Kind of Japanese

For this day I made udon noodles with coconut-curry. It was accompanied by my beloved kinpira-carrots. As dessert I brought little homemade fruit bars with cherry-marzipan-flavour. Yummy!
I also had a very hearty second breakfast - onigiri and raw bellpepper sticks.
I had never eaten onigiri until last week - I just never had had the occasion. Then last week a friend took me to this beautiful Japanese café: http://www.akashigallery.com/, and I tried my first onigiri. I had always wondered if these were made with plain sticky rice or if they were seasoned with rice vinegar like sushi. The one I tried seemed to be seasoned, although subtly. It had an avocado-wasabi filling, and today I tried to recreate it at home. It turned out quite nicely.

Rice with Vegetables, Lentils and Hummus Rolls

For this lunch I made a colourful rice with fried vegetables and accompanied it by a fruity lentil dish. My midmorning snack were carrot rolls filled with hummus. I wasn't to keen on the rolls because I had to precook the carrots to be able to bend them, and I don't really like the sweetish taste of cooked carrots, unless they are nicely seasoned or combined with something a bit stronger.
Today everything was vegan.

Potatoes with Parsley Dip

This was a day with a lot of dipping. My main dish were cold, cooked potatoes with a parsley-mustard-dip and glazed carrots. Yummy!
For second breakfast I brought fried polenta bars and a tomato dip. I'm really not into polenta, I try it time and time again, but I just don't love it. I find it okay though with something that has a dominant taste like this garlicy tomato spread.

Sweet pepper and corn stew

For this lunch I made three different recipes that were new to me - maybe not the best idea, but it turned out quite okay.
I wasn't keen on the wintery salad with sauerkraut and beetroot, but I loved the sweet pepper and corn stew from the book A vegan taste of East Africa. Okay, the original is probably not served with pasta, but for me the combination was perfect.
I also loved my dessert, a crunchy chocolate snack based on krispbread.
For my midmorning break I had little carrot-pumpkin-patties.
Apart from the milkchocolate dessert, today everything was vegan.

Pasta with Spinach

For this day I brought along a toasted sandwich with homemade vegan lentil spread and caramelized onions plus some radishes.
For lunch I had pasta fried with garlic and spinach. I wasn't very happy with my choice - I had used wholegrain pasta and no matter how often I try it, I just don't like the texture. So back to normal pasta it is.
The vegetable side is carrot kinpira, an easy and fast dish that's also great for the poor little leftover carrot in your fridge.
Here you can find an example for a kinpira recipe:
http://justbento.com/handbook/recipes-side-dishes-and-space-fillers/easy-sugarfree-carrot-kinpira