rural life

This Is What Rural Japan Looks Like

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Spring Quinoa Salad 
1 cup Quinoa cooked in 2 cups of water
bunch of asparagus, blanched in hot water for 10 seconds
punnet of green peas, blanched ” ” ” ” ” ”
punnet of snap peas, blanched  ” ” ” ” ” ”
1/2 cup cooked and shelled edamame beans
some red grapes, sliced
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds
1/4 cup pistachios
bunch fresh parsley, torn small
bunch fresh mint torn small

Dressing:
juice of half a lemon
1 tbsp maple syrup
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
salt and pepper

Combine all salad ingredients together and gently mix.

Combine all dressing ingredients together in a small jar and shake shake shake then mix through salad.

Refrigerate.

I Only Exercise So I Can Eat More

God, I love weekends. Especially when they’re not winter! Yesterday was 25 degrees celsius so I biked 20km for local oranges and organic French bread. Oh and I ate a baked sweet potato on the way. These by the way, are amazing. Their season is almost over but in the winter, you’d find them sold everywhere. I don’t know the exact oven they’re cooked in  but whatever it is, it cooks the shit out of them and leaves them all soft and squishy and some places sell it (hot baked sweet potato) with ice-cream! Yum yum oishii.

PS the flying fish are for “Boy’s Day” whatever that means and the last picture is a Persian breakfast. You can read all about that HERE.
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my smoothie brings all the boars to the yard

Seriously, I’m not even kidding. I drove past a very scary-sized wild boar the other night. That, is how rural I’m living! The boar looked at me and then.. ran off. But, it was still a pretty terrifying experience and now, I’m a little nervous riding around in the early hours of the morn when it’s still a little dark. Especially after my colleagues told me some boars like to charge at cars – apparently speaking of experience. The world is a scary scary place. So although the following may paint a picture of the perfect morning, in truth, I was pretty anxious inside. In saying that, my smoothie was so delicious that I found myself eating it super slowly just to make it last longer.
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Smoothie is: 1 frozen banana, 2 heaped tbsp coconut yogurt (regular yogurt works too), splash of 100% guava juice (but any fruit juice will do) and 1/4 cup of frozen blueberries.

Topping is: walnuts, almonds, sunflower and pumpkin seeds fried in a little coconut oil and pure maple syrup.