spring cleaning starts

Today was big spring cleaning for us!

ahh... feels nice to have the place refreshed for the new year =)

Lunch was

tuna & cabbage tomato based angel hair pasta

Dinner was

miso soup with toasted mochi (hmm... fresh mochi really is super chewy)

Beef and vegetables oyster sauce stir fry

dried scallop eggs toasted

we got this from Wakkanai and the smell really put me off when i was having my weird selective morning sickness so i kept it aside for some time. i am all fine now so this tasted really good!

simmered pumpkin

i think i overcooked again =P woops, really eager to finish up as much stuff in the fridge as possible.

mochi making

For the first time, i participated in a mochi making gathering, which is usually held at the year end.

Headed to a friends place cold and shivering, but left with a happy song in my heart and warmed up because of the nice spirit in the air.

Thats the guys hitting the piping hot steamed rice brought out from the kitchen and thrown into the wooden tub.

yusho! yusho! they chant in rhythm to drum up their energy

the ladies were busy preparing for lunch

pickles to go with beer

the guys were busy hitting mochi, and reshaping the wood when needed

the kids were busy watching video

and after all the hard work

time to ganbai & tuck in~

the kids love the red bean mochi

well, along with the young ladies too =P

made seafood kimchi hotpot for dinner

added rice and cheese & egg lastly

ahh... energy recharged!

what an interesting day i had today! i have something to look forward each year now, for as long as we live in tokyo =)

smoked daikon pickles

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

After 2 days of feasting on roast chicken and roast pork, we are back~

dinner was simple and quick.

since we were having spicy curry, i needed my yogurt dose.

so we had super ripe jam like sweet persimmons with yogurt by the side.

eggplant and fried tofu curry

smoked pickles from Akita

My first time having smoked daikon pickles, a souvenior Okaasan got from her work trip to Akita. YUMMY! i love all things smoked, so this is really addictive.

It will be Chrismas in 2 days!

But the atmosphere is just so focused on the new year celebrations that i dont feel much of the christmasy mood. Illumination deco on the streets are generally up to light up the dark winter nights and brighten up eveyyones mood.

we dont have a christmas tree at home (id like to have a big big one!), so i got busy with making a little christmas ring.

to remind us christmas is indeed here~

We had some time out together yday since it was Js last day at work for the year.

And when we visited the bakery so i could get something chocolatey for breakfast.

(these days i crave chocolate in the mornings too!)

Jun had to have his curry pan fix

satisfied my chocolate craze with this

chocolate berry roll! =) yummy@@

Lunch together was at this interesting ramen place that serves up ramen made with soba flour!

so, just like ramen, it is curly and had a chewy testure, but it was not yellow. looks exactly like soba and tastes like soba too!

so it is like chewing on ramen, but with the taste of soba in your mouth.

with wakame and roast pork slice

i ordered a half portion since i always struggle to finish the noodles.

not to my delight, the soup was half portion too!

we asked the chef to add a lil more before i tucked in, but he said, well you ordered a half portion, so soup is half too. the soup is expensive. >.<

ok, so anyway, we tucked in, and surprisingly i finished the bowl in a few slurps, and wished there was more noodles in there.

while jun had the regular, he said, well this was slightly less than the normal ramen portion.

the noodles was good, the soup was interesting, being fish & pork based.

but the soup was not hot enough, and for hungry people, definitely not enough.

one place checked. will we return for more? hmm, really really difficult to decide.

Dinner was beef and potatoes!

Nikujaga with shirataki

with a bowl of freshly polished white rice.

the rice shop near our place will only strip the husks off the rice grains when you buy them.

so the rice is especially fresh, sweet & fragrant on the day you buy it.

some people have this machine at home to do it. japanese love their rice so much, i think the machine is a good investment. there are small ones meant for home use, and i think it is just so satisfying to have a fragrant bowl of rice after a long day.

we have so many rice shops near our place so we dont need such a machine at this time. plus, i have my rice unpolished(brown rice) quite often too.

broccolli hitashi

=) satisfied with our new batch of Fukushima Koshihikari rice! sweet and chewy.

Tada~ our new hot carpet in the living room...

makes the cold floor much more welcoming to sit on.

Dinner was

natto stir fry with eringi mushrooms, scramble egg and chicken sticky sauce from yesterday

stir fried burdock in miso

cucumber slices with konbu & prawn furikake from wakkanai

black fish cake (made with charcoal) and tofu fish cake

I dont know why i have a fetish for black foods, sqiud ink, black beans, black sesame, and when i came here, charcoal based food like this fish cake. Charcoal here is also touted as a health food. so there are shops specialising in special charcoal for adding to your foods, or steeping in your water jug. =) interesting eh?

tomato garlic toast

Tomatoes and garlic make a perfect match on toast!

was what i discovered this morning. put some tomatoes on ham and cheese, sprinkled some garlic over and toasted. was good~

plus kaya cheese toast which we havent had for some time. last bottle!

Dinner was

okonomiyaki in the pan,

yam with chicken & prawns sticky sauce

from Harumi Kurihara weekly cooking show on Sukkiri tv

ginger and shiitake simmered white cabbage. nothing else added except fishcake slices, salt and pepper!~ was amazed at how tasty this was without shoyu or any broth granules added!

okonomiyaki

made with okara and grated mountain yam added

the last time i made this was when i bought okara (soybean pulp) from the tofu seller and didnt know what to do with so much, i thought of various ways to add them into my cooking.

Okara is basically the pulp that remains when tofu is made, some tofu sellers sell them to the pig farm, some give it to customers for free.

And usually a pack of it contains an amazing amount.

the boom here among the health conscious is using okara as like you would use flour.

so, replacing 90% of the flour in okonomiyaki, makes a huge difference to the nutritional value of this otherwise flour filled pancake.

i spotted this recipe in some food magazine last month, and thought, hey, i feel like making that again! i think okonomiyaki at home is always easier on the stomach since i dont use oil like how the teppanyaki restaurant does. =) ahh... another guilt free treat we had today! ^.^

Fish & rice

It was freezing again today, but i have one more furry friend on the sofa, and a pair of furry (hairy) legs to warm up to. =)

welcoming the first ang moh in the house

Lunch was

Hot soba salad

with broccolli, mushrooms, roast pork and yuba (beancurd skins)

Fish and rice, what both of us have been craving for over the week

Besides the tomatoes & cheese nibbles, and cucumber salad,

Foil baked cod & white cabbage

chawanmushi with the seasons shiitake mushrooms and gingko nuts

Jun hasnt had white rice for a week in the UK, while i had brown rice most of the week, so tonights bowl of pearly white rice was especially chewy & fragrant.

Finally! a have a partner for lunch and dinner today!!!

Lunch was

udon with vegtables in miso broth

And... what both of us have been looking forward to...

hot pot dinner!

salt based with chicken, tofu, lots of mushrooms and vegetables & leeks to warm us up

Ahh... just when i thought my appetite has decreased a lot because of the flu, i think it was because of loneliness! cos both of were quite wowed by how much i consumer today! =)

I didnt feel like moving much today because it is so cold.

And i m tired from blowing my nose.

So, dinner was easy peasy soba.

Hot soba with mushrooms and vegetables and shredded chicken

i was quite surprised that i was full after 3 mouths full. but it will be unfair to little Mooch if i didnt nourish properly. So i was a good girl and finished all.

Cant wait for tommorrow!

the cold

It is really freezing.

seriously cold. with highest 9degC today.

and it is going to be so this week. with some mornings going to 1 or 2 deg.

just when i thought my tastebuds were not right because of the cold, it is my cold.

yeah, i am running a flu now =(

made dinner with lots of leeks and ginger to warm up.

multi grain rice, steamed chicken with vegetables, and grilled mushrooms

steamed this with lots of chopped leeks and grated ginger to power up

grilled eringi mushrooms with aonori seaweed

from the super dry nose from the winter air to a super runny nose. i need my celeb tissues~

super super soft tissues that wont rub much against your skin. love them! >.<

red bean pumpkin

OK, one person dinner is tough.

i am so tempted to make curry everytime!

my fav is always tuna curry cos it is so so easy!

all done in one pot n curry will never go wrong any day any time.

tuna, some veg and potatoes to give the curry some thickness, and just microwave frozen rice to go with. or, yeah toast goes good too.

but if i eat so much curry, i worry that i will turn orange soon. hehe

so, yeap, put in some effort...

grilled herb (shiso flake) chicken fillet on multi grain rice

vegetable soup with red dates

and... i planned to just make do with that 2 dishes... until i felt, hey i havent had red bean paste for a long time (the last time was on thur?). so, i decided to try this dish on my to do list since i saw this at the cooked food section in the mart a few years ago!

red bean simmered pumpkin

when i first saw this, i was drooling at it... my favourite red bean! my favourite simmered pumpkin! but unfortunately i wasnt living here when i first saw this, and this happened to be sold in a bento set and i just had lunch somewhere else =(

OK! so finally i get to make this. checked up the recipe and apparantly it is a sweet dish made without sugar!!! so it can be eaten as part of your meal. it is really really simple to make, and after tasting this, i think this will be a good idea whenever i crave both red bean paste cos there is no sugar added to this dish. if i ate red bean paste everyday, my weighing scale will not show a very friendly figure eh?

red bean pumpkin

1/2 cup red beans

pumpkin (1/4 a large one)

1 tsp salt

boil red beans in 2 cups of water till soft.

when water has reduced to the minumum and beans are soft, add pumpkin chunks, 1 tsp of salt, pour in more water till pumpkin is just covered.

cover the pot with lid and simmer till pumpkin is soft. open lid to let the excess water evaporate.

i nearly finished the whole pot since i kept going back for seconds.

by the time J gets to try this, i think it will all be in my tummy =P
(well, froze a small portion, u get to try it in ur bento ^.^)