BREAKFASTS

I never skip breakfast. In New Zealand I always ate home-made meusli. Bought meusli is often loaded with sugar and far too sweet for my taste. Rolled oats for meusli are available in Japan, but only in expensive small bags which the miserly streak in my psyche prevents me from buying. The classic Japanese breakfast is rice, grilled fish, pickles and miso soup. It's very healthy and good... just not what I want for breakfast. Lunch maybe, but not breakfast.

So I have eggs sometimes - fried, scrambled  or maybe a cheese omelet. Sometimes I have toast (made from my delicious home-made multi-grain bread.) However the breakfast I eat most often is rice 'pudding'. Many Japanese are repulsed at the idea of sweet rice, but none of them seem to have actually tried it...

Rice with blueberries, walnuts & yoghurt

When I say rice pudding, it's not the rice pudding my mother used to make (although I love that too, and I still can't make it as well as my mother.) I use left over cooked rice. In winter I usually heat it. In summer I leave it cold. I add something sweet, like a handful of raisins or blueberries, or some raw chopped apple, or even some whole sweet beans that are used in traditional Japanese desserts and sweets. If I have walnuts I add a small handful of walnut pieces, and a sprinkle of cinnamon. I top it off with a couple of big spoonfuls of natural unsweetened yogurt. The fruit or beans add enough sweetness for me.

It's quick, healthy (even more so if I use brown or multi-grain enhanced rice), satisfying, and delicious.