RATAHTWEE-!

I made my favourite ratatouille today after stocking up on my favourite summer vegetables from here and there. Some from the supermart, and nice zucchinis from the farmer's place.

Bread crumbed grilled fish topped on ratatouille

And a nicoise salad to complete

Nicoise salad is one of my favourite french salad too. and since the vegetables needed for it are in season, we had it all french tonight! =)

back from peranakan high

I am back from my cooking hiatus!

Mum cooked soooooooooooooo many of my favourites i was high on peranakan food for a the last few days. I never imagined we could have my favourite chap chye, hokkien mee, ponteh, etc etc in japan! gonna have to try them on my own.

Lunch was zhar zhar noodles

Dinner was

Zucchini and french beans garlic stir fry

konnyaku noodles and hijiki ginnger nimono (simmered salad)

added koya tofu (dried tofu) to absorb all the nimono sauces. my first time doing this and i think it is a good idea! the tofu was tasty after abosrbing all the sauces from the nimono.

Mum has gone home. The house is quieter and i am sad that she is again 7 hours away from me.

Mum is here and we have soooooooo much to talk about.

Getting used to the garbage system seems to be the toughest at the moment, but otherwise, it looks she is doing quite fine! Though various culture differences seem to amuse her pretty often.

We are having lots of good food too!

Tonight was spicy miso hotpot.

pork based, with yummy tofu, lots of vegetables and mushrooms

and GIANT shimeji

ended off with cheese and egg and rice

instant yummilicious risotto

Dessert was something i have been wanting to try for a long time

Looks like a standard egg sponge cake

that went wrong cos the surface is sunken in

But which is due to the half runny egg texture.

which made this egg cake melt in your mouth like half boiled eggs

oh, and besides the different japanese fancy foods, we had exotic singpore soups too!

Papaya peanut soup!!!

Ok, sounds gross, but we love it!!!

oven fried rice

I made fried rice in the oven yesterday!

We have a fried rice mode in this oven, but i have never tried this menu before.

It was GOOOOOOOD.

No oil needed, but the browning effect still set in!

Just spread the rice and all the ingredients onto the oven grill pan, press button. and voila!

Fried rice with home made charsiew, carrots, the season's fresh bamboo shoots, and eringi mushrooms

Egg was added at the end, so it was soft and fluffy

Mizuna salad with grilled maitake mushrooms, chikuwa fish cakes

topped with homemade sesame dressing

Haven't had fresh salad for quite some time, so this was especially yummy and refreshing.

our all time favourite hanpen, pan grilled

Ahh... one more convenient dish discovered =)

pink eggs

We celebrated H's one month old birthday yesterday with pink eggs.

Like how i grew up with. We had castella (butter cake) too, the standard celebratory cake.

Ramen for lunch was with a twist

standard ramen with home made charsiew

topped with our pink eggs =)

They were supposed to be red, but i guess cos the shells are white, they turned out pink

which look cute too!

Dinner was

chicken fillets with fresh green peas with mentaiko sauce

french beans, black sesame salad

burdock salad, with sour plum and bonito flakes

I got my ice cream treat too!

after a month of no cold foods, that was a real treat. but i am still watching to keep that to a few mouthfuls since cold stuff affect milk production. i never controlled my junk food intake so strictly before, this is a little tough, but still bearable for the time being.

sukiyaki!

The next big thing on to eat list was SUKIYAKI!!!

Since i was supposed to keep away from salty food for a month, this was on the hold for exactly a month! we were planning to have this the weekend that H was born.

well, so this was our mini celebration last night, without the beer.

Finished off with thick udon noodles last night, as usual, cos i like it always satisfies my hor fun craving. ^.^

wished i could have a glass of umeshu last night but J says alcohol should still be on hold.

black bean rice

i am so crazy over black beans these days i feel i can have them everyday now.

but having bean soup all the time is boring, so i wanted to try a very typical japanese black bean dish: black bean rice.

Dinner was a one plater

black bean rice with homemade burdock burger topped with cheese

drizzled with shiitake teriyaki sauce

together with a sunny side up and the season's fresh peas in the pod

when i have green peas in my fried rice, i like lots of it. but J hates them cos he claims he doen't take frozen peas. well, excuse or for real, when you try these real peas, you may pass the peas too when they are the frozen type.

spinach soup

the typical japanese spinach is very bitter, so it has to be soaked in ice water once after blanching. but this salad version was extra sweet, so popping them in soups is totally fine. and absolutely delicious.

burger craving satisfied.

sesame oil ginger chicken challenge

Tokyo's day temperature hit a high of 27degC yesterday and i was perspiring throughout the day.

It feels good though =)

I finally got to making sesame oil ginger chicken that tastes similar to mum's!

Sesame oil ginger chicken with snow peas and a poached egg

and a big bowl of okara with hijiki

I reckon it is time to do my biannual closet change!

away with fleece pajamas and coats, out comes my skirts and T shirts!

Is summer really setting in?

After weeks of shivering under a jacket, i am finally starting to perspire even in a T shirt.

Somehow it feels a little like summer already.

We had neba neba soba for lunch

Neba neba describes the stickiness of all the toppings.

Okra, natto, nameko, mozuku seaweed make the dish super gooey after you mix it.

plus top with a poached egg and you get a super sticky soba lunch.

To some, this might be gross, but if you like the stickyness, it is said to energise you on a hot and restless day.

Dinner was a one dish affair cos my afternoon nap lasted till evening time, which made me go uh oh, i was supposed to make dinner.

Beef and beans vegetable soup topped with toasted cheese cubes

with crispy croissant sticks

(made speedily with frozen pie sheets)

Since it was children's day yesterday and there are lots of eggs in the fridge, my hands were just itching to bake something.

Though we ended up with something than didn't need eggs.

Kinako (roasted soy bean powder) cheese cake

Started on a happy note and a growling tummy after smelling those fragrant biscuit crumbs,

but halfway through when i was about to do my favourite whip cream, opened the ice compartment and found ZERO ice cubes. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

It irks me whenever i need ice and there is no ice cos it takes TIME to make them.

Went ahead and started whipping though. whipped and whipped, but the cream started to curd!

double AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! so indeed, ice is needed at the base of the whipping bow.

now i am in a lousy mood and the vacuum cleaner is blasting away, which worsens the lousy mood.

OK, made J get me another pack of cream and ice.

Mood lifts a bit. still a little sulky, cos WHY DOES MY HUSBAND LIKE CLEANING UP SO MUCH?!!!

when i poured the cream mixture into the cake tin, the fragrance of the kinako sort of melted my stress away, so we are at peace again. ^.^

Children's day

It is children's day today!

We got a koinobori to put up.

These carp sets are flown above the roofs of houses with sons in the hope that they will grow up healthy and strong, with the biggest koinobori for the father, next biggest for the eldest son, and ranging down to the smallest carp for the youngest son.

Here, Children's day is a day we hang up our hopes for sons while the Doll's festival day Hinamatsuri in March is the day for girls.

I finally got to eat Samgaetang yesterday!

TADA~!

With red dates and chestnuts and the yummy glutinuous rice in there too!

This was on my to eat list before i delivered. My daily morning cooking show showed how simple it was to prepare this and since it is my all time favourite whenever i go to a korean restaurant, i just had to give it a try.

the ingredients were all stocked up at home, and thank goodness i decided to freeze those drumsticks.

Since i won't be able to go to my regular korean restaurant for quite some time, this is so gonna make my day whenever i crave this energy boosting dish.

I wanna cook this AGAIN!!!

broccolli namul

Am so thankful for these korean chilli flakes.

Fragrant and not spicy at all, so i usually put in a lot when i make korean salads.

Made another salad to go along too,

but this was japanese. thick hijiki salad:

Lunch was a fishy business

Soba with maguro burger and ginger simmered sardines

and yep, topped with an egg

i love those shoyu simmered sardines but they are so sweet and salty on their own, so J suggested we have them in soba. it was good! so we get our fish dose during a soba lunch too!

Today is officially the first day of summer, but since the springlike winds are still blowing, it is still enjoyable to take a walk out under the sun.

The forecasts say this year's summer will be extra wet (many rainy days) and hot. ooh boy i really wonder what mid august will bring us this year.

Anyhow,

Happy children's day~!

pasta my style!

Over the last 3 weeks, lunch menu was udon/soba/udon/udon/udon/soba, and the heat up in the microwave type. so i just made sauce to pour over.

Yesterday, i felt, OK i am GENKI GENKI, so i wanted boil some pasta.

sesame oil ginger fish and spinach fettuccine, topped with poached egg

voila~ pasta in confinement food fashion

And dinner was something we both like!

mabo tofu!

Mabo tofu with snow peas

with ground up leek and ginger and no garlic in the sauce, this was a mild version from the otherwise spicy and strong tasting dish.

i think this is a nice change, and in fact we now think we prefer this!

More black bean soup

konbu salad

These days i stop being so hero like and make everything from scratch, so small dishes like this konbu salad are store bought.

tasty, but as usual, very japanese style to have it sweet too, which both of us don't really fancy.

ah well, we just have to shut and eye now and when i feel i have lots of time on hands again, the everything from scratch dishes dinner will start again.

taimeshi

We celebrated otoosan's birthday at our place yday with mini cakes =)

well, though generally sweet stuff are a no no for milk production, i closed an eye and had a few bites. was good enough to not finish all!

i chose this: strawberry tart with nice vanilla custard base

okaasan had the fruit babaroa that came in a cute cup

otoosan had the banana caramel tart

according to him, bananas were expensive fruit in japan in the past.

i think the southeast asians ate them like nothing?

J had a very interesting swiss roll:

green tea cream with charcoal sponge

Dinner's main was snapper rice!

snapper rice, which we call, taimeishi is a dish usually eaten on celebratory occassions and i wanted to learn how to make this

salt grilled snapper placed on top of the rice with shoyu based broth, to be cooked in a claypot

and when cooked, we remove the bones, and separate the flesh to mix into the rice

this was simply delicious. and literally, simple AND tasty.

needless to say, fresh fish has to be used. and the pleasant fragrant of the sweet and tasty snappy is appreciated with little seasoning, together with chewy rice.

can't wait to try this on my own.