a hefty theater price for it.

The next idea was KARAOKE! One of our favorite things to do. The great thing about going to karaoke with only 2 people, is that you get ample chance to hog the mike, plenty of space to dance and let everything loose. Nither one of us were born talented singers (shhhhh, don't repeat this to Motozo) , but we clap and cheer for each other anyway. Ah, the perks of being married, accepting each other no matter how croaky. 

First things first, food! Need to fuel up for our karaoke session after all.
I suggested we try a vegan place (well, of course!) that Motozo never been to. We're quite lucky to live in an area with a couple organic/vegan friendly restaurants to choose from, so off we went to Brown Rice Cafe.

 

Motozo immediately realized that besides him, there was only 1 other male in the whole cafe. Both just happened to be foreigners with their Japanese wives/girlfriend. Ok, I'm only half Japanese, but you get the idea. Its obviously more popular with the ladies. Not a good sign so far. Better start him off with some manly organic beer. Yep, that relaxed him good. 

 

We skipped appetizers and went straight for the main.  I ordered 2 dishes. One was fried tempe sandwiching carrots and pumpkin. This photo doesn't show the sandwich unfortunately, but they were cute and delicious! 

 

The 2nd dish was an assortment of vegetable salad. If I knew it would come smothered in mayo (vegan mayo) I may have thought twice about ordering it. I've never been a fan of mayo, vegan or not. But that didn't stop me from cleaning the plant and happily munching my vegetables.

 Motozo went for the veggie burger and he was a good sport about it being tiny! He said it was really good and commented about the cafe being better then another vegan cafe we frequent. 

 

The burger obviously wasn't enough for him though, so he ordered a creamy vegetable soup and bread. I had a piece of his bread and it was awesome! Warm and fresh! 

 

 

I of course, went for dessert. A little fruit cake which turned out to be disappointingly dry and hard. It was a little tough to cut that at one point, as I was pushing the little fork into the thing, a big broken piece went flying  to the floor. Usually, I'd be very upset at my clumsiness, but this time I didn't miss that piece one bit. 

 

With happy bellies we went to our nearest Karaoke place to sing our hearts out. Oh, yeah, bletch it out babe! 

 

Usually, we'd go for 2 hours, but tonight we kept it at 1. It is a school/work night after all. 

And that concludes our Wednesday evening. It'll was great fun to do something in the middle of the week. Makes hump day feel like a weekend :-) 

What did everyone else do yesterday? Do you like Karaoke? What songs are your favorite to sing?

A Delicious Green Day.

I'm feeling in a photo mood. I don't feel like typing away and photos are far more interesting then anything I have to say anyway, so I'll just leave you with some foodie delights. Sorry everything is veggie.

What do I do when I accidentally order an insane (what was I thinking!) amount of organic fresh produce? Pull out the juicer and throw together a fabulous juice!

1 Carrot, 2 stocks of Celery, 1 huge Kale leaf, 1 green Apple, and an Orange (didn't use in the end)

 

Ohayo Juice is created! Absolutely pure goodness! You can't go wrong with fruit and veggie mix. 

Perhaps I'm delusional, but these sort of juices make me feel pretty on the inside and out :)

More greens throughout the day. 

Carrot Pate Spinach Salad - Roughly process a carrot, 1/4 avocado, tsp balsamic vinegar, tsp of olive oil, and dried oregano. I was pleasantly surprised to have created a delicious pate.

 

Sometimes the strangest combination's turn out wonderfully. Depends if you like natto though.

 

Trip down memory lane. Running through vineyards in Champagne. Oh, I miss this place! I want to live in France! I really do! Beautiful places to run and champagne = perfect place!

Time for a perfect preworkout snack - a date. I better go get my sweat on now. 

 

I notice I like to use the word "perfect" a lot. 

Have a happy, healthy, and PERFECT day everyone.

New Toy/Baby!

 Yay! Motozo and I have a new baby in the house! Lookie Look! A new camera! This time a proper DSLR! We spent a good few weeks looking over different models, reading reviews, and getting recommendations etc. Since  my dad and sister, both photography buffs, own a Canon, I of course am bias and deciding for a Canon over Nikon was a no brainier. I thought I had my mind made up to for EOS Kiss X4, but at the shop Motozo and I decided to get a grade up :)  It took us almost 2 hours at the store, going back and forth between different models. Oh, it was a tough decision! We finally settled on the 60D and I'm VERY happy with it. Although, its slight heavier then the Kiss X4, I think we made the right decision.  The nobs and placement of buttons are more user friendly on the 60D and we got a great deal for 2 lenses.

 

 It'll take me awhile to figure out how to use the camera to its full potential. So here are just a few random practice shots(unaltered) from yesterday mainly of my food hehe. 

 Lotus

A short but fast run. 12k under an hour.

 

Refreshing green smoothie. Extra dark today because of the frozen blueberries. YUM! 

 

 I love that Kaki's (persimmons) are in season now!

 

Lunch, left over salad.

Home made chocolate. 100% cacao sweetened with maple syrup and shredded coconuts

 

Homemade vegan blueberry muffins with a light coconut oil spread. MMM! The coconut oil made this muffin magical! 

Anyone want to come over and have blueberry muffins? I have lots in my freezer still.