Tonight I tried a few new recipes. One of them involved katsuo-bushi, or shaved bonito. I decided to be fancy with the katsuo-bushi this time, and I got out our dried katsuo chunk and the shaver and put my husband to work. He sat at the kotatsu (which is really only our small, multi-purpose table as the heater doesn't work) and the dog sat next to him. They ate the big chunks they shaved off, and gave me the flakes for cooking.

Normally, I take pictures of our dinner before we eat, but tonight my husband did. He is usually a much better photographer than I am, so I'm not sure why this picture isn't quite in focus. At any rate, here's our evening meal. We had chicken wings rubbed with salt and pepper, cooked on a bed of onions and carrots, kabocha (pumpkin) soup, and stir-fried peppers stuffed with katsuo flakes. Other than that, we had hijiki salad, gobo peanuts, garlic pickles, spinach in sesame sauce, and our multi-grain rice. A better picture of the peppers, chicken, and kabocha soup. The soup was OK, not anything spectacular, in part because the kabocha I used wasnt' exactly fresh. The chicken wings were not bad, and the katsuo-peppers weren't bad, either, but they were quite difficult to eat. I'll have to come up with a better cooking method if I make them again.
I also made a small dessert tonight. I am trying to eat healthier, but in the evenings my sweet tooth just kicks in and I crave sugar. I've been thinking that maybe a slightly sweet dessert might help that. So tonight, I made kiwi and papaya in daikon oroshi. I sprinkled the top with pomengranate seeds, although the recipe didn't call for that. The daikon I used had more of a bite to it than they usually do, so it was a bit strong, and the fruit wasn't very good. I didn't think it was too bad--at any rate, I ate my serving and ,y husband's when he decided he couldn't eat it. But I think papaya is good under any circumstances.