2009 last batch of chestnut rice

2nd successful attempt with roll cabbage~

Roll cabbage filled soy bean prawns patty

drizzled with homemade garlic bean sauce

Roll cabbage is difficult cos the shape is so hard to form!

but after getting used to handling the delicate preboiled cabbage leaves, the wrapping part is quite fun.

chestnut & roast pork takikomi rice

the last batch of chestnuts for the year. till we meet again next autumn mr. chestnut =)

butter shoyu sauteed mountain yam with bonito flakes and aonori

acid juices seem to be running up my stomach pretty often these days, they go away when i eat but come back an hour after my meal. if i dont eat, the juices dont form. but i cant not eat! hmm... but thinking of the reason why this happens (digestion slows down so nutrition gets a chance to seep into the body slowly), i will try to be at peace =)

Tiger!

Just today, the number of furry ones in the house increased after we came home from the game centre with many of those soft toy picking machines =)

Tiger!

Lunch today,

Treasure bag

filled with soba =)

Dinner was hot pot with lots of vegetables

and freshly squeezed yuzu in light shoyu to dip in

meatballs, prawn balls and purple glutinous rice balls

the soup was not exactly clear because i added lots of grated daikon

this is called mizore hotpot and before all the daikon melted in, it looked like snow =)

a simply clear homemade broth, so light J liked it. but i was happily drizzling shoyu into my dish =P

ready to celebrate xmas and welcome the tiger year~!

kamameshi

We checked out the latest shopping mall at Ikebukuro this afternoon.

Called Esola, an extension building from the Ikebukuro train station, so widely advertised, we decided we should take a look!

But to our dissppointment, hmm... very limited shopping space, but some quite very good restaurants on the restaurant floor.

Unsurprisingly crowded, we thought we would check those out when the fever has subsided.

Lunch was at a very old but huge department store TOBU which has many good restaurants too.

We had kamameshi , rice cooked in a mini stone hot pot, topped with various ingredients.

Mine was seafood and chicken. hmm... nutritiously delicious! and the rice was yummy! with the slightly burnt base, my favourite =)

J had oysters (in season now) with salmon roe

These days i am enjoying my rice more n more, and weirdly i do crave such rice cuisine once in a while. and yes, i finish the whole lot on my own =P

Lunch was pasta

with garlic toast made with really good light baguette we managed to get at a french bakery

Squid ink black linguine with home made mushroom cream sauce

tofu and sweet potatoes salad, wafu sesame dressing

ahh... walking in town is indeed tiring with the crowd around.

but with J leading the way, not so bad =)

i love sunny saturdays~

international

Nothing special today, i just wanted to go international~

breadcrumbed chicken cutlet

stuffed with ume, shiso and cheese. yum!

homemade saeurkraut

finished one head of cabbage with this! phew~ now, more vegetables can enter my vegetable filled fridge@@

this stocks well so i always make a lot at a go and have it with bread for breakfast.

korean chijimi pancake

my first time making this, followed a recipe. not bad! chewy like the ones i had by the roadside stalls.

nira (flat leeks) 3 stalks

pre boiled prawns (halved) 10 small pieces

mochi 1 piece (cut into small cubes)

1/4 cup plain flour

1 and half tbs cornstarch

1/2 a beaten egg

pinch of salt

pinch of chicken soup granules

pepper

mix everything together. heat some sesame oil in a pan, fry both sides till slightly crispy on the surface.

serve with chilli flakes mixed with light shoyu.

ahh... its the weekend again! =)

root vegetables for winter

Breakfast soup today was

broccolli potage topped with cheese~

i am loving my morning potages!

banana pudding english muffin toast

again... very comforting on cold mornings@@

Dinner was full of vegetables again.

but especially full of root vegetables.

wok fried chicken and lotus root, radish miso soup, kinpira (burdock and carrots), green vegetables ohitashi (simply blanched leafy greens, drizzled with light shoyu)

wok fried chicken with lotus root

i got this recipe, again from my chicken recipe book by Kohtetsu.

1 piece chicken thigh fillet (250g)

1/2 a loarge onion (thickly sliced)

140g lotus root (thickly slices)

3 pieces of shiitkae mushrooms (roughly torn into pieces)

3tbs vinegar

2tbs shoyu

3/4 tbs mirin (sweet wine)

1/4 cup sake

1 clove garlic (grated)

ginger (grated)

Cut chicken into bite sized pieces, sprinkle with salt and black pepper, then coat with cornstarch.

Heat 1cm oil in a pan. Fry lotus root and chicken pieces till crispy on the outside, wipe off excess oil. Pour in 1tbs sesame oil, push aside chicken and lotus root, fry onions and shiitake, and add condiments plus 1 tbs water. Cover and simmer on low heat 5min. Add 1tsp cornstarch dissolved in some water. Quick stir and we are ready!

burdock and carrot strips kinpira

Root vegetables are supposed to help our bodies cope with the cold.

=) i dont mind having a whole lot! i love lotus roots!

It was warm today and i went for yoga class in the day. apart from my headache (most likely caused by my idiotic crave for coffee at starbucks), i enjoyed today pretty much! sunny days in winter are nice...

dark beef curry

With the huge harvest of vegetables in my kitchen, i am finding ways to include as much as possible in our meals while they are still fresh.

Mornings are cold now, and salads are no longer appetising.

vegetable soups! i thought, could solve that.

cauliflower potage topped with cheese

In a pot, with cauliflower from last nights dinner, added onions and rolled oats (to create the starchiness), poured in consomme, simmered 10 min, used my hand held processor, and we had freshly made instant vegetable potage in the morning.

plus, ham toast and banana & pudding raisin toast

i used to not be able to finish my so many pieces of toast in the morning, but i seem to stomach them pretty well now! =)

Dinner was as requested

beef curry plate

when i think curry, usually it is chicken.

J says he likes the non sweet non milky version of beef curry which good curry restaurants serve, so i took up the challenge.

dark beef curry, topped with poached egg, with side broiled broccolli and cheese hanpen

i used a fond de veau based curry roux, splashed red wine in, and didnt add milk to simmer.

purple kabu (turnip) sauteed and drizzled with yuzu shoyu

i think i like beef curry!

the flavour of the curry is deep and strong, very adult taste, and because it is not sweet, it was like beef stew with a curry zing.

avocados

I havent had avocados for awhile, and J doesnt like them.

so after cracking my head, i think if i put avocados in our maguro don, he might like it!

Maguro (tuna) mini steaks, avocado slices and a sunny side up, drizzled with onion black pepper sauce.

cauliflower ume & shiso salad

oden soup

J finished his maguro tuna don! phew~

curry hotpot & cheese noodles

somehow, J has this interesting hobby of forming faces with everything he sees.

how the kitchen cabinet has a fat face, the stove has a weird face, the wall lines has smiling faces, etc

when i laid his breakfast plate, it wasnt like this.

creamy mushroom toast with cheese, and chocolate danish. the tomato wasnt there, it was in our big salad bowl before J laid hands on it.

I was surprised to find the left over pasta white sauce from yesterday become cream cheese like thick, so i gladly spread some on the bread mixed in some mushroom stock and toasted with cheese=)

today is labour day and J has the day off work.

we were walking quite a lot at kichijoji during the day, so to fill our hungry stomachs, a big pot of vegetables in curry stock.

cabbage, carrots, lots of mushrooms and onions, plus hanpen and yuba (soy skins)

with cheese & noodles added lastly =)

the yuba was like cheese too, so the ending was super double creamy noodles ^.^

hot pot sets are very popular in japan, so basically we choose our soup stock from the variety of shoyu, clear base, curry, pork base, fish base, miso base, kimchi base etc and this brand that we both love comes with noodles which is meant for hotpots cos it is extra chewy and doesnt become soggy. and slurping hot noodles on a cold night is really comforting.

as usual, with hotpots, we finish a whol lot of vegetables at a go. 2 of us had half a head of cabbage tonight! =) recharged for the week~

farmers mart festival

We had banana toast again this morning!

banana maple & cinammon toast that looks like banana pie=)

mentaiko cheese toast

Made use of English muffins so they look like the tarts in the bakery =P

The farmers mart was having their farmers fair this weekend.

started yesterday, but sales of vegetables only today.

on my pamphlet, it says sales start 2pm.

we left home early, thought we could head to for other shopping first, but when we walked pass at 12.05pm, it was full of people!!! ok, full of aunties.

then we saw the sign that says, sales start 12pm!

?! how come the auntie troop swarmed in so fast?

we queued to enter the sales area, had to be entered in batches to prevent chaos.

when i saw the vegetables, i almost couldnt believe! 100yen for 3 daikons?

100yen for 2 dozen mikans? 100yen for 2 big heads of cauliflowers/cabbage/broccolli?

In no time, my buddy had his hands full. =P hehe

the funfair section had many mini stalls set up by the farmers. but this was what caught my eyes most.

vegetable boat~

pretty!

when we left, there was almost nothing left at the sales area.

i am amazed at how news pass along the aunties!

i need to join a network soon? >.<

ok, then we headed back home to offload everything.

and headed for some shopping.

came home really hungry cos it was cold too,

spinach & ricotta raviolli in cream soup

=) ahh... warmed up!

we got this at misdo today

looks like a cake eh?

but its misdos xmas donut series!

we bought strawberry today

the doughnut dough was strawberry too!

because we have so many daikons at home,

i wanted to make daikon nimono (simmered dish).

but after putting everything together, it became oden accidentally.

with just 3 peices of fishcakes, and the rest, a full daikon, carrots, yam pieces, gingko nuts & konnyaku! well, + boiled eggs.

it was super healthy oden today.

daikon skins and leaves with some dried tiny anchovies cooked with rice

i usually remove the skins from the daikon so the broth seeps into the daikon easily.

this time, cooked the skins with rice.

1 daikon finished =)

深大寺Jindaiji shrine

Being the start of a 3 day weekend, we were full of energy this morning.

plus it was sunny and warm! so we set off to the park near the famous 深大寺Jindaiji temple a few train stops away from our place.

Pretty maple leaves were all over... the red and orange hues were just heart warming...

besides the maple trees, some other treas were red too...

and they just warmed up the otherwise pretty cold end of autumn/start of winter season.

there were a few flower parks in this huge garden too.

the orchid

named California girl

i dont know what is the name of this. but on first look, it looked scary, on closer look, it was really beautiful.

the rose garden

with a hundred and one different hues of roses from all over the world

the pink & whites were of course my favourites, but still the red rose stands out eh?

children and old aunties & uncles enjoying the sunny saturday =)

and after that long walk, we exited the park and found ourselves in soba paradise!

soooooooo many soba restaurants and traditional snack shops near the temple outside this garde

Jun had the standard
while i had kenchin soba, hot soba filled with vegetables
it was a really old place, and the soba was really good
we found this statue outside the restaurant
and the two seemed to have something to share?
after soba, there were sooooooooooo many snacks to look at
and we just had to have one of these steamed manjuu
green herb manjuu with nice hot red bean filling.

visited the Jindaiji shrine

admired more autumn leaves outside the temple
had another snack

fried soba mochi balls with kinako (roasted soybean flour) coating

then came home with tired feet, but lighter hearts.

Dinner was

oyako don (chicken and egg)

made with last nights sukiyaki soup!

mountain yam potato salad style

broccolli stir fry with mixed mushrooms

i couldnt help it, mushrooms on sale again and the mart.

made another stock of mushroom sauce.

but this time, mushroom bonito sauce. =)

ahh............ i think still love walks in the park =)