A healthy full breakfast 健康的な満腹になる朝ご飯






from top left to right, looking clockwise: fresh tomatoes with sesame dressing, celery stalks, sauteed greens, "wakame" seaweed soup with mushroom slices, herb tea, fried baby sardines, sweetened vinegar and rice

     This is one breakfast that a health-conscious person might consider.  Why? It fills one's stomach and yet it has less calories and would not make one hungry for long hours he might skip snacking before lunchtime.    The green vegetables are composed of green (or bell) peppers, celery leaves and stalks, "pechay" or Pak Choi (Brassica rapa L. cv group Pak Choi) and spring onions sauteed in olive oil with garlic and flavored with dried bonito shavings and light soy sauce.  The soup is a clear one (dried bonito-flavored extract) added with wakame, mushrooms and spring onions.  The baby sardines, available in stores as boiled and dried, are shortly fried in slight amount of olive oil (the flame is put off before the fish turns brown so just the remaining heat of the frying pan gives the perfect brownish color to the fish).  During eating, I dip the fish in slightly sweetened vinegar (this combination is good).  Fresh tomatoes and celery stalks (soaked for 5-10 minutes in salt solution after removing the hard outer part - this makes the celery stalks crispier and tastier) balance the whole repertoire.  Finishing with a cup of herb tea is not a bad idea at all.  I feel invigorated to face the day's challenges. Next time, I think that I could prepare this, not for breakfast, but for supper.