What I eat, apparently

Ever had daifuku? It’s magical. Little balls of dough gently cradling delightful globs of sweet bean paste. So I was inspired about a year or so and purchased a bag of red azuki beans (sweet beans of the Japanese dessertey variety), with stern intentions of making daifuku for myself.

A year later, I finally get around to doing something that was vaguely similar to my plan.

So, as I mentioned a little while back, I have a large bag of sweet rice. This, as also mentioned a little while back, is because the rice sitting right beside the actual sushi rice at the store would be good enough for sushi, since the sushi rice surely must have a good influence on it, right? I mean, why get sushi rice for sushi, that wouldn’t make any sense at all! Point being, I have a gigantic bag of sweet rice that I have been attempting to find uses for.

Thus, comes the Ogahi. It’s like a piece of daifuku flipped itself inside out, and then get all lumpy in the rice part (err, since daifuku uses rice flour rather then straight up rice).

So I dumped this bag of azuki beans in a pot with some water, and let them sit there for approximately 7836172 hours. Then boiled them for a little less then that, dumped some sugar in, squashed it up with a cup as for some godawful reason I am completely lacking in a potato masher, and the end product was this delightful pile of squish:

Then came the rice. Then came the getting my fingers all covered in gooey substances for the sake of deliciousness. Look, they’re facing off for a mighty battle!

Soon enough, all the rice balls had converted over to the Dark side:

By the way, these should in theory have been completely inappropriate! You know why? Ohagi is traditionally made for the spring and fall equinox. I’m about 3 months off here. Ah well, I got close to an equinox, right?

Anyhow, their ultimate destination was to be served at a baby shower where probably at least 1/2 of the people there thought they were either chocolate or meatballs. Definitely a big surprise to bite into one of them thinking that! Anyhow, they went over well enough with those who appreciate such Japanese tasties, and I got to take home the rest, which is also a bonus.

A final peaceful scene of restful Ogahi:

Hobbits and flowers and bean paste, oh my!

Yeah, so I had the worst diarrhea ever recently. I blame this stuff, personally.

Mango and rice, seems harmless, eh? My bowels would disagree.

Luckily, it was rather an average creation, so it wasn’t too painful to trash the rest of it. My mistake was merging a bunch of different recipes together into the form that seems most convenient to my lazy self. I mean, it was good and all, in that bland chewy way. Hell, I’ve never eaten this before, maybe that’s how it’s supposed to taste. Mind you, I liked it much better before my anus started spurting everywhere in tragic proportions. Abdominal cramping for hours, it’s just no good.

No, I’m not bitter at all!

Anyhow, if I ever find mango with sweet rice being served for dessert in a restaurant, I must try it, as I’m quite sure that a person more competent than I would make it taste delightful.

So I totally didn’t make this one:

This is something that Drew came up with a little while back, inspired by a vaguely similar dish eaten at a Lebanese food festival. The essential ingredients are rice, red pasta sauce, and green beans, seasoned with garlic, salt and pepper. Delightful add-ons include cheese (this particular instance uses feta as well as parmesan), and I believe there was also some cumin added. Indeed, It is quite squishy and delightful.