Improved...?!

Soft French Bread (Malt Flour Added) Well, you can't tell if this bread is better or worse compared to the one I baked before without malt flour because I didn't show you inside of the bread then, right? Only I can tell the difference, I guess. Hahaha... OK. Being as fair as possible, I say that this bread is better than the previous one. The crust tastes better and the texture is better. (Still I cannot be 100% sure that malt flour made that difference, though. It could be that I did a better job kneading this time, or the temperature and the moisture in the kitchen was better this time.) To be honest, I wanted my bread to have much bigger holes, but that will be my next step. Next time I'll make sure to take photos of the whole bread AND the slices. ;) ------- Yep, I have been preparing for the move to my hometown. The moving day is settled: that's April 30th, the last day of this month. There's a long list of "Things to do," including a couple of doctors' appointments, hanging right next to my laptop, and a few of them are already crossed out. Every day I sort out my stuff, sitting hours in the dust, which is a REAL fun thing to do in the middle of the pollen allergy season for a person allergic to house dust and house dust mites in addition to cedar pollen. :P Every day I wear two masks, take medicine that dilates blood vessels (for Meniere's ) and another medicine that shrinks blood vessels (for the allergy), and always keep nasal spray in the pocket. A Kleenex box and garbage pail are set in each room and kitchen because I got tired of bringing them around. And I curse myself for not having been more tidy in the past years... :( But I'm getting things done, little by little. Sorting and cleaning will be a big task until next Monday, the "Big Trash Day" -- the only chance I can throw away big, nonburnable stuff for free of charge --, but after that, I'll be able to take it easier. Last week I spent several days at my parents' place and measured here and there in my prospective room so that I can figure out what furniture to bring there and what to throw away. It is a nice Japanese style room where my grandma used to live and I love it very much (though dad says it will be really hot by the window in summer). I can't wait to show you the room! :) OK. I should get back to the cleaning. Today I'm going to open the box of knicks and knacks that I have been keeping since before the Great Hanshin Earthquake... Why am I so terrible at throwing things away??? Categories: Western-inspired

On A Gorgeous Sunny Day

Home-Baked French Bread It was such a gorgeous day yesterday! The day before yesterday (Mar. 20th) was my last day at the daytime job. No more waking up at 5 am to rush to work. Yay! So yesterday, I was almost going for a bento lunch under cherry blossoms as a celebration. But after taking a few photos in the nearby park, I finally decided against it, because only a few trees were blooming there and the ground underneath them was really muddy. (The photos are posted on another blog of mine.) Instead, I chose to have more aggressive(?) fun in the kitchen, kneading and beating bread dough. ;) Instead of making two baguettes, I baked it into a boule. After taking these photos, I sliced this boule and used two slices for making garlic toast. They were G-R-E-A-T! (Sorry. No photos.) Crispy, crunchy and garlicky toast... I enjoyed them with sparkling wine and that was my celebration. You know I seldom drink in the daytime, and having sparkling wine with home-baked bread, in the bright afternoon sunshine, was special enough for me to call a small celebration treat. Maybe next week I'll thaw the frozen slices and make a sandwich with them to eat under the cherry blossoms -- if the weather permits. BTW, in order to improve my bread and also to use for another purpose, I ordered some packages of "malt flour." I'll use it next time I bake bread and let you know the result. ;)

Savory Waffles...?

I tried out Mora's wine cream sauce recipe and used it on my savory waffles today. (Yeah, my waffle maker has been abused lately, hasn't it?) On the waffles, I put some slices of lemon-herb chicken with sauteed zucchini and mushrooms, then poured the sauce over them. I guess I made the sauce a little too thick. Honestly, the sauce was great with the chicken and vegetables. But I just thought... they didn't really have to be on these waffles... Then I realized that I forgot to leave out the sugar in the waffle recipe. Yeah, they were a bit too sweet for the toppings. Maybe it's better to use "savory waffles" recipe when I make something like this, and also flavor them with things like cheese or cornmeal? Oh well, there will always be the next time. ;) One progress: I managed to make the both sides of my waffles equally browned. :) Categories: Western-inspired

One Step At A Time

French Baguettes (My Second Try) My second time making French Baguettes based on this recipe. My twist this time was some black sesame seeds sprinkled on top. The bread tasted much better than the last time, because I had enough time to leaven the dough. But I couldn't slash the top deep enough and I was not satisfied with the way the bread looked. OK. Deeper slashing next time. ;) (I ate half of the loaf today. The rest was sliced, wrapped and put in the freezer.) Categories: Western-inspired

Whole Wheat Waffles With Beer!

Whole Wheat Waffles with Beer Added Yep, I tried Mora's advice of adding some beer to the waffle batter. Unfortunately I didn't have enough beer to substitute half of the liquid with it -- because I bought only one can yesterday and drank most of it with the meal last night :P -- but the small amount I used today did make a difference. I didn't smell much of the beer while baking, but it made the texture fluffier (airier?) and flavor richier to make my waffles special this morning. Mmmmm..... Thanks, Mora! My next step seems to be improving my waffle-baking skill so that both sides turn out equally brown. This waffle maker is the kind that you place on gas stove and turn over when one side is done. I LOVE it because it bakes waffles much faster than electric ones, but I guess I should bake one side a little longer than the other, and need some practice to find the perfect timing. Categories: Sweets

Yeah, Adventures!

Obachan's First Homemade Waffles! (with homemade strawberry jam) Too bad it's raining today and I couldn't get lovely morning sunshine for this waffle photo. But it was real fun to make waffles! Yeah, I just bought what they call "Belgian waffle maker" here the other day and used it for the first time this morning. See? I have started preparing for my move already. I'm doing as much online shopping as possible while I'm here in Kochi city. I know. You want to say, "Wait a minute. You can do online shopping in your hometown, too, can't you?" One thing is that the delivery guy there is, IIRC, my younger sister's ex classmate in elementary school or something, and I don't want him to think that I'm addicted to online shopping. :P But more serious reason is that I may not have a very comfortable Internet access in my hometown. When I made the decision to move to my hometown, I naively assumed that I would be able to have the same broad-band service there. I checked the area-coverage of the service on their website, and found that my hometown was the area for an even faster Internet connection. Yay! But just to be safe, I checked it with the local phone company that actually takes care of the phone lines. Then they told me that I couldn't have that service because of some problem with the line. A substitute line could solve the problem, they said, but there's no vacancy. AHHHHHH!!! Other broad-band services do not cover my hometown, and seems like the obsolete (I would say) connection called ISDN is the only choice! AHHHHHH!!! Give me a break. What can I do with only 64Kbps?! So, frantically I did some net search, only to find that this is a common problem in most countryside in Japan. If it's a REAL small village in the middle of mountains, the situation is better because they have cable TV network which also provides Internet service. But there are countless young or middle-aged Japanese who have moved (or are going to move) to rural areas with no cable service, and totally stressed out with ISDN and crying out for a broad-band service. It's so stupid. The government encourages young people to move into the country so that the areas won't be depopulated and elderly folks there won't be abandoned, but is so reluctant to provide them with decent Internet environment! It's crucial! Actually some people are gathering petition signatures to make the situation better. Anyway, knowing that other people also have cold doesn't cure your cold, and I have to find a possible alternative -- something faster than ISDN. After some more frantic net search, I learned that now I can insert some data card(?) from a cell phone company into my PC and use the Internet with a flat-rate plan. I know the real speed I would get in my hometown would be FAR less than the "best-effort" speed they advertise. But anything faster than ISDN would do! So this morning, after enjoying the waffles, I went to a cell phone shop and asked about the above mentioned service. There is no way to find out beforehand how it would work in my hometown, but they said they would lend me the card and let me keep it for a week to bring it there and actually try it out. How nice. :D OK. I'm going to do it this coming Sunday. Coming back to the waffles. Oh, I really, really loved making waffles. The moment I opened the waffle maker and saw the golden brown waffles! And when they were easily removed from the iron without sticking to it at all! I almost jumped with joy. Life does give me challenges, but it doesn't forget to give me fun, too. :) Maybe buckwheat or whole wheat waffles next time. Categories: Sweets

Lazy Morning With Brunch In Bed

Now you know that I have a new oven in my kitchen!! Well, more precisely, it's an oven-cum microwave. The new one arrived the day before yesterday, and this morning I did my first baking with the newcomer. Yay! I feel -- I'm finally back!! Of course this equipment is nothing fancy. Actually it was the smallest and cheapest one I could find on the net. JPY9,760 (USD105 ), shipping fee included, for a brand new oven-cum microwave with all the basic functions -- I would say this is a pretty good buy. The new one is slightly wider but shorter than the one I had before and uses slightly less power. Yeah, the efficiency must have been improved in past years. It was more than 10 years ago when I bought the previous one. I still remember... It was a few weeks after the Great Hanshin Earthquake (1995). The one I had then fell off the shelf and broke, and since the gas service didn't come back for months, I had to buy a microwave to heat food and water to survive the winter. And I bought the cheapest one that cost JPY19,800 (apx.USD213) at Daiei near Sannomiya stn. That's the one that just died the other day. Yeah, it worked long enough, didn't it? There are a few things I'm not too happy about with the new one, to tell you the truth. It comes in two colors: black and white, and looks like black version is more popular because it is more expensive. So I chose the white one but it sure looks "cheap." The ceiling inside is not high, which means, I would have to use the smallest chiffon tin to bake a chiffon cake. And it beeps three times when heating job is done, which is a bit too much. But looking at, and tasting the cinnamon rolls this rookie just baked for me this morning, I wouldn't complain. Good job, sweetie. ;) Confession time: Do you want to know what happened after I enjoyed my "heavenly" New Year's feast? Maybe I was too tired from work (including New Year's eve and New Year's day), stea picking leaves and berries on the roadside (at night when no one was watching) and all the cooking... What happened was that, on the night of Jan. 2nd, I suffered from headache and nausea. I managed to sleep a couple of hours, fortunately, but on the next day, I was almost dead at work. And it WAS another busy day. I jumped into a hot bath as soon as I got home and went to bed right away. The same routine the next day, too: Went to work, came home, got warmed up in a hot bath, then slept as long as possible. I lived on isotonic drinks, yogurt and vitamin-added jelly those two days, because those were the only things that my stomach would accept. Fortunately the stomach medicine and long hours of sleep helped, and yesterday I was already feeling good enough to have rice porridge and udon noodles after work. Today I don't have to work in the morning, and I woke up feeling hungry. Good sign. :) For some reason, I had this cinnamon roll craving. Now, going out to buy bread for breakfast was out of question, but I could manage baking some rolls in my kitchen, resting in bed while letting the dough leaven. It turned out to be a good idea, after all. I was able to pamper myself with "brunch in bed" this morning -- with cinnamon rolls, instant soup, hot tea, tomato juice and yogurt. Yes, I'm happy again. How I wish I didn't have to be at work tonight... P.S. The cinnamon roll recipe I used today is this one (in Japanese). It calls for some rice flour and starch syrup(?) or honey to keep the bread soft and moist even on the next day. Mmmm... does it really work? I'll find out tomorrow. Categories: Sweets

When I Need Healing...

Home-baked French Bread, Ratatouille and Apple Preserve I have to admit that my work has been pretty stressful. But I also have to admit that I'm better off now -- compared to how I was a year ago... in September 2006. Now I have days off more irregularly but more frequently, and still I'm making more money. And I got used to getting up early. No more insomnia! So I'm not complaining. Nevertheless, there are some days that I feel stressed out at the end of the day, and hear my inner voice saying, "I need healing!!" And I go through the list of "things that heal me" in my mind. Fortunately I have a variety of things included in the list, and yesterday morning I went for two of them: 1) hearing something simmering in the kitchen and 2) enjoying the sweet aroma from the oven. I was lazy to put everything on one plate, but you have to give me credit for making (almost) everything from scratch. Yep, I baked the bread myself, based on this recipe. It turned out flavorful -- very flavorful, and quite chewy. (I guess I got impatient again and my bread was not leavened enough.) :P But the bread tasted very good with both ratatoille and apple preserve, so I was satisfied. I also made this asparagus soup from scratch. You think I got sort of carried away? Maybe. But it was sooooooooo good and worth the trouble! :) Apple Preserve I replaced half of the amount of white sugar with brown sugar, so the preserve turned out brownish like this. And the taste was... Mmmm... It was excellent with yogurt. Yes, I felt so good after this brunch. Taking these photos kept me a little busy, but it was worth it -- they will heal me when I need healing but don't have time to cook/bake like this. Oh, one question to those who are in Japan: Are stores running out of bananas in your neighborhood? I tried two supermarkets last night and two other stores this evening, but all of them were out of bananas! What happened?! Is another health craze going on now? Categories: Western-inspired

Buttermilk Pancakes

Buttermilk (Substitute) Pancakes Actually what was used for these pancakes was buttermilk substitute which I made by mixing milk and vinegar, because I can't buy real buttermilk around here. But maybe these are closer to real "buttermilk pancakes" than the ones I usually make with powdered skim milk. Today I don't have to work in the morning, and I wanted to enjoy a lazy morning with a good breakfast. Yesterday and the day before, I had to start working at 6 am. On such busy mornings, I never skip breakfast but I never "enjoy" it, either-- All I do is just stuffing up my stomach so that I don't run out of energy in the middle of the work. So, at least once or hopefully twice a week, I really need to "enjoy" breakfast, actually tasting the food and smelling the aroma of hot coffee! Otherwise I cannot "stay myself." You know what I mean. This morning, while I was still in bed, I thought about the sinful combination of fluffy pancakes, melting butter and generous amount of syrup, and decided to go for it. That's the kind of breakfast I deserve after the two days in hell. And I wanted to show in my photo how beautiful the golden syrup looks in the morning sunshine, but I had to give it up... I couldn't wait until I get the desired morning sunshine, and the syrup was quickly absorbed by the pancakes. :( Anyway, I'm feeling wonderfully lazy right now and wanted to share it with the whole world. Mmmmmm... maybe I should go for another cup of coffee. Oh, I used this recipe, if you're wondering. (I added a pinch of salt, though.) Categories: Sweets

Homemade Pizza!

Homemade Pizza Gee, I'm totally, completely stuffed! No more food, please... Yep, this was my very first time making pizza crust from scratch. This weekend I had both Saturday and Sunday off (which was almost like a miracle), and I wanted to make something tasty and photogenic but not too difficult or time-consuming to make. It was hard to pick one; I couldn't decide whether I should go for homemade gyoza (Chinese dumplings or potstickers) or pizza. So I ended up making both. :D Last night I enjoyed juicy, plump homemade gyoza with ice cold beer, and knew it was a right choice. And today, around 10:30 am, I started making pizza crust based on this recipe. Now, I guess I made a mistake when I measured the water... My pizza dough turned out really soft. I kept adding more and more flour but the dough kept absorbing it until I added almost twice as much as the amount called for in the recipe. But finally the dough came together, and after letting it rest as instructed in the recipe, I had fun topping it. These basil leaves survived the terrible summer heat. Black olive is not my favorite topping, but I added some because I thought the dark color would look nice on my pizza. One good thing about pizza is that I can rely on store-bought stuff for seasoning it. I used Heinz pizza sauce (can) and very affordable shredded mozzarella cheese. Tata～! :D This is how my very first homemade pizza turned out! I know. I should have used bigger basil leaves or should have added them later. The small leaves burned and shrunk pretty soon, so I needed to add more leaves when the cheese started turning golden brown. The crust was really fluffy. I don't know if it is the way this pizza crust should be or it was because of my mistake, but this crust was the fluffiest one I've ever had. (Next time I want to make it a little heavier and chewier. ) Maybe because the dough was fluffy and light, and the topping was not too greasy, I ate so much of this pizza before I knew. I was going to leave half of it for dinner, but now I see only a quarter piece left in the pan. Hahaha... Now it's time for peach sorbet! :D Categories: Western-inspired

Whole Wheat Bread

Whole Wheat Bread This is a very good recipe from Allrecipes. Even I was able to bake something like this. :) The recipe does deserve five stars, I think.

Whey Pancakes

Yes, I tried draining yogurt again. This time I used a little more expensive brand which tastes richer and less sour. Though the drained yogurt still did not taste as good as cream cheese, it was much better than the last time. I mixed it with grated garlic and mentaiko and made a dip. It was pretty nice on Ritz crackers; I enjoyed them with a couple of glasses of very, very affordable wine. Then I was left with the by-product, whey again. This time I used it for pancakes. A safe idea, isn't it? Yes, it was a safe idea AND a good idea. :) Oh, I almost forgot. Here's a question which almost all(?) Japanese home bakers have in mind or have been asking but not properly answered yet: How long does whey keep in the fridge? Would the expiration date of whey be the same as that of the original yogurt? Experts all over the world, please tell us the truth. ;) Categories: Sweets

Cinnamon Rolls to Celebrate My Survival

Cinnamon Rolls Today was my first day off at the new daytime job, and I was determined to bake something to celebrate my survival. Yes, survival. You know, I have never been an early bird (except for the times when I had to get up early for certain reasons), so getting up at 5:50 am every morning for 6 days in a row -- in the middle of winter -- was certainly a challenge for me. I forgot to set the alarm off last night, so I woke up at 5:50 am this morning as usual. But it was nice to stay in bed, feeling happy about not having to rush to work. Happily dozing off once in a while, I thought about what to bake today, and finally decided to go for cinnamon rolls. Sorry, those who gave me wonderful cinnamon roll recipes about a year ago when I gave it a try for the first time. Today, I thought about trying one of yours, but I just didn’t feel like doing the conversion! So I took an easy way out, which means, I, again, relied on ”allrecipes.” (The site takes care of U.S.-metric conversion as well as changing the serving size.) This is the recipe I picked this time, but I baked mine in a square pan instead of muffin cups. Because I didn’t have enough all-purpose flour, I mixed in bread flour and even cake flour to make the dough. Also, I chickened out about the amount of margarine (actually I substituted it with butter) and used a lot less of it for the filling. So my cinnamon rolls didn’t turn out as gooey and moist as I had wanted, but still, I think I made a big progress. ;) Categories: Sweets

Crepe Suzette

Crepe Suzette Now I guess I have gathered enough strength to write about my past week and share it with you guys. Oh, no no! It’s nothing serious. Nothing terrible happened. Don’t worry. It’s just that my mind has been occupied with all the new things I have to learn at a new workplace, and it was a bit overwhelming to put my feelings – mostly anxieties – into words. But after experiencing a sort of emotional rollercoaster in the very first week, I’m feeling a little calmer now and able to write about it. You might be wondering what kind of difficult or complicated job I started to feel so nervous? Uh… I’m ashamed to tell you, but it’s just a half a day’s work at a small bento shop in my neighborhood. Actually, it’s not as physically demanding as the work at the izakaya. But I never thought they had such a wide variety of bentos! For the past week, I spent hours and hours every night drawing and re-drawing bento illustrations to memorize what food should be packed in which bento and what kind of sauce/pickles should come with it. The manual with photos shows where in the bento box each food/garnish should be put. Oh, and of course the color, shape and size of the plastic bento boxes differ depending on the type of bento. There are many small plastic cups in several different sizes and colors for side dishes and there are of course certain rules for their combinations. AHHHHH!!! And this is my first time handling the cash register!! Those who have experienced similar job must be thinking, “Oh, come on, Obachan. It’s not such a big deal!” Right? Maybe I’ll feel the same way once I get used to all the work procedures. It’s going to take some time, though. Anyway, that was what my past week was like, and all the worries completely spoiled my long weekend. So yesterday (Sunday), I got to the point where I HAD TO make something -- something sweet -- to heal myself. I’m not quite sure why I chose to make crepe suzette when I was on the edge like that… Maybe I was so stressed that vitamin C in orange juice attracted me? I think it was more than 20 years ago when I first made crepe suzette. I still remember the photo of the dessert in mom’s big, heavy and old cookbook. The French dessert tasted wonderful then even though I didn’t have any liquor (such as brandy or orange liqueur) to flavor it. What I made this time was not bad, and I do think these photos have some healing effect. But the dessert could have tasted much, much better with more orange sauce. My mistake... I had only one orange, and used half of it for making orange chicken the night before. Anyway, dear readers. I'd very much appreciate your emotional support for a few more weeks until I get used to my new job, unless they kick me out tomorrow for being such a slow learner. Please share your experiences, if it's OK with you... I guess I'm more vulnerable now than I was before the surgery last May. Hahaha... One good thing is, though, I can start another series as the sequel to the izakaya and kaiseki chronicles I wrote in 2006. ;) Categories: Sweets

Long Weekend and My Stomach Needs a Break???

Obachan's Very First Boule It's a long weekend with lousy weather here in Japan. Perhaps it's the best chance for a new cooking/baking adventure, but for some reason, my stomach has not been feeling good since the day before yesterday. Udon noodles and rice porridge were my meals yesterday, and today I wanted something different. But what would be a nice dish that is fun to make (to kill time on this long weekend) and does not upset my stomach? Then I thought, "Maybe bread soaked in nice hearty soup would be kind to my stomach... And why not bake the bread myself?" So I picked a french bread recipe (in Japanese) which looked easiest to me and tried it out. The texture of my bread did not turn out exactly the way I wanted, perhaps partly because I used regular bread flour only while many recipes recommend mixing bread flour and cake flour at certain proportion, and partly because the recipe called for melted butter to add to the dough while most french bread recipes, I believe, do not. Yet my very first boule, especially the crust, tasted pretty good when soaked in the home-made vegetable soup, and my stomach seems to be satisfied and not upset after this meal. Categories: Western-inspired

Expanding my "hot-day meal" repertoire...??

Roasted Cherry Tomatoes on Home-made Focaccia It was about 2 weeks ago when I visited Suzan’s wonderful site and read about her roasted baby tomatoes. Living in a rural town known for its tomato production, I knew that I was going to give it a try sometime soon. And look! I did. :) If I forgot to mention this before, our prefecture, Kochi is famous for tomatoes as well as fresh seafood. Some “sweet” varieties grown here have become popular throughout the country, especially after the news related to Japanese Royal family. What news? It was that when Princess Kiko was pregnant, Empress Michiko sent her some bottled tomato juice. The empress thought that the good-tasting and highly nutritious juice was good for a pregnant woman . That tomato juice was made in Kochi using locally grown sweet tomatoes called “fruit tomato.” Personally, I love to eat the "fruit tomatoes" raw, but never use them for cooking, not only because they are lacking the refreshing mild tartness which, I think, is important for tomato sauce, stew, etc., but also because they are darn expensive. So, of course I tried roasting regular, inexpensive cherry tomatoes. Look! Lovely, aren't they? To be honest, for some reason they turned out a lot more sour than I had expected. (I wonder why.) But they were still very good with a tempting aroma. Suzan presented them on a slice of tasty-looking bruschetta, but I couldn’t find anything like that at a nearby bakery and I didn’t think I could bake such a thing myself. After searching for an alternative idea, I found this focaccia recipe, and thought it was what I wanted. As the recipe says, the focaccia was so easy to make that even I had a great success. ;) When eaten with this Italian bread, the roasted tomatoes did not taste too tart, and the bread and tomatoes made a real good combination together. My “hot day meals” used to include some traditional Japanese dishes and some spicy Asian or Mexican dishes only. But this summer I’m interested in expanding my repertoire of Italian dishes. Oh, I’m serious. ;) Categories: Western-inspired

A plus B makes ...

Home-made Pita Bread plus Grilled Chicken, Hummus and Vegetables makes ........................................................... !! ........................................................ Categories: Other-areas

My Very First Home-baked Cinnamon Rolls

Cinnamon Rolls Quite honestly, I’m not good at baking bread. The biggest reason is that I’m not patient enough to wait until required “bench time” is over. Yes, I tend to put the dough in the oven too early. But that probably is not the only reason why my bread hardens so quickly. Tell me… can using soy milk in place of milk contribute to this hardening of the bread? This time I used this recipe but substituted milk with soy milk just because I ran out of milk and my craving for cinnamon rolls couldn’t wait until the next day. Yeah, do you know what time I baked these? Around midnight. My craving was that bad (for some reason). So these cinnamon rolls did not turn out as soft as I wanted them to be, and they turned rock hard on the next day. But I can still eat them after microwaving for about 1 – 1.5 minutes, so it wasn’t a total waste, after all. :P I wish I had more confectioner's sugar for a heavier frosting... Dear readers, If you have a recipe for very soft & moist, cinnabon-like cinnamon rolls, please share it with me! Oh, one more thing: If used crisco instead of butter, would it make the rolls softer or prispier? Categories: Sweets