mochi mochi mochi

I made zenzai (also called oshiruko) for breakfast today with some toasted mochi in it. Since I'm moving soon and my parents certainly aren't going to cook with the Japanese ingredients I bought (and the ones my host mother bought me before I left for kusa-mochi are already past their consume-by date...) I decided to use up the mochiko and open bag of azuki beans. It wasn't quite as good as I remember, but it was still delicious. The picture on the left is of just the mochi. I'm not very good at making it, but today's was better than previous attempts, and unusual in the sense that I had to mix the mochi flour with an equal amount of sugar. Mochi normally isn't sweet. But this stuff was, and with the mildly sweet soup it went in, it was pretty good. Rolling the mochi into little balls made me think of New Year's Eve at my host family's house. We had about 15 times the amount I made today, and I invited a friend over and we rolled mochi into balls with my sisters Sayoko and Sayuri for about half an hour...then we all ate mochi with toppings on it until we were stuffed, because fresh is the absolute best way to eat it. :) Then we had zenzai for breakfast about four days in a row after the new year because we had so much mochi to eat up before it got too hard and gross. I didn't mind because I liked it so much. XD