
Cute and delicious food art
Hi, I'm Yuki. I make cartoon-like food art to express my love for healthy eating.

Natural ingredients only
There's no need to use chemicals to dye your food. Nature is your ingredients.

Vegan and Vegetarian
What you see on Yukitchen doesn't contain any meat products.
Except, you know, Jabba the Hutt.

Childhood into a dish
My food art is inspired by my inner child.
Cooking is a place for me to express my regression, with a table spoon of nostalgia.

Ninjaga (Vegan Nikujaga)
Ninjas are definitely getting fewer nowadays. But just a few hundred years ago in Japan during the Edo period, there were still so many of them. One day, the shogun, -the military leader of Japan, invited a ninja to his castle. I mean, who wouldn’t? Shoguns are just like us; we all want to meet ninjas! So when…

Pumpkin Smoothie with Soot Sprites
These are “Makkuro-Kurosuke” from My Neighbor Totoro, and also “Susuwatari” from Spirited Away. The translated version of their names often disappoints me, because it’s just “Soot Sprites”. Soot Sprites…. I got the sentiments, but it kills the subtlety of Japanese goodness when I see the word “sprites”, -a supernatural entity in European mythology (i.e. Wikipedia). To us…

Rilakkuma Mitarashi Dango
I wonder if you have seen such a color as soft and chewy as Mitarashi amber. The golden glaze is made of soy sauce and sugar, and it covers the pearl-like sticky rice cake as known as “dango”, in Japanese. This is Mitarashi Dango, and all Japanese grew up with Mitarashi Dango, especially around 3…

Neatloaf
It’s not meatloaf. It’s “Neatloaf”! Neatloaf and I first met at a restaurant called Jyoti-Bihanga in San Diego back in 2011. It was love at first “bite”. It was so juicy, so tender, and it gave me a sense of hope that I will have no problem becoming fully vegetarian one day. It was one of those…

How to make Coffee Amazake
What is “Amazake”? Amazake (甘酒) is a traditional sweet, low or non-alcohol Japanese drink made from fermented rice. We’ve been drinking this thing for more than 2000 years to date, according to my Wikipedia search. You see, I love amazake. It’s my go-to winter drink, ever since I was little. Since there was almost no alcohol, I felt…

Nigaoe(Caricature) Cookies
“Nigaoe(似顔絵)”(ni-gah-oh-eh) is a caricature. It’s a portrait realistically drawn by capturing or deforming the appearance and characteristics of a person. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always loved drawing nigaoe. I find people’s faces fascinating. It’s the wrinkles, the freckles, and the idiosyncrasies on their faces that I find them so beautiful. And the…

Super Mario’s Grain Salad
Humans have no superpowers. There are no superheroes. We all know that by now. But sometimes I’m skeptical, probably because there’s a part of me who is still in denial. Perhaps I was too young when I first watched “superheroes” on TV; it gave me an illusion of hope, that there must be someone with…

Ohmu-Rice
Like most fans would say, “Nausiccaa(風の谷のナウシカ)” is my favorite film from Studio Ghibli. I constantly find beautiful fan artworks on the internet under #studioghibliart hush-tags, and that inspired me. Then I wondered what it would be like to create food art out of Nausiccaa. Surprisingly, the first thought that came to my mind was the “Ohmu”. The giant dark-green creature Ohmu….

How to make Sake Raisin
You see, I love Rum Raisin. And one day I wondered if they love me back. According to my google search, here is what I learned: Regular Rum Raisin Recipe 1 cup raisins 1 cup dark rum 3⁄4 cup sugar 6 egg yolks 2 cups milk 2 cups heavy cream 1 tbsp. vanilla extract “6…

Vegan Ramen With a Global Warming Polar Bear
Finding ramen without meat isn’t really an easy search. But it’s always easy to wonder if you can improvise the taste of ramen using plant-based items. I make a lot of vegan and vegetarian recipes here on Yukitchen, but making the world vegan is not my mission here. That would be supremacy, and no supremacy…