Aki Matsuri

So this is it! The so much expected aki matsuri had come.
As we live in Mexico the festival is held on the mexican-japanese asociation and is like some sort of kermesse. There are booths where you can play and maybe win a price, food sellers, a stage and also a karaoke.
Needless to say, I went there with the single and purposeful intention of having a go at the food. As we have the Mikasa I can always taste some nice food but at the Aki Matsuri you can have some other things that are more difficult to find on a daily base, or at least ready to be eaten.

Here are the culprits of my current guilt. =P

One of those things were the odango. You know, those cute rice balls that are covered with different dressings. Mine were three, two of them had a shiromiso dressing that tasted salty yet sweet and was really good, I'm not sure of the dressing name so I think I'll have to go and make some research. The last one was of course a sweet anko covered dango. This anko was not entirely crushed and so you could bite some of the beans which was good. Thinking on how soft and deliciously sticky the odango are. I had them with some o-cha, though I'm pretty sure it was actually houji-cha and it was all good. The day was pretty cloudy and cold but everyone was having a lot of fun.
My daughter bought a bun filled with anko for herself and I got myself a daifuku, wich is currently in the fridge, because I had a lot of dangos and I'm afraid of gaining a lot of extra weight. =P

The close up. X3

We also got ourselves some candies and I already tasted the lichee one, it tastes great actually, it's a fresh flavor and the sweetnes is ok. I was afraid of it because Kasugai tends to put a lot of sugar... but it depends on the sweet I guess.

A sample of the bunch we bought.

Seven Days Diet, Day 7.

Day 7. Of rice and juice.

Photo taken from HERE

Yay! I have finally reached my last day of diet and I believe this was the best day ever. I had to eat all the rice I wanted to and fruit and vegetable juices. Many might wonder how on earth I liked it that much since it seems pretty restricted but it was rather easy for me as I'm a rice lover. Specially japanese rice. So I made a huge batch (a least only for myself) of gohan and tried it in several ways.
At breakfast I had it with a bit of mirin, rice vinegar and soy sauce dressing, I know rice ain't supposed to be prepared with soy sauce but this being the only food for the day I thought "Why not?". For supper I had it with ebi furikake and on dinner I made it with green tea, like some sort of soup. It tastes great actually but I didn't have any ginger or so, hence I had to have without additional flavors. But anyways, it was cool.

Photo taken from HERE

I made myself different juices for the day. I made a tomato one, orange and papaya, papaya and mango and wanted to try a melon with apple but I was full by the end of the day. It was a very interesting way to try new things and I never felt hunger throughout the day so I daresay this day was an absolute hit.

Photo taken from HERE

Now, about the weight. I did this for loosing weight and I definitely had. I lost 3 k. Had I done this diet very strict without any sins like the cake of mom's b-day I could have lost around 5 k. So I think this is an absolute win. I shall do it again soon in order to keep on losing more of those extra kilos. For now I shall give it a rest for a couple of days.

Seven Days Diet, Day 6.

Day 6. Of meat and vegetables.

Photo taken from HERE

Today's goal was to have meat and vegetables, just like that. As my diet soup has already been exterminated by me since yesterday, I sauteéd some shredded cabbage with butter and salt. The result was (as always) amazingly tasteful and beautiful. I like the translucent tone of the cabbage. I also a quite big lettuce and tomato salad and themeat I had was oven made so it tasted great and had all it's natural juices. I wish I had my camera but it's still lost with my cousins (*sob sob* u.u).

Photo taken from HERE

Anyways, as I've been craving to cook some oatmeal porridge I did it for dinner and nobody wanted to have. Apparently no one likes porridge at home. I remember I used to hate it when I was a child mostly because they gave it to me every single day and it was a very liquid porridge so I had to actually drink it. As a child, you might easily guess I absolutely dreaded the gushing feeling of liquid porridge through my throat. But I decided it was about time I got over my worst gastronomic fears and so I did a bit. I also tasted it, not even 1/4 of a cup. And I amazingly liked it. I think a very influential part of it all was the fact that I made it... Who knows. =P

Photo taken from HERE

Seven Days Diet, Day 5.

Day 5. Of Meat and Vegetables.

Well, day five went out pretty dull actually. The goal was to eat from 8 to 15 oz. of meat, 6 tomatoes and 8 glasses of water (2 l. of water, that is), and of course I could have all the vegetables I'd like throughout the day.

Photo taken from HERE

The biggest problem was that we have gotten out of stock on vegetables and I realized it too late, just when I was about to have supper. I think I actually ate less meat than required but anyway I liked it a lot and I could have only three of the six tomatoes due to the lack of food at home. I have to go to the market as soon as possible. >_<* I also had trouble with the water part, as I don't like water (most might call me an heretic by this but what can I do =P). I think that I had like two glasses of water and another four of tea, which is almost like water, but tastes good.

Photo taken from HERE

Anyways, this day definitely didn't turn out well and for dinner I ate a bit of cream cheese with my celery (just a bit, hope that won't hurt), because those two flavours mixed toghether are the best thing ever.

Photo take from HERE

Seven days diet, day 4.

Day 4. Of bananas and milk.

Pic taken from HERE

So, day 4 has come to an end and the basic instructions was to have 8 medium-sized bananas and 8 glasses of low-fat milk throughout the day. Including of course the soup for supper. I however don't like cavendish bananas so I ended up buying around 18 baby bananas and so I'd have 16 bananas for the day. =P
The biggest problem I saw this day was that we celebrated my mother's birthday by throwing out a party. Meaning that I was unable to avoid eating some of the great cuban food a friend of the family made for us. I had some meat, yuca and nopales; it wasn't that much, around two tablespoons each food. Anyway I decided to not eat all the 16 bananas in fear of pushing a bit too much the diet. I also had to eat some of the cake. Because I have a sweet tooth, couldn't help it. It wasn't that much but I felt as if it was a lot.

Pic taken from HERE

Anyways, this day I believe was successfully passed and hopefully the cake didn't add much. Again the pics today are not from me, pics below each.

The seven days diet.

And here I am realizing that I'm overweight, and by a lot almost 10 k. from my ideal weight. So I decided to go on a diet. This specifical diet consist on seven days in which each day you are meant to eat one type of food and eventually lose 4 k. at the end of the days.
I actually have already started my diet and so I'll be posting my experiences on it and later on I'll write down the whole instructions.

Day 1. Of Fruits. Day one starts by eating only fruits, as much as I wanted, except bananas. On all days I'm allowed to eat a special soup and drink decaf coffee and tea. By eating watermelon and melon I could actually go down almost 1 1/2 k. but I could go so far. Truth is, as I love fruit a lot I thought this was gonna be easy but it's pretty hard to not eat salty stuff. The soup as nice but I was craving for some sort of crunchyness. Apart from that, everything went ok throughout the first day.

Fruit salad took from HERE

Day 2. Of Vegetables. Day two was quite better than day one. My needs for salty were filled and I was pretty satisfied the whole day. One of the things I didn't want on my diet was to feel hunger but I don't. The most recommended vegetables for this day and the whole diet are green vegetables and leaves (think of lettuce and spinach) either raw or steamed and to avoid beans and corn. The most awesome thing about vegetables is that one can actually find many different ways of preparing them without adding calories on to them. Also this day I had to eat a cooked potato with butter so it was a rather tasty day.

Vegetable salad took from HERE

Day 3. Of Fruits and Vegetables. I admit I didn't follw entirely this day's plan. The ideal is to eat only fruits and vegetables (which is definitely not bad). The problem here was that I wasn't at my home so I ended up eating three or four cookies and one quesadilla. The quesadilla is made with tortilla (prepared with a corn dough) and mine had mushroom filling so it wasn't 'that' bad; but the cookies... well, I have no way to forgive myself. >_<; Anyways, right now it's day 4 in progress so as soon as I finish it I'll post on some more stuff.
I also am dreadfully sad because I left my camera at my cousins since last week so there are no original pics this time, all pics have links. I hopefully will solve it at some point later on the week. =P Last pic took from HERE