HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!

Welcoming the year of the TIGER!!!

The mochi we put out to welcome the new year.

with the word kotobuki , which means long life.

although still winter, it is considered early spring when the new year starts

So over the last few days before we celebrated new years day yday, lots of cleaning up, and stocking of food and cooking.

Stayed over at okaasans place and did many exciting things (well, at least to me), together.

Early on the 30th of dec, to the wet market

headed straight to get some good bargain for fish
lots of maguro (tuna) being sawed there (no auctioning here though, mainly to distribute to regular buyers from restaurants)

froaen straight off the sea, and sawed only when sold

couldnt believe how they do this so quickly with the maguro so huge and heavy

loaded onto the cart and off to the regular buyers

we bought LOTS of maguro,

which made me a bit sick after smelling it the whole day at home.

thawed maguro being bloody and all, just smells different from the frozen stuff at the wet market eh?

My favourite buy, was this

ikura (salmon roe)

had heaps of it!

and since we had so much ikura, we decided to be extravagant and try it over hot soba for our new years eve soba dinner.

ikura, being very expensive in tokyo, is usually eaten in small quatntities, and normally eaten on its own with rice.

In aomori, or generally the northern part of japan, which is blessed with lots of these fresh seafood, ikura is also eaten with hot soba.

so it is like half cooked eggs on soba.

grated mountain yam, spinach, nameko mushrooms, wild vegetables (sansai), and ikura on soba

Soba is usually eaten on new years eve night (omisoka).

Then on the first day, we lay out the osechi, the new year bento box.

and ate with special chopsticks with kotobuki labelled on its sleeve

datemaki, nishitamago ( 2 types of egg cakes), kamaboko (fish cakes) and tazukuri (sweet dried seafood)

kurikinton

mashed sweet potato with sweet chestnuts

kazunoko

fish roe

nishime

various root vegetables simmered in sweet shoyu broth

sweet black beans

and not to forget the lots of mochi that we had over the 2 days.

i so stuffed with good food, i think i have to watch my diet before my next weigh in at the clinic!

We are home! and dinner was simple loco moco rice

besides our miso soup, simmered pumpkin and pickles

main was, home made chilli beans on rice, loco moco style

=) how time flies when one is enjoying, 1 more rest day before the work week starts.