Obento 4 --- It's not difficult to be a vegetarian (though you don't have to)

Here is today's obento. Full of colorfull veggies vggies veggies!

Spring has come. We need colors in our life (and in what we eat).

Clock wise (except rice)

Marinated red pepper and Chinese eggpalant in ginger honey sauce

Pumpkin croquette (huge success!)

Fried organic onion

Sautéed lotus root and organic carrot with sesame

Roquette, organic cherry tomato, dried white radish salad with carrot dressing

Japanese sweet omelette

Marinated organic red cabbage

And Rice with ginger hashed pork and nori seaweed

Since one of the clients today was vegetarian, I made everything in Veggies (except the omelette) and for non-vegi clients I sprinkled hashed pork over the rice (and for the vegetarian person, I sprinkled ciboulettes and pickled ginger in organic soy sauce)

I myself is vegetarian (occasionally I eat eggs and fishes when I need to) and my partner is a huge meat eater. 

But we never had really a problem. I make vegetable dishes and as an option, for my partner, I add one meat plate. 

Home-Japanese cooking has thousands of vegetable dishes. We used to be farmers. We were banned to eat meat (untill around 1820). We were surrounded by the sea but also we have plenties of mountains where we found wild vegetables. So historically we developed quite much of the eating-veggies life style. 

Of course I will make meat/fish dishes if my clients want. But most of the time 60-70 percent of the dishes I make are based on vegetables. And you will see, you feel much lighter once you start eating more vegetables than meat. Vegetables are not tasteless (especially the organic ones). And it could be as fulfilling as eating meats. Being occasional vegetarian is not a hard thing to do. If you have difficulties finding good vegetarian food, let me know :)

Bon appétit!