as Love Grows Tall. &Recipe!

November. Hello. And October, where on earth did you go. This past October was a busy one, and so many wonderful and not so wonderful things happened, I found it difficult to document any of it. For the first time in months my blog has become the wicked step mother looming over my head, as have many other obligations. A little scary. I suppose it's perfect since October is supposed to be a somewhat scary month. This first week of the new month has brought many great things however, like Christmas cups at Starbucks, a new friend who I met in my math is class is now using me as her dream journal via text messages (you should try this with someone, it's scary cool!), daylight savings us upon us, and now it will get darker...later? I'll find out tonight.

There are many more things November has brought me. However, one of the greatest was an accomplishment. November 3rd marked the end of an experiment I did to be Lacto-Ovo Vegetarian for an entire month! Please refresh the page before my ego grows into a tall, green monster. Thank you. I had decided at the beginning of the October month to pursue a Vegetarian diet for a month after doing some in depth research on many different diets for a paper that I had to write in my (pretty terrible) English class. I figured, why not embrace the diet I'm writing six pages about for the month that it will take for the class to write it?

This turned out in my favor, as I discovered many wonderful things, one of them being a recipe my Japanese housemate taught me. It is a simple dish, one that you can make in less than 20 minutes, and is packed full of health benefits and rich flavor. Who knew steamed veggies could be so good. I have eaten this recipe twice already, and I'm going to cook it again for a friend today when she comes over for lunch. The secret ingredient in this recipe is MISO! Akane usually uses this in her meat dishes, so if you're a meat lover, prepare to be amazed that your meat craving is satisfied by the mere taste of miso. It was for me, and I was shocked. So, I give you:

 Suzuki-san's Fall Vegetable Jyagu

Ingredients:

1/2 Yellow Onion

1 bag of Potato Medly or 2 of each: Yellow Potato, Red Potato, Purple Potato

2 Carrots

1 bag of Brussel Sprouts 

1 sprig of Brocolli

Any other Vegetables You'd like - I added a bag of Vegetable Medley with Baby Corn, Red and Yellow Peppers, Watercress, and other delicious stir fry vegetables. 

2 tbsp of Miso Paste

3 cups of Water

In a deep dish pan that will hold all your vegetables chopped up, bring 2 cups of water to a boil. Add miso paste. Let simmer and mix the miso paste in the water until forms a  fairly smooth consistency and bubbles. Add more miso if taste is bland or consistency is too watery. Chop potatoes into quarters, chop carrots, broccoli, and onion. Put potatoes, onions and carrots in first, make sure the onions are on the bottom of the pan to soften. Steam for about 2 minutes. Throw in the rest of your veggies and steam until everything is all the way cooked through (of course). Add an extra cup of water if necessary to steam the heap of vegetables properly. Add some salt and pepper to taste, or any other spices you would like. Take of the heat and stir your vegetables. 

Serve with rice, or eat as a stew. 

I'm overjoyed to have found the simple joys of cooking in a Vegetarian diet. One would be surprised just how many recipes come up when you ask for "Vegetarian" or "Vegan" on websites that I view much to often like www.foodgawker.com (thanks, boyfriend). The possibilities have been wide ranging and endless, any thing I wanted to make or eat, I could this past month.

 I would encourage anyone, if they want to rediscover the joy of cooking, to try cooking Vegetarian for a month. Not only will you learn new and delicious recipes, you'll be doing something great for your health, and you may even get to experience new cultures of the world simply by exploring the food eaten in other countries.

All in all, this was a fantastic experience, and I was hesitant to leave it, but I've got to get back on poultry so I don't die when Thanksgiving rolls around. :)