what was supposed to be a quick dinner turned into an elaborate event merely due to its length. i'd say that the prep took about an hour, the eating took about an hour, and the cleanup took just under an hour. we made dinner for everyone in the house since we have food we need to make and as a thank you to the times my mom has made dinner for all of us and stuff like that. no recipes--we just wanted to try some new things to see what they'd taste like. earlier i bought some gado gado sauce because i wanted to try making it since what i had eaten in new zealand was pretty good. so we threw some things together in a pan (cauliflower, garlic, onions, cabbage, mung bean sprouts, olive oil, sesame oil, pepper) and put that on top of a bed of rice (a mixture of sweet rice and regular japanese rice my mom always has on hand) along with some cooked tofu and poured a bit of the sauce on top. twiddle thumbs made a little concoction of indian eggplant and squash with miso. to drink we had hot jasmine green tea. that gado gado sauce is sweet but spicy. a subtle kind of spice. hot by itself but not really noticeable on your tongue when mixed with food, except your body knows what's going on and you feel hotter. all in all it was pretty good except for the dessert--a box thing of rice pudding from lebanon we bought a long time ago at a middle eastern market.