You are currently browsing the monthly archive for February 2012.
In Japan there is loads of varaiety of soya-bean product. Fresh one is ‘beancard‘. Thin deep-fried bean card is ‘abura-age’. Fat bean card is ‘atsu-age’. Complicated?
I love simple fresh beancard the best. But for simmering beancard can’t keep shape. Atsu-age can.
Chikuzen-ni Fried and simmerd veges
Keep dried shitake-mushroom and konbu-kelp in water over night in fridge.
Cut root veges like carrot, white raddish, lotus root. Blanch Konjak and tear by hand. Take out side lines of sweet bean. Cook quail eggs. Cut Atsu-age into small triangle.
Cut konbu-kelp in thin pieces.
Put atsu-age (deep fried side under) in non-stick pan. Heat over medium flame. Fry both side. When oil will come out from atsu-age, take them out.
Add veges and konjak. If oil is not enough, add sesame oil.
When oil cover the veges, add dried mushroom water and kelp. Add water until just cover the ingredients.
When boiling up, add Mirin, Sake and soy sauce and eggs and atsu-age. Cover by waxed paper (cut the center) and lower the flame.
When ingredients are cooked and soup are nearly absorbed, add sweet pea.
Serve in a bowl.
*
Don’t eat up in the day. When it’s cool down, taste goes into more. Next day it’s so nice.
Waiting often has worth, right?
*
‘Thank you very much. That was a good techniques to achieve this pose.’
Sometimes people says after class. I feel uncomfortable.
*
Bend left knee. Bring the heel near navel.
Bend right knee. Bring the heel in front of right sitting bone.
Hug the right knee. Pull towards right armpit.
Lower body-fundation is compact and stable.
Inhale. Extend right arm, upper body forward.
Exhale. Bind the arms. Shoulders even and horizontal.
Inhale. Spine glows upwards.
Exhale. Spine glows forwards.
*
Everyone wants to bind the arm. Sounds like the goal of pose.
Force the body for making shape of pose. Can’t feel sensation except pain and irritation.
*
What do we struggle such a strange activity for?
*
Do pose for finding glowing sensation and quiet mind even in such a tight poses.
That is the achievement of the pose with binding arms or without.
*
I frequently eat ‘Konjac’, even it has nearly no taste but squishy.
Konjak is made from a kind of root like taro, is Japanese authentic food.
97% of it is water. 3% is soluble dietary fiber – galactoglucomannan which restrains cholesterol, glucide and fat, cleans up inside of intestine.
It is sold as popular vegitarian food in Bangkok, has many kinds of shapes, rectangle, line, pink prown,white rice. I eat as fried or simmered. It need to be boiled before cooked.
Konjac steak
Boil Knojac for a while. Make a lots of cuts diagonally on both sides. Cut 1/6 from one piece.
Heat non-stick pan over medium low heat. Add sesame oil and Konjac.
Fry until both side become crunchy. Serve on a plate. sprinle soy sauce and chilli powder.
White steak is fried cotton beancard with Japanese musterd.
Kinpira – Sweet and spicy fried Konjac
Boil Konjac for a while. Make a cut fatter side of prown shape.
Cut veges (like lotus loots, carrot, egg plant, mushrooms)
Heat non-stick pan over medium low heat. Add sesame oil and Konjac, veges.
When ingredients are cooked, add cut dried chilli, Mirin and soy sauce.
When ingredients absorb liquid, serve in a bowl. Sprinkle Ao-nori seaweed.
Get nearly no calorie but full and cleansed tommy!
*
I couldn’t find soft ‘beancard skin’ in Bangkok. There are many Chinese dried one. But they are still not soft enough like Japanese one, even being kept in water over night.
I was so pleased when I found fresh beancard skin at super market in Emporium.
Beancard skin is made by soy-milk like the skin covering over boiled milk. It is important ingrediens of Japanese monk’s food. The smooth skin is essence of soy bean, rich in protain, vagetable fat and isoflavone, saponin which have antioxidant effect.
It can be in soup, salad(lightly boiled), stairfried and deepfried.
Beancard skin rice bowl
Keep dried Konbu-kelp and dried Shitake mushroom in cold water over night in fridge.
Drain the water into small pot. Cut kelp and mushroom into small pieces. Add into the pot. If the water is not cover ingredients, add some more water.
Heat over midium flame. When it boil up, add sake, mirin, soy sauce and salt like noodle soup.
When kelp and mushroom are cooked, add cut bean skin.
Mix tapioca powder and same amount of water. Pour into boiling place. Stair well.
Serve rice in a bowl. Pour the soup over. Add Wasabi on top.
*
‘What did you attach in walking meditation just before?’
Ajahn Pandit asked in his Dharmma talk.
*
I attached to two books…mainly.
The night before I was reading a book about anatomy of walking. During walking meditation, I couldn’t stop analyzing sensetions especially under soles, felt soles were unsually hard, body was unstable.
Then mind jumped into another book. ‘Walk towards freedom’.
Retired professor walked from Chaingmai to Krabi without money for renounciation.
He walked with breathing. Right step in inhalation. Left step in exhalation.
I tried.
Exhale
Weight from ball of right big toe to left heel, lateral foot, ball of little toe.
Inhale
Weight from ball of left big toe to right heel, lateral foot, ball of little toe.
*
No analysis but observation comes up.
Body move stably. Mind stay calmly.
In the busy morning I cook veges soup for breakfast.
Boil water. Add organic soup stock, salt, pepper, olive oil, short pasta and dried veges. Heat over lower middle flame. Leave it.
When I come back into kitchen, soup is cooked.
Sit down. Relax. Pepare for today with clam mind and good energy.
Itarian set / Cherry tomato, Paprika, Eringi-mushroom, Zucchini, Pumpkin.
Sometime we watch in scary way.
As being starving, push eye balls out, want to suck outside world energy.
Focus so much on narrow point. Blind to ourself. Greedy.
Eyes are outside part of optic organs, like cover, lens and dimmer of camera.
Light from outside world pass though eye balls, is changed into signal at the behind of lens.
Signals are projected on the screen at the backside of brain,where we re-construct our own version of the world.
*
See the world at the backside of head.
Screen becomes wider and clearer.
Breath becomes calm and deep.
*
Clost eyes.
Turn the eye balls towards brain.
What is projected on the screen?
*
Photo by Joseph
Ajahn Viradhammo also said ‘Listen the moment’.
Focus on listening brings emancipation from thinking past and future.
Be present.
*
How to listen?
Rolfer said listen the outside sound at inner ears. The ears beside of head are just disks of parabolic reflector. Sound waves are recieved at inside auditory organs, perceived at the backside of brain.
Focus there. Recieve the subtle waves from inside of body.
That is the thin connection to huge space of awareness.
‘Keep the inner ears aleart but passive. they are the windows of the mind.’
B.K.S. Iyengar
Penetrate awareness into whole body. Listen though whole body.
*
photo by Joseph
Feel a space between one thought and another.
We think past and future. We feel present moment.
*
I’ve been struggling in standing balancing yoga pose.
Eventhough at first feel light and extended, as the time passed, start thinking alignment.
Try to correct it, loose a bit balance. Try to control it back. Then fall down.
*
Thinking comes from outer brain.
It regards itself as a commander.
Its nerve reaction is bureaucratic, takes longer time, can’t cover all over the body.
*
Feeling comes from inner brain.
It recieves sensations in all over the body, reacts quick, work in stability and auto-recorrection,
if outer brain doesn’t disturb.
*
Feel the whole body.
When the thought ends, mind extends all over the body quietly, body stands blissfully.
Be present.
A summer day in the city of Angels 