Vegetarian Dinner to Please the Masses

Thanks to my parents, the mentality that food is sacred and meant to be appreciated has long been ingrained in my head. This all happened long before there was a Julie's Kitchen, and even long before I was tall enough to reach the stove top. There is a saying in Cantonese, that translated, goes something like, "Know you that your bowl of rice each grain from hardship comes?" At dinnertime, if we didn't lick our bowls clean or if a grain of rice made its way onto the table, my mother would immediately prompt us with the said proverb. My cantonese is shoddy, but the gist of the lesson alludes to the tremendous amount of work that it takes to produce one single grain of rice - The farmer plants the rice, waters the plant, harvests the grains, hulls each grain, etc. This is a lesson that has stuck with me and really shaped my appreciative attitude towards food, cooking and eating.

Watching sitcoms where Brussels Sprouts were compared to feet, I never really fully understood the analogy. Granted, I was eight or so at the time and many things in the big world eluded my young mind. I loved vegetables as a child. Even the bitterest greens were like candy to me. It's all about your attitude and your openness to new tastes. I created this completely vegetarian meal to defy the common childhood stereotype filled with Fido-worthy veggies. We've got sweet steamed corn with miso butter and Parmesan, crunchy stir-fry of yellow/orange carrots and protein-rich edamame, garlic braised spinach and a bowl of multi-grain brown rice mix. If vegetables were always this pretty, who wouldn't lick their plates clean?