oden rice!

Weehee~ the strawberry season is really in full blast, and the bakeries are coming up with all sorts of breads with strawberries in them.

Strawberry & cream bread for breakfast =)

Lunch was ramen at home

salt based broth tsukemen

Tsukemen is any noodle dish where the noodles are separated from the broth, and you dip the still chewy noodles in the broth before slurping.

with home made charshu, and lots of beansprouts

We dropped by mister donut, but 100yen sale wasnt on, so we had no excuse to have donuts.

so tea time was...

peach shingen japanese cake

shingen is this very famous type of japanese cake from Yamanashi

this one was filled with peach bits!

and a very mildy sweeten bean paste, so it was really easy on the palette

loved it!

i did 2 experiments for dinner today

the first,

oden rice

using the soup from oden, adding burdock strips, carrots, chicken and shimeji mushrooms.

this takikomi rice was wonderfully flavoured!!!

the second,

crunchy natto

mixed flour into natto, and pan fried.

this was tasty too! would go well as a beer snack i reckon.

salt grilled isaki

this was good too, very tender and tasty =)

i always enjoy having fish for mains, but preparing it to be cooked is a very tough job.

when i take it out from the bag to give it a rinse, i dont like those pairs of eyes staring back at me. same thing for squids, and anything with a face & pair of eyes.

i wonder if it is just me, or most newbie housewives face this challenge too.

second day oden

Mushrooms are still in season i guess, though very much an autumn vegetable,

the marts still have them cheap within winter.

i seldom have them for breakfast, but decided to go a little crazy today with enoki.

enoki garlic toast, and muesli & yogurt with pears topped with cranberry jam

Oden second round

=) the perfect second day oden always satisfies~!

oden

After all the good fine food, simple oden keeps us happy =)

gorgeously filled with various fish cakes besides the basic daikon and carrots

Oden packs are sold commonly at the supermart.

usually a small simple assortment of fish cakes already simmered

but for us, ever since we started buying our fish cakes from the fresh fish cake stalls, those assorted packs from the mart no longer satisfy. =P the taste of freshly made stuff is just different.

this time, we try a very traditional stall from kichijoji, not only freshlymade daily, handmade.

hmm... i think i prefer this stall to our usual. =)

Sitting in the living for dinner at the low rise table is getting harder cos my tummy seems to be getting more n more squeezed when i sit on the floor mat.

We have moved to our proper dining table! =)

Squid & daikon simmer

broccolli grated black sesame salad

grilled chikuwa fishcake with aonori mayo

=) ahh... i m indeed having an easier time at the table.

Back from Yamanashi

We r back~!!!

from the beautiiiiiiiiiiiiiiful japanese ryokan we stayed at yamanashi.

and after 3 days of gorgeous food & waited upon by splendid japanese service,

it is back to down to earth living =)

Dinner tonight suddenly seemed super simple

grated mountain yam pan fried, topped with creamy sesame sauce & bonito flakes

miso meat sauce with natto & shimeji

simple egg soup

cucumber with shiso mayo

super recharged!

A busy saturday for us, so curry was for dinner.

Curry/roast chicken is always my fav when i am busy in the day.

Tuna & curry curry with couscous

celery & tomato cardamom yogurt salad

Looking forward to tmr!!!

home made roast ham

We tried to mimick the famous melted caramel on ice cream from hokkaido with the caramel that they sell online.

Melted the caramel in a bowl, topped it with ice cream,

but before we knew, the caramel was mixed with a lot of melted ice cream. oops =P

but it was still nice

the good thing is that the fever for this ice cream is gone, and the shops dont have 3 hour queues, so the next time we hit Ginza, definitely still worthwhile to have the real thing.

Dinner tonight

Daikon & cicken miso stew topped with grated sesame & yuzu strips

Yuba & celery salad

Homemade roast ham

Yep, after the boiled chicken ham experiment, i decided to be brave and try pork.

It was again, easy!

the point is, to rub the meat with salt weighing 5%of the meat weight.

then slather 1tablespoonfull of honey with it. (honey/ketchup tenderises the meat.)

keep it in the fridge for 3 days, and soak in water for at least an hour before boiling or grilling. use a string to shape meat into a log shape before boiling/grilling.

i used ketchup this time instead of honey. it gave the ham a nice browny red hue.

winter is back

the warmth from yesterday stretched till this afternoon!

i went to the mart without my coat at all and it felt soooooooooooo good.

But went for yoga class, and came out feeling, wow, winter is back!

it is cold again.

Dinner was simple

grilled treasure pouches

fried beancurd skins stuffed with kiriboshi daikon nimono

(simmered kiriboshi daikon & carrots with dried shiitake & prawns)

kiriboshi daikon is actually sun dried daikon strips and they taste very much like turnip.

so i cooked them in garlic miso, and it tastes so much like mums kueh pie tee filling.

I was impressed J recognised the taste too!

yuba (soymilk skins) with mashed sweet potato tossed in sesame miso dressing

cucumber and jelly noodles salad

wonder when will the real warmer season start =)

a warm 大寒 day

Woke up this morning and felt, wow it is warm!

and as i hung out the laundry waiting for me in the timer set washing machine, it really was warm! didnt need my cardigan at all =)

Breakfast was a change from the usual toasts

tororo imo (grated mountain yam), natto, and spinach with umeboshi topped on rice

I had initially planned to do a straganoff, but the weather being so crisp & light, i didnt need any comfort creamy food.

vegetables & meatballs in light sticky shoyu sauce

celery leaves furikake (rice topping)

baked sweet potato

According to the news, it is supposed to be 大寒day today, which means, the coldest day of the winter. But it went up to 18degC in the afternoon! to my delight =)

people were having their bentos outside their offices, in parks and such, and i think it is refreshing, after cooping up in warm rooms all winter.

i think it is back to normal winter conditions tomorrow.

balsamic shoyu chicken & couscous

Todays dinner was meant to introduce couscous to J! =)

I love couscous especially in salads, but never tried cooking it on my own before.

Chicken plate dinner with wakame consomme soup

shoyu & balsamic chicken topped on tomato & basil couscous

Never thought cooking couscous was so easy!

being a pasta, it is not like rice where you have to broil over low heat for awhile.

this was done in 6minutes!

Just pour hot water into the pasta, cover and let stand for 5 min, then pop in the microwave for 1min on high. easy & tasty. found something new for my quick lunches at home =)

Prawn gyozas

Someone made a face a breakfast today.

looks a frog?

Dinner today...

Prawns & pork gyoza by Harumi Kurihara

This was really really good.

firstly, just pat on the meat, and fold. this way, we get to eat a whole lot of filling.

secondly, no cornstarch needed when u make use of the stickiness of finely chopped prawns.

thirdly, by adding concentrated soup in there, the gyozas were so juice filled!

the prawn tail portions were finely chopped, while the succulent meaty body portion was roughly chopped, so there were nice chewy prawn chunks in there.

Double thumbs up!

wolfberries & vegetable soup with grilled mochi

J has been looking at the com waaaaaaaaaaay too much, so i figured this might be good for his eyes =) added LOTS of wolfberries

celery ohitashi

Ohitashi is basically vegetables blanched & steeped in iced water to stop the cooking process, then steeped in light shoyu based sauce & topped with bonito flakes.

Spinach ohitashi & choysum is the most common i guess.

I decided to try it on the bunch of celery i have in my fridge.

Really thinly sliced, then done hitashi way. It was really good! makes the celery much easier to palette. and for winter time, when we dont feel like having much raw vegetables.

ahh... we are so satisfied with todays gyozas! you can never go wrong with Harumi sans recipes i guess =)

strawberry season!

Strawberries are in season, and not only do u see the fruit section at the mart filled with plump, red & juicy strawberries, our favourite snack & sweets section has a whole range of limited period strawberry flavoured snacks.

I was so excited to see so many different kinds of strawberry ice creams!

stocked up on strawberry cheesecake bar, chocolate coated strawberry ice cream tiny bites, strawberry garigari( shaved ice like ice cream).

And when J saw his favourite pudding come up with the strawberry edition too,

we just had to give it a try!

looks so pretty isnt it? like one of those toys i used to play as a girl.

Lunch was

prawns & eringi mushrooms pasta

Just when J thought, how come todays spaghetti is so fat, he realised it is hollow =)

yup, they are like tubes, but in spaghetti length. interesting eh?

Dinner was western done japanese style

grilled burdock burger, oven baked fries, salt simmered vegetables, and tofu salad

burger topped with grated daikon, topped with shiitake teriyaki sauce

adding strips of burdock into the patty really really ups the volume of the burger, and i really love the combination of the crunchy burdock in the juicy beef patty.

some days i really crave fries and since i am supposed to keep my fried foods intake low. the only way to have the same yummy fries, is to oven bake them so i get to enjoy my potato madness =)