Kara-age... and vegetables

Tonight I made kara-age. It's not very hard to make, and I make it from scratch because for the longest time I didn't realize you could buy a mix. Like dashi no moto--I didn't realize you could buy that in a mix, so one day my husband came home to find me making a giant pot of dashi from konbu, shiitake, and katsuobushi. He teased me for a long time about that one.
While I haven't made dashi from scratch again since I realized it came in brilliant powder form, I do still make kara-age from scratch. My husband says at this point the stuff I make is better than the mix, which is nice. And it's easy, so it's a real winner. The only problem is it's fried... so we can't have it often.
I served it with hiyayako, garlic miso pickles, wakame and cucumber salad, spinach with soy sauce and katsuobushi, spinach soup, and a potato-green pepper-carrot stir-fry.
My husband got the last leftover chawan mushi.
Yeah, so I cut the oil paper into a cheesy heart... only because I'm not good at cutting straight lines.

My meal was more simple and not so fried: the same side dishes, tomato and peas (minus the chicken... sigh), and the tofu gelatin topped with citrus and soy.

A close-up of the kara-age, because it did turn out well tonight.

By the way, I'm back on the antibiotics that caused me to have the vivid dreams back in December. I wasn't on a long enough course of them last time and so my sinuses never completely healed--so I'm back on a longer course now... so far no dreams, but my leg muscles are extremely tired, and I don't think it's from swimming. We'll see how this goes.