Happy Birthday! Itadakimasu!

Being sick sucks. More so because I have no energy to cook and no appetite. It's sad, really. This week, however, I mustered up enough energy to pull together a great dinner for my beloved's 30-something birthday. I took a trip to my local Asian grocery store and picked up the ingredients for Shabu Shabu, a Japanese hot pot dinner. Following the excellent instructions of Cooking with Dog, I assembled my meal.

 To cook in the dashi broth, along with thinly-sliced beef, I cut up shiitake and enoki mushrooms, chopped up some fresh spinach and baby bok choy, cubed soft tofu and soaked vermicelli noodles.

 For dipping, I mixed up two sauces: Ponzu sauce, a citrusy tasting mix of soy sauce and lime juice, with grated daikon radish and sliced green onion added in, worked great with the delicious slices of beef. The other, a white sesame sauce based on tahini, worked fantastically with the tofu. Yum!

Since my beloved loves sashimi, which was our alternate meal plan for the evening, I picked up a fillet of fresh salmon, which I sliced up and served  soya sauce and wasabi. I love raw fish.

After dinner, we finished the meal off with bowls of matcha green tea, and little mochi, rice dumplings filled with peanut paste, sesame paste or red bean paste. Even though we are both feeling under the weather, I think it was a very enjoyable evening.