When I lived in Japan, I made yakisoba all the time. It’s a warm, salty comfort food that you can pack full of vegetables. “Yaki” means fried and soba are a type of buckwheat noodles you can buy in most major grocery stores these days.

Boil a saucepan full of water and add the soba noodles. Cook for 7-8 minutes until noodles are tender. Strain noodles and set aside.

While the noodles are cooking, chop up a ton of vegetables. Use whatever you like, which is what I recommend for all recipes. I use yellow onion, carrots, celery, green cabbage, scallions, and minced garlic and ginger.

For the sauce:

2 Tbl. soy sauce

2 Tbl. rice wine vinegar (which is the same as rice vinegar, but NOT the same as rice wine)

1 tsp. sugar

Mix it all and set it aside. You can dilute with 1-2 tsp. water if it’s too strong.

Heat a couple tablespoons of vegetable oil in a large frying pan, then add all the vegetables and stir fry. Once the vegetables are tender, add the sauce and cook until heated or sugar is dissolved. Finally, add the noodles to the frying pan and fry a few more minutes.

You can add seaweed flakes to the top if you like them and happen to have them. If not, this all you need.

Unofficially, The Artist and I have been trying out a lot of small spaces. We’re living in a 180 square foot cabin for the winter, which has been a great way to ease into tiny living and make sure our ultimate design works well for us. We also stayed in a yurt a few weeks ago, and here’s the review…

The yurt was made by the Colorado Yurt Company. Their style of construction uses a very simple wooden lattice grid and vinyl roofing and sides. They are free-standing yurts, so they don’t have a foundation, and they stand using tension/compression. I watched a construction video on their website and it really is a fascinating process, even just in a video. The yurts are really attractive, especially from the inside, and they feel very cozy.

The yurt we stayed in was fully insulated, but it still took several hours to warm it to a comfortable temperature using the wood burning stove. The smell of wood burning stoves is literally one of my favorite scents in the world and we’ve thought about installing one in our tiny house; after staying in the yurt, our hunch that we might want a second heating option was confirmed. We’ve found some beautiful little antique wood burners for sale and may still use one, but it will be our backup heat source if we choose to go that route.

Some yurts have separate rooms, or even lofts. We stayed in a yurt with an open floor plan: no kitchen, no bathroom, no frills. But the circular setup and lack of interior walls made the space feel very airy and open. The skylight flooded the yurt with natural light, too. With the wood burning stove, table, three chairs and a bench, the yurt slept seven people comfortably (at least spatially, if not socially).

All around, it was a beautiful weekend in a cozy space and we loved every minute of it.

We’ve really fully embraced hygge this year and I’ve been drinking a lot of my mom’s world famous Chai. This is actually a recipe from a family friend, but we’ve fully incorporated it into our lives. Here’s the recipe for…

Mama Chai

I’ve been reading a book by Mari Kondo called The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. If it sounds like a self-help book, that’s because it largely is. It’s a very fast read, in part because feels like a series of magazine articles strung together. But there have been some little nuggets that I have started to apply to minimizing.

The author, Mari Kondo, is a professional organizer/consultant who lives in Japan. She works with clients who want to declutter, organize, and reassess their possessions. One of the big takeaways for me has been to go through your things by category, and not by location. With clothing, for example, most of us have our clothing in at least two locations. Depending on the season or function of the clothing, they may be even more scattered. I had my closet down to two drawers and five hangers, and since reading the book I’ve prepared another bag of donation clothing to be dropped off. The general rule of thumb? Keep only the possessions that bring you joy, have function, or provide information. Simple, but monstrously effective.

I also very much like the Japanese concept of being grateful for your possessions, even if they no longer serve a purpose in your life. I’m not always very good at slowing down to be thankful and it’s something I’ve started to do a little more.

Kondo really seems to have an obsession to be organized, and I’m just not that way. I found some of the advice pretty tedious and unnecessary, like the exact order in which to get rid of your clothing. But I also think her big picture approach makes sense. Ask yourself why, and do so repeatedly. Some of the questions I’ve been asking? Why am I keeping this shirt? Why do I want my life to feel less cluttered? What kind of lifestyle do I want? What’s keeping me from living that lifestyle? Etc., etc.

If you’re truly interested in minimizing, give it a read. It won’t kill you and it moves very quickly. If you’re happy with the things you’ve got and the way they fit into your home, you can pass on this book. The book itself, I should say, does not bring me joy so I will be passing it along. But it has provided some great information during the time I’ve had it. Thanks, book, for sharing some helpful insight!

We had some guests recently, so I made this dessert. It’s so easy (3 store bought ingredients) and gluten-free. Here’s what I did…

Melt 1/2 pkg. chocolate chips. Stick in 1 container of softened raspberry sorbet (1 cup). Mix until the two are smooth. You may need to microwave them, but you’ll know when they’re mixed well. Then add 1/2 container of Cool Whip. That’s it!

I froze it all together in some homemade chocolate bowls and they made a really lovely, elegant dessert. When we had guests, I garnished them with fresh raspberries and white chocolate flourishes. They were prettier than the one in this photo, but they were all so delicious and so easy.

And of course, there’s always this fruity, chocolatey, gluten-free classic…

Happy Valentine’s Day!

My dad is a lifelong student of photography, and when I was in high school I discovered I was too. Since then, we’ve been taking year-round photo walks together.

One winter a few years ago, when I was experiencing a bout of depression, Dad suggested we take a photo walk. It was a particularly cold day, but the skies were clear blue and the sun was shining. As we walked through still snow of the county park near my parents’ house, Dad shared some words of wisdom.

He walked off the trail, up to a long since leafless tree. He examined it for a few moments, touched its rough bark, then stood back to admire its size. Nothing about the tree stood out to me from my vantage point on the trail. If Dad hadn’t stopped to take a closer look, I would have trudged right past it. After he had admired the tree, he took out his camera and started taking photos of the bark. I stood back and watched until he motioned for me to come closer.

He pointed to the deep grooves in the bark and smiled as he noted the many shades of red, brown and green running through the trunk. “Look for the colors, B,” he said, and I knew he wasn’t just talking about the colors in the bark. Every winter, I walk through the woods looking for colors. And more importantly, I go through life looking for colors.

My dad has a way of giving thoughtful advice when we need to hear it. Today is my dad’s birthday. On your birthday, Dad, thanks for all your years of love and advice. Happy birthday and we love you!

Winter Sunrise

This is a very basic recipe for a colorful, healthy black bean salad. You can eat it plain, use it as a chip dip, or dish it up into some tortillas. Tweak it to your tastes, but it is so good you’ll flip.

1 can black beans

1 juicy red tomato

1 avacado

2-3 Small sweet peppers

1 jalapeño, minced

Juice of 1 lime

1 bunch cilantro

Diced everything that needs dicing, mix it all together, squeeze lime over it all. Drizzle with Sriracha sauce and dish it right up.