Sequestration Meal #536

 

One of my favorite styles of meal is Korean-themed, as you may have noticed; here, we have steamed rice, Korean-style salads (spinach salad recipe from Low Carbing Asian; beet salad recipe from Lavender & Macarons), and gochujang soy curls (I used the sauce recipe from Jessica in the Kitchen's tofu rice bowls and mixed it with baked rehydrated soy curls).

Probably the only complaint I have about this is the lighting in the photo! The spinach salad was fine, nothing spectacular, but I loved that beet salad since the first time I had it and darn it, I was going to have that again for sure! I made the gochujang soy curls with half the amount of gochujang in the original sauce recipe, and although it released a cloud of peppery scents that made me cough if I got too close to it when it was cooking, it was somehow absolutely delicious.

I'm eating more spicy food lately; the consumption of spicy foods tends to go up in times of stress, as studies have shown. The spices cause our brains to release endorphins to counteract the pain, supposedly (I am no expert). And spicy flavors are read in the brain as pain, so this makes sense to me. In any case, I've started to find that spicy foods comfort me when I'm distraught, and I guess it was just time for that.