dinner post

I had to take a photo of dinner, because it was so pretty (dinner doesn't normally look like this, I promise you).
I was planning on serving rice with it and making some imitation crab maki sushi, but the rice did NOT cook properly (it was mush on the bottom and crunchy on the top). I took the imitation crab and mixed it with some cabbage, mayo, sesame seeds and pepper to make a salad.
The sausage slices are a honey garlic smoked sausage cooked with a bit of garlic and some teriyaki sauce.
Frozen veggie dumplings with homemade gyoza sauce.
And finally, the part I am most happy with is the Cha Soba (green tea buckwheat noodles) - served cold, I lightly toasted some nori over a burner and cut it into thin strips, made some soba tsuyu (dipping sauce) and served it with some wasabi and green onions (as per several websites when I was looking up how to serve the cha soba). I mixed the wasabi and green onions into the dipping sauce and dipped the noodles in before eating them. The noodles are so refreshing and the wasabi complimented the flavour so nicely.

I always wondered about all the different sauces they serve at Japanese restaurants, and once I started incorporating some of the cuisine into my cooking, I learned that those sauces are all pretty simple and only require 3-4 main ingredients used in different combinations.
My next goal is to make gyoza from scratch! I'll probably wait until we're moved in to our new house before tackling that.