Autumn?

Two weeks ago, everyone was wondering when will this year's summer end.

And them suddenly after a whole day of rain, it SUDDENLY turned chilly.

From an exhausting 38deg everyday to a sometimes-i-need-my-cardigan 23deg.

People are catching colds out of the blue and our skins are craving mosturisers suddenly.

Yeah, suddenly.

And before we realised, people are looking for winter clothes already since it has been forecasted that this year's autumn will be expecially short.

?

hmm... this year's weather really is puzzling.

But well, i have been keeping myself occupied with the little one rolling around and exploring every corner of the house.

It started with me feeling oh so exhausted because i had to be running around all the time.

But what i thought was minor blues, turned out, that hey it was actually the heat getting into me.

It really was a long long summer.

It is oh so cool now we are both enjoying ourselves everyday! Busy as usual, but the reason why i am busy is because i am blessed with H.

Everyone should be so blessed!

H has started reaching for things on the table.

So dates have been slightly more happening these days.

Well, most of the time, we date at home, and we are totally loving the peaceful time here in our lil cafe.

On Saturday, we wanted to have Hokkai soba, a seafood soba from i used to crave once in a while, and we would go to Waraku to satisfy that craving.

Usually after a europe trip, when i just want to rest from saucey pastas.

This time, it is because Salmon roe is in season.

And i decided to make a batch of shoyu steeped salmon roe stock from using this recipe.

I used to think salmon roe could be bought off the supermart, and eaten straight. But hey no! A lot of work is needed in removing the eggs from the egg sac, which is very sticky, so the eggs don't actually fall off from there, but have to be rubbed off gently with your fingers. Then they have to steeped in a sweetened shoyu and sake mixture to flavour and lengthen their stock life, or else, being raw fish eggs, they will smell after a day.

Well, the effort was well worth it,

we had our hokkai soba date with the lil one happy to be in his chair joining us.

and yeah, you guessed it, the cup toppled over after this photo shot.

A simplified version of hokkai soba, since less variety of sashimi was used.

But two satisfied lovebirds.

Lunch on sunday was kimchi stiry fry udon

Not exactly date food, just something quick to prepare on a sunday afternoon after lots of work in the kitchen.

After the first batch of salmon roe, we wanted to make another batch to freeze so that when it is off season, we get to have that luxurious bowl of salmon roe don at home, without having to go the sushi restaurant.

like what we did last night with still a lot of roe stock.

Anyway, summer or not summer, the two of us just have to get a bit of ice cream almost everyday.

And two of our season's favourite would have to be

PUMPKIN (i know, i just can't get enough pumpkin. i could eat pumpkin everyday! steamed, fried, baked, boiled and mashed into salad, in desserts, in anything!)

Apple pie creme brule like ice cream.

You gotta agree with me Haagan Dazs Japan makes really good variations so you don't get sick of the same old vanilla, chocolate, strawberry.

Dessert dates, yup, still running on.

With the little one getting used to playing with daddy while i am not around, i have more time in the kitchen, so weekends are really for me to whip up stuff that need more prep time.

We had, over a few weekends,

shumai with grated lotus root & carrot filling

topped with our favourtite farmer's edamame

Oden (yeah, summer's over, bring on the oden!)

with lots of root vegetables simmered in, so we get to stuff ourselves

this pot lasted 3 days, phew.

with the remaining soup stock, i made takikomi rice and froze them for bentos, which kept J crazily delighted for a few days.

Grilled pork with the season's nectarines from Nagano prefecture

and a serving of local noodle squash

Weekday dinners are mainly simmered dishes which i whip up with the shuttle chef, and salads made in advanced while the little one is napping.

I was really happy to find fresh ground nuts at the farmers' mart last week, cos J and I have been waiting to try this dish we saw on TV.

I didn't know fresh nuts were such pretty light pink

(the shells were really tough to tear open because they are not roasted, but the pinks made me happy)

筑前煮 Chikuzenni, a typical Japanese simmered chicken, lotus root and carrot dish

just that this is with peanut broth

and saucier than the usual chikuzenni

When we saw this local dish called がめ煮 that the people in the Kyushu region eat very often, we were surprised at first, that peanuts were added! The hosts of the show were really surprised too. But hey! After pondering, we thought, we can imagine how great it will taste with the peanut broth! Cos we both love peanut soup! We had so much peanut soup this year. Papaya peanut soup, pork based peanut soup, they were all supposed to help my milk factory, but whatever it is, we love the deep flavour of the broth. And for the first time, using fresh local peanuts, we were suuuuuuuuuuuuuuper satisfied with the especially deep peanut flavoured broth, and the super tasty peanuts.

Sadly, i don't see anymore peanuts at the farmers' mart.

I wished mum could taste these REAL nuts. She wouldn't settle for the supermarket nuts anymore.

Anyway, so this is a typical weekday dinner.

Everything on the table, you help yourself

Chikuzenni, okara salad, pickles and instant miso soup that is made with hot water from the kettle towards the end of dinner.

And with the huge stock made, we have tiny side dishes ready to be served for another dinner.

Some days, i make a huge pot of curry cos you can never go wrong with curry yeah?

Root vegetable curry with edamame & cheese rice

We ended summer with a nice batch of mango peaches we bought online,

and are waiting for a huge 10kg lot of nashi (pears) to arrive.

I have given up on lugging heavy fruit home from the supermart, so ordering from farmers online is the only way we get to still enjoy fruit even if i don't supermart so often.

Oh, one drink i have been going crazy over since summer, is...

Soy milk that taste like milk! (i know the packaging has a hilarious label)

Ok, for those who know rice dream, this is quite similar and since i can't get rice dream so easily at the regular supermarts, i am really happy with this!

The same company came up with soymilk soda last week, but i am still considering if i should get that trial pack with 10 bottles in it. Sounds like a weird idea, soymilk soda. What do you think?