The complete opposite of eating well...

That's what I have been doing... And Fast Food has been my #1 staple food - doesn't matter what kind of fast food...it is all FAT food. But there is one teeny light in there...I have learned an entire new (to me) cuisine that is both VERY easy and VERY full of good-for-you foods like VEGETABLES and GRAINS and meats and carbs are used more like a seasoning than as a main dish. What is this new cuisine you may be asking...why it's JAPANESE - yes folks, there is (WAY!) more to Japanese food than sushi, terryaki, and ramen (although ramen really is a truly yummy part of it!) I have been OBSESSED with Onigiri, which is a Japanese sandwhich of sorts- intead of bread you use sticky rice (which is white- but it's ok) with some dried seasoning, called furikake - it comes in all kinds of flavours, I like the Umeboshis (plums) or egg & seaweed (my fav)- there's probably a lot of salt in the seasoning (the package is in Japanese) but a little goes a long way to dress up the rice - or you can just have plain rice and have the flavouring come out in the centre, which is typically filled with meat, veggie, or fish - these little triangle shaped rice balls are traditionally eaten with a dried seaweed wrapper. SO DELICIOUS - and super stupid easy to prepare! Just google ONIGIRI and you will find a million different ways to prepare it. You can even buy little molds and make baby pandas or penguins - or whatever...yes I have the panda molds, no I haven't made them yet! I am also newly addicted to Karaage - Japanese fried chicken. Really, they are these tender savory bites of chicken marinated in soy sauce, ginger, and galic, which are then dredged with corn starch (or potato starch)and quickly deep fried. My favorite thing that I have learned in the last little while is the art of the Bento. You don't need to know how to cook Japanese dishes, or even how to make cute little characters (which is still fun at 30-something years old) to know how to make a good bento. I have come to find out that Bento simply means packed lunch - however there is an art to packing the food (and a certain balance to it all). To sum it up, heavy on the Veg, some rice, and VERY light (by North American standards) on the meat/protein. And variety of flavours and colours is key. For those of you that follow my FB page Quinn Ethan Endeavours, you know that my kitchen is sometimes magically transformed into a soap factory. I have been busy making all kinds of bathbomb treats and actually making soap (from scratch!!!) to do much actual cooking - that's why Japanese fare has fit so nicely into my life...but now, onto what I've really dreamed of...making and growing my own food! Although Iwould love nothing more than to own a farm and be 100% self-sustainable (and even off grid) that's not likely to happen in my very near future. It's just not realistic for me to cook everything from scratch, (although I miss my homemade bread so I have to figure out a way to get that back into my life) and sometimes I am just too tired (read: EXHAUSTED) from working my day job, running a side business (yay soap!) owning a house (sheesh it's a lot more work than I ever though it would be...says the woman who decided to pave her own front walkway this summer!) that I can't even find enough energy to heat a can of soup (let alone make it from scratch!). I am also single and I found that it is very very very hard to run a whole foods kitchen for one person - even for a person who likes (LOVES) to eat. So I got mad at the whole movement and rebelled...but it is never far from my mind! Next year, I will be overhauling my backyard - it's a tiny plot of land with a lovely carpet of weeds (that I will annihilate naturally by cutting them down and covering the ground with blackcloth (gardening cloth)) There is also an overabundance of snails back there - and I never gave snails much thought before- i may have even once thought they were worthy of stepping around...but there are so many in my backyard that every single time I see them (which is everyday) I only have one (murderous) thought coursing through my brain and that is to "KILL THEM WITH FIRE". I don't though, I just pick them off of whatever they're clinging to and fling them over the fence into the 'back 40' - an empty field behind my house...escargots anyone? In any case, I have also always wanted to learn how to can. I don't know why, I'm not super partial to jams, pickles, and chutneys. I also am not a huge fan of Italian pasta, so tomato sauce is a rare occurrence around my kitchen....but I am obsessed with canning...so I watched some YouTube videos (my main source of 'television' - I cancelled my cable in favour of Netflix, but now all I watch is YouTube), I ordered some books, and I booked myself into 2 classes (for next week! LOL!) When I put my mind to something - there is absolutely no lollygagging around. I think I may have some regular blog posts coming up shortly on all the wonderful things I have learned about canning. I should post some shots of my Bentos too!