“Kagami-mochi” (rice cakes offered to the gods for New Year) are commonly eaten on the 11th of January, wishing happiness and health. Big round rice cakes displayed at home shrine during the year change period are broken with a wooden hammer, not using a knife.
The small rice cakes I bought to pray to the gods were not formally displayed at home shrine (because there is no home shrine in my house) and they were small enough to cook without being broken but at least I followed the custom to eat on that day.
By using leftovers in the refrigerator, I made “Ozoni” (rice cake soup).
Actually, I do not like rice cakes very much, so this was the first time for me to eat rice cakes this year. There are so many varieties of rice cake soup from region to region with different local ingredients and different seasoning. My soup was neither traditional or local but thanks to “Tamari-fu” (decorated ball-shaped raw gluten) left in the freezer, it looked a bit nice…
The taste of this vegetarian soup was good!