A bit of here and there

It is still hot.

As forcasted, this year's summer is indeed hot and long. Aircon sales and electricity bills are almost double that of last year's, it seems.

"it seems" cos i don't watch the news as often as before. The TV used to be on most of the day, but these days, i try to create a mini relax room at home with the TV off, some soft music and a bit of air con.

J says he noticed we turn on the air con very often this year.

Yes i am home almost all day! last year, whenever it was sizzling hot outside, i would chill out at malls. Now that i have a lil one with me, i can't be taking to the malls as and when i like. I wished i could though. i wish i could nurse as openly as we did in Cairns. But sadly, the asian community is always more reserved in this area. even nursing rooms here are privately cubicled. so instead of craving the mall, i switch on the air con and try to complete the things i had always wanted to started doing. like pasting up the photos in my scrapbook and gorging on the books sitting on the shelf waiting for me.

I try to lessen the stress of being in the sauna-like kitchen by making dinners really simple.

So here's what have been dancing on our dining tables for the past few days.

Iwashi, kimchi and potatoes in a pan

Iwashi, being a sardine-like fish means the bones are edible. so i didn't have to stand at the sink all day long plucking out bones.

This was lunch on one of the hot weekend afternoon.

Chilled somen with tomatoes, zucchinni and okra with a garlic based dressing, drizzled with fresh yummy limes from the farmers'.

Some evenings, i cheat with sauces and frozen burger patties.

just toss in ingredients and sauce, and we get dinner in no time.

like,

squid ink pasta paella

with freshly plucked basil leaves from the garden

Maguro burger loco moco don with shimeji teriyaki sauce

The frozen maguro burger we get at the supermart is really yummy and convenient for days i just feel like doing button-cooking. (cooking with the microwavey)

cantonese claypot rice

with the sauce i got from SG

tossed in some dried cuttle fish and fried onions lastly which made it taste quite similar to the real thing.

Beef rendang

again, with sauce i bought from SG.

except that the sauce really lacked body cos it was just liquid, and i remember rendang as something filled with ground up spices so we get a chunky rough meat sauce.

i simmered in lots of chopped up myoga ginger and onions, and some 100g of mashed pumpkin.

which gave the sauce some body.

I made a large batch of it, and had it with udon the next day.

Tada~ Rendang udon. Goooooooood.

Now i wished we could ta pao rendang home as easily here.

Some evenings, i get down to preparing normal meals without cheating.

Which means getting down to making dish by dish.

sukiyaki don, which i crave once in a while

salad with home made tofu cream (simply made by blending silk tofu with miso and noodle shoyu)

simply stir fried green capsicums.

i love the japanese green peppers. their skins are so thin, and flesh really tender and sweet. you don't really have to do much seasoning with them in a stir fry.

Oh, and cooking claypot rice and rendang, i started missing home. No no, Mum's place.

Gosh, home is here, yet i get homesick, erm no, singapore sick, once in a while.

pheeeeeee- as you can see, i get a bit of identity confusion on some days. going to the immigration bureau every time just does this this to me; makes me feel so foreigner, then induces a bout of homesickness, no no i-miss-singapore sickness.

i wished i could just drop by on a weekend.

have some yong tao foo in the day, and mum's tao yu bah in the evening, then come home.

ok, i managed to cure my yong tao foo craving though.

since kangkong is so in season, i just had to have some yong tao foo sauce to go with it!!!

with a bit of experiments with the stock of sauces at home, i found that it is so simple!!!

just mix the japanese creamy sesame sauce and my singapore bought black sauce!!!

then close my eyes and pretend the sauce is that nice red sweet sauce i always like.

I have this for lunch pretty often.

whenever i get some yummy kangkong from the farmers mart, i really cannot resist. they don't sell this everyday, so each time i see it, i get all excited.

Sometimes, we have it for dinner

with just sesame sauce, so that my husband doesn't think i am weirdo mixing black sauce and sesame sauce.

I know i overdo on my summer vegetables sometimes, which cools our bodies a lot.

So i try and make up with a ginger/leek/sesame oil combination at times.

I tried mixing grated ginger, leeks, seasme oil, korean chilli flakes, shoyu and sesame seeds for our sauce on tofu one evening. It was nice!

On days i don't feel like having plain rice, sushi rice always helps us finish up a whole lot of rice cos it is sweet.

I made inari sushi one night

with chawanmushi and miso soup
Edamame and sakura prawns inari sushi

we finished this really quickly.

I am still persevering through nursing the little one even at night. the powder milk in the cupboard is always tempting, but he just wouldn't take the bottle.

i wish that log sleeping next to me would MOVE and get his butt out of bed whenever the lil one cries at night. but that idiot claims he can't hear.

why do men develop this selective hearing syndrome when they have their wedding bands on?

what i have been doing in this heat

It has been hot the whole week.

Hot, as in average 35-38degC mid day temperatures.

The air con is a must almost all day or i'll probably have to have ice cream every 2 hours.

Anyhow, this summer, i am enjoying many flashbacks of the days of summer 2009.

How i suddenly hated eggplants, myoga and green capsicums, 3 of the very typical japanese summer vegetables. How i suddenly felt brown rice was stink and white rice so very yummy.

How washing the dishes after dinner felt 10 times more tiring than usual. and many many more weird changes my mind/body was going through because a little baby was growing inside me.

I thought, oh man, the 25 years of loving vegetables, and washing the dishes (by the way, this happens to be one of my favourite pastime, standing at the sink to wash plates) was taking its toll on me, i'm tired of loving my veg. bring on meat and the white rice!

Well, yeah, how pregnancy hormones can be funny.

I now am back to loving capsicums, eggplants and the yummy ginger-like myoga!

We have eggplants almost everyday, a lot of the time, sauteed with ham and topped on toast with cheese, quite often in curries, and sometimes in mapo style. And i am nowhere near being sick of them yet. So nope, i still love my veggies! Blessed by the koganei farmers' beautiful produce everyday, how can i get tired of my veg?

Myoga is usually expensive at the supermart.

3 pieces of 150yen is the average now, and the koganei farmers don't seem to harvest plenty, so by the time i get to the mart at noon, there is usually none.

So when we dropped by my sister-in-law's last week, i was so delighted at what she lucked from the many myoga plants around her house!

Plenty plenty!

i love them in my miso soup, as topping on my somen noodles, and pickled to go with rice.

It is summer, but obviously my appetite is still in its usual healthy state most of the time.

what the japanese call 夏バテnatsu bate, which means tiring from summer, and which usually brings along a loss of appetite, doesn't really exist in our home, though i dread being in the sauna-like kitchen in this heat. well of course there are some bleargh days too, but we recover almost immediately.

This season, really will go to a waste if we don't enjoy the plenty of colourful vegetables and fruit that are waiting to be brought home isn't it?

Apart from the eggplants, green peppers, pumpkin of all sorts, kangkong, molohkia, bitter gourd (which i still don't like),

Tomatoes

-soooooo in season now, with plenty of colours to choose from.

Aren't the purple ones cute?

We finish them like popcorn during meals. I love these mini ones most cos they give a nice refreshing burst of tomato juice in your mouth.

Limes

I got them at 300yen for 2 pieces 2 months ago when mum cooked us some tempra pork and i wanted to squeeze some on.

Now they cost 120yen for 3 pieces.

YAY!

i so wanted to cook this on my own some day so this was a good chance to try while we have some yummy limes in season.
I did a one plate, with garlic sauteed yellow zucchini. Very summer like plate dinner eh?

cucumbers

lots of them in my fridge; i am tossing them everywhere.

we discovered, one evening, that

passionfruit, cucumbers and mixed beans make a very good appetiser!

Watermelon

Not only the red ones
these small yellow fleshed ones, called cream watermelon were super sweet too
the size of my palm.

so we halved it and scraped happily away one hot afternoon.

not only are okras in season,

these flowers called okra flower are blooming too!

no, they have nothing to do with the okra plant, but when chopped up, they are so sticky like okra!

the taste? like lettuce, and no where near okra though some say they have a tinge of okra taste.

We had them last night with cucumber, natto, carrot rice, and myoga in miso paste.

Autumn is officially here as i mentioned earlier, so the yummy fishes that we all love, salmon, sanma, saba, anchovies, sardines, are at their yummiest.

The news on tv mentioned, the harvest for sanma is not good this year, hence the increase in price, but iwashi (something like sardine) harvest is 3 times that of last year, so they are cheap!

hoho, i can't wait to lay my hands on some yummy iwashi!

xiao long pao

Do you know how to eat a xiao long pao?

Well, usually i just pop itinto my mouth for that hot burst of soup.

Sometimes i break it in the spoon first so i get to enjoy the pleasure of watching the soup fill the spoon.

Today, we finally got to try the Din Tai Fung at the Takashimaya in Tachikawa.

And there was instructions of how to enjoy the xiaolongbao.

Truly so Japanese to have instructions.

We shared a lunch set of prawn noodles and xiao long bao

shumai
and another set of assorted xiaolong bao set which had 3 variations, 2 of each.

Regular, hotate (scallop), and kani miso (crab inerts)

i kind of like the kani miso. really rich tasting like uni (sea urchin). and so japanese. nice twist to the xiaolongbao.

Dinner was

oyako don (chicken and egg don)

green capsicums and potatoes nimono

For the first time, i simmered the capsicums whole, what i have always wanted to try doing after a few cook shows introduced how yummy they are eaten whole. I managed to get these small capsicums from the garden next door. A whole large bag for 100yen. (wheee~) Just nice for this experiment.

A little bitter, but the flavour of the capsicum was deeper.

Kids will probably not take this dish.

Ahhhh... the friday is all nice and friday-iy again after i was done with my visa renewal at the alien office.

I tried a different office today, located nearer to our place. We weren't aware of this branch until H made his passport at the main immigration office and i noticed a sign of another office that pointed in another direction. And when we checked online, ah, there is another office for aliens in tachikawa too! why not? it is much nearer than shinagawa!

i happily thought. wow, this would be great, only a few train stops away from our place, and in the shopping centre building linked to the train station. i don't have to take a bus like at shinagawa. i can go shopping after that! =)

well, turned out, we HAD to take a bus.

And to somewhere so rural-like.

pass the army training grounds, pass the remote driving school and many old-fashioned shops.

and walk on a long stretch of rough road before we reached the old building.

phooooo-

already, i hate the label "alien" or "gaijin which means outside people".

then i totally dislike these immigration places because it is always crowded and some culture are not aware of this thing called being in a queue, and privacy when you are filling out forms (aka not peeking at others jotting down personal info).

Why then do the offices have to be in such odd locations?

Oh well, when will i stop being called an alien? which is my real home?

the lunch at din tai fung made the day a little less depressing, and the company of J lightened things up a little i guess.

Mama gathering

It was a hot hot scorching day today, but it was still a nice walk to and from the hospital. My whole hat was soaked and it felt like it was drizzling under my sunglasses, and it felt goooooooood! =)

i just love to walk! but the heat is really not good, so the midwife Sakai san was at the gathering today was advising against long walks in this weather.

Today, she asked, "Did you go on a holiday?" i was super surprised!

Apparently, she saw us from the block opposite us!

Her good friend from high school lives there and just delivered a baby boy last month at the same hospital. Ah huh! i know who! whenever the elder 2 year old boy walks past us, he keeps saying "akachan, akachan" and stretches out his hands to touch H often cos he has a lil baby brother too.

Haha what a small world. Sakai san goes to her friend's place very often and has been suspecting she knew me. Suspect confirmed. =)

Dinner tonight was curry baked rice and kangkong

Seafood curry doria

with lots of vegetables

my all time favourite kangkong

These really sweet kangkong are only available in summer so i am just eating as much as i like just for this season.

gotta search my wardrobe for more sleeveless shirts to wear out from now on. My arms have 2 white sleeves painted on them now. and i don't like them.

Why my noodle squash smelt like melon

These days, i am very tired out by the heat by evening time. And the meeeeeemememememememe calling of the cicadas remind me all the time it is still summer.

I am usually at my peak in the morning/early afternoon, so this morning, i decided to check out whether my brain was really alright yesterday evening while preparing dinner or the noodle pumpkin really smelt like melon!

You see, the noodle pumpkin looks like this

And is the size of the usual butternut squash.

I found tiny ones too
About the size of a mini papaya.

I happily halved it, and was going to grill it and have us tuck in straight from the skins for dinner.

BUT the smell of melon was strong, and i thought, hey i didn't buy any melon, where is the smell coming from?

This is what it looks like in there
very similar to the insides of the noodle squash, just that the colour was not right too; white.

Hmm, last year when we had this, it was yellow.

Had a taste of it, and it was sweet. This is weird. I quickly tossed it back into the fridge for further investigation today and steamed a portion of the huge noodle squash instead.

Well, tasting it again this morning. Yes, indeed super sweet, slightly crunchy like the cucumber and tastes totally melon.

Checked the internet for "yellow melon", and yeah! indeed there is such a thing!

Apparently, this was commonly eaten in the olden days here, and it is called kinsho melon.

Phew, i'd thought the heat was getting into my head too much.

Dinner tonight was grilled sweet eggplants with wafu meat sauce

burdock & carrot kinpira, miso soup, and la-yu to help with the rice.

I am flabergasted at the news of children growing breasts after drinking formla milk. !?!?!!!

Exotic vegetables

We had some exotic vegetables for dinner tonight.

Purple capsicum, noodle pumpkin and molohkia.

Using the last few pieces of multi coloured capsicums we got from Cairs, together with some local green capsicums,

Stuffed capsicums with shitake teriyaki sauce

Noodle pumpkin with sesame sauce and sakura prawns

This was sooooooooo yummy i hope the Koganei farmers make more of this!!!

Molohkia egg soup

Well, molohkia is no longer exotic/rare here since the japanese eat this very often now.

It is originally an Egyptian vegetable. And because of the okra-like stickiness, it is eaten in summer very often, again because the stickiness takes away summer exhaustion.

Well, officially, summer is over, but it really isn't over yet.

Some friends and chirashi sushi

We had friends come join us this lovely sunday afternoon (in the airconditioned living room),

for an extravagant chirashi sushi lunch and lots of chat and play.

We wanted to try making this after watching it made on TV by a very popular japanese chef.

But the variety of seafood and vegetables used, meant that if i made it for the 2 of us, we would have to go on a diet for the next few days.

This was how large the dish turned out to be

With lots of summer vegetable pickles tossed in too.

Well, the dish was so-so cos the seafood we bought were all frozen stuff, so definitely not as fantastic as the ones we eat at the sushi restaurant.

But to have the company of our friends made the sunday very enjoyable.

Dinner was curry
with pickles.

Didn't use any curry roux today since we had so much vegetables.

Made our own curry based on the curry powder mix that i always stock from Singapore and lots of mashed pumpkin and dried sakura prawns.

The thing about Japanese curry, is that, if you add a little bit of this and that, the curry flavour deepens. So people add fruits, all kinds of mashed vegetables, and seasoning in. Sometimes chocolate too. This time i added lots of sakura prawns cos i reckoned they would match the pork based curry. It was good!

But somehow, reminded me of mee siam. hehe now i feel inspired to try making mee siam!

La-yu craze

Do you know la-yu (spicy oil)?

you know the red oil that you find on top of that bowl of Sichuan spicy and sour soup?

That smells of sesame oil, but is very spicy.

I don't really fancy it cos in the first place i am not that big a fan of the strong smelling sesame oil. But recently, the 食べるラー油　(taberu la-yu) which means edible la-yu has been selling like hotcakes all over the country. And every maker has their own version.

It is basically la-yu filled with fried garlic and is so mild you can pour it over your rice and you will finish that bowl in no time.

Remember? The Japanese love to describe any food with how well it goes with rice.

So there you go, la-yu will be another friend for your rice.

Then next came 具たくさんラー油　(gutakusan la-yu) which means la-yu filled with a lot of finely chopped vegetables like garlic/onions/sesame seeds etc.

Again, good for your rice.

And since it is summer, people probably have it with their chilled ramen too.

We (finally) decided to get a portion for ourselves at the supermart.

So i can try to understand what this craze is all about.

We had it with our cold ramen for lunch.

This version is with kimchi, garlic and ginger.
Oh my gosh, it was sooooooooo good i can't wait to try it with rice.

Dinner tonight was something i was looking forward to making, but not eating.
Goya (bitter gourd) chanpuru, an okinawan stir fry with bitter gourd, pork slices, tofu and eggs,

topped with bonito flakes

The egg/tofu/pork combination was yummy.

Not the bitter gourd.

Last year when i happily bought my first bitter gourd from the farmers mart, i was so excited. But it tasted so bitter, i didn't like it, and i told myself i won't buy it again.

This year, i thought, ok maybe that was just my pregnancy hormones affecting my taste buds the last time. Let's give goya another chance.

I rubbed it hard with salt. Soaked in water, did everything the pros always advise for making the bitter gourd less bitter. BUT IT WAS STILL BITTER!!!

J kept repeating it is good for me, so i should finish up and stop transfering the green slices into his dish.

oh my, i have another one in the fridge cos it came in a set of 2.

Ahh... just nice, we have more left for J's bento.

Kangkong soup

with fried chanjula

My precious stock of chanjula is running out, but we have to finish them before they lose their freshness.

daikon rice

Edamame that look their usual nice bright green

but were black in there

I love these black bean version of the edamame. The flavour is deeper than the usual green ones, but the price, the same =)

What would i do without the farmers of Koganei? They make such tasty vegetables!