Learning to deviate from the plan

Hiccups. And I don't mean the kind of the body, but rather of life. I noticed today that my energy was a bit out of balance in spite of my early morning practice and bike ride to work. I knew that today was going to be a bit of a challenge as the prep for the Swiss chard went awry yesterday. The chard was supposed to be stemmed from the leaf down, and as we all tend to do sometimes, we make mistakes. It was completely stemmed. However innocently done, I told myself that I would spend the extra time in piecing the leaves together so that I could make a roll. This morning, after about 7 of these attempts, I moved onto a different plan, one that required a lot less effort. Perhaps I gave up to early, or perhaps I took the smarter route. As of this moment, I'm still not sure.

Coconut sticky rice over Swiss chard
Miso simmered tofu
Yam "fries" with wasabi dipping sauce

Nishiki rice was steamed with diluted coconut milk (1 part coconut milk and 3 parts water) and then combined with sweet shredded coconut, scallions, and toasted white sesame seeds. This was the filling of the planned roll, but ended up as a compact scoop over steamed chard that was drizzled with a shoyu sauce of tamari, mirin, fresh grated ginger, and a touch of sesame oil. The tofu turned out really well. Firm tofu was simmered in a miso bath of white miso, sake, demerara sugar, and filtered water. When served, it was sprinkled with a light dust of the spicy togarashi, one of my most favorite condiments in Japanese cooking. And the yam fries? Simply roasted with a touch of oil, salt, and pepper. The wasabi dipping sauce was meant to be a mayonnaise, but adjustments were in order as the vegan mayonnaise I attempted to make didn't really turn out well. After much tasting and alteration, constituted wasabi powder, along with cashews, almonds, lemon juice, rice oil, soy milk, Dijon mustard, and a touch of maple syrup created end product. Lessons learned: improvisation and the flexibility to change from a pre-determined route makes life a lot easier. And leaving emotions out of the picture... work in progress and something I definitely look forward to.