Fresh Blueberry Pancakes ?

Fresh? Blueberry Pancakes Well, at least the blueberries were not canned or dried. However, I highly doubt if I could call them really “fresh” after having to throw away almost half of them with mold. The rest looked miserably unjuicy. I’m not going to tell you how much I had to pay for them because that still makes me very unhappy. Anyway, I made these fresh blueberry pancakes this morning, and I liked them far better than the blueberry pancakes I often make with canned blueberries in syrup. It was a no-egg recipe that I used for these pancakes and I added a little yogurt to the batter, so this was a rather guilt-free breakfast. Oh I can’t wait to make fresh blueberry pancakes with blueberries from my balcony garden!

Nikujaga!

Nikujaga I guess in every country you have something like this dish… something that functions as an indicator of how good you cook as a housewife or a mother. In other words, if you are good at cooking certain dishes, everyone around you would say “OH, you’ll make a good wife/mother.” You know what I mean? In Japan, this nikujaga and maybe miso soup fall into this category. I’m not good at cooking either of them, as you can tell from the fact that I’m still single ;P The name nikujaga simply means meat (niku) and potatoes (jagaimo). This is my favorite, but I still cannot make it exactly the way I want. I tend to make it a bit too sweet… then the nikujaga alone testes pretty good, but when eaten with cooked white rice, I feel that it’s not the perfect match. I’m still in search of a tasty but not too sweet or too salty nikujaga recipe that goes well with white rice. I’ve experimented some tips like adding a bit of sesame oil when sautéing or adding just a little butter at the end, but I'm still not satisfied yet. The one I made today wasn’t such a great success. Well, I’ll keep trying…like all other on-going experiments in my kitchen, not because I want to hunt a husband but simply because I want to become able to cook and enjoy my "dream nikujaga."

Aloe vera

Aloe vera ... Do you eat this in your country? I never expected anyone to guess this right, but yes, this is aloe vera!! Aloe vera is commonly seen in Japan, I guess, and I always thought it was a medical herb. When I was a child, my grandma would apply it to any of the cuts/scratches I got. At that time, no one in my hometown thought about eating Aloe vera, because the kind we had there tasted terribly bitter. It was only after I grew up when the edible aloe vera became known throughout Japan and aloe drinks/desserts became popular. Now aloe vera with yogurt is my absolute favorite. This aloe in syrup was cheaper but didn’t taste as good as the other brand I used to buy. Looks nice and refreshing when served this way, though.

Asparagus and Prawn Stir-Fry?

Here comes another retort pouch stuff... I stir-fried asparagus and prawns and mixed with this ready-made sauce. I don't know what you call this 上湯 sauce in English. Shang-tang? Anyway, the prawns were on sale today at a nearby supermarket. They didn't look very fresh, but tasted OK.

KFC with a Japanese Touch!

Gozansho Chicken from KFC This is a “limited-time-only” menu at KFCs in Japan called “Gozansho chicken.” The name “Gozansho” seems to be the combination of part of the words: “goma (sesame)” “sansho (Japanese sansho pepper)” and “shoyu (soy sauce).” As you can see here, those are the main seasoning ingredients of this Gozansho chicken. Ever since I saw the TV commercial of this gozansho chicken, I had been wanting to try it so badly. The combination of black sesame seeds and sansho pepper sounded sooooo tempting! "Gozansho chicken set" (See package) To be perfectly honest, the package of the chicken reminds me of the paper bag of medicine from the hospital… "Gozansho chicken set" (See inside) This was called “Gozansho chicken set” with one piece of gozansho chicken, salad with Japanese-style dressing and 2 small rice balls (white sesame onigiri and green tea flavored onigiri) for 570 yen (about 5.31 US$). Not bad. The chicken was packed in a paper bag with perforation. You tear it open along the perforation and use the bottom part of the paper bag to hold the chicken piece with while you eat. I cut the chicken piece in half to see inside The chicken tasted good…at least when I ate half of the chicken piece while it was warm. I thought the combination of the black sesame seeds and sansho pepper was an excellent one. When I ate the rest of it later after it got cold, however, the surface was harder and the meat was just unpleasantly greasy… and even the flavor of the tangy shansho pepper didn’t help. You know what it’s like when the greasy KFC chicken piece turns cold… Yaki onigiri (with white sesame seeds/ matcha flavored) These rice balls look so cute, but the taste was just so-so. They were probably seasoned lightly on purpose, so that they won’t cancel out the taste of the chicken, I guess. BTW, these are “yaki-onigiri (lightly grilled rice ball), so definitely need to be eaten while warm. Anyway, my curiosity is perfectly satisfied now. :) ----------- BTW, if you are interested in how different their TV commercial is in Japan, check this site. Those are some shots from the gozansho chicken commercial. ----------- One more thing... My matcha onigiri had these small green bits that looked like roughly chopped edamame (green soybeans).

Banana Walnut Muffins

Banana Walnut Muffin It’s raining now. Today’s high was 23 degree Celsius and humidity was 95%, according to a Japanese weather forecast website. Too warm and humid for this part of Japan in April :( Maybe partly because of this weather, I was so exhausted when I came home today after a long day. I craved for something sweet, and found 2 bananas turning almost brown on my kitchen table. OK, bananas. You are telling me to turn you into banana muffins, right? How I wished that I was living with someone to cook/bake for me! I thought I wouldn’t be able to stand up again once I sat down, and the mere thought of measuring flour and sugar and beating butter just brought me down. But you know what…. my craving for banana muffins finally won. OK, now I’m just going to scarf down the muffins (with cold milk), and go to bed early. I need a rest.... Sweet dream, everyone. P.S. I added some photos of cherry blossoms at night on my another blog.

Ohanami Bento

Ohanami Bento Ohanami means flower-viewing. Bento is lunchbox. This is what I brought to a nearby park today to eat under the cherry trees there. Mame-gohan (rice with green peas) onigiri Stuffed Shiitake mushroom Tamagoyaki Roasted Prawn with eggyolk and cornmeal This is something close to what my mom loves to make for occasions like New Year’s day. But the ones I made today tasted just so-so...nothing great. I should have brought soy sauce or lemon slice for them. My bento and cherry blossoms… When I was taking this pic, some people were watching me like “What the hell is she doing?” ;P And some more cherry blossom pics here...

Sakura Mushipan and Matcha Swirl Bread

Sakura Mushipan and Matcha Swirl Bread (?) These two kinds of bread caught my eyes at the nearby bakery today. I knew the pink one was “Sakura (cherry blossom) mushipan (steamed cakebread),” which is my favorite. Usually they sell sakura mushipan in the cherry-blossom season only, so I don’t hesitate to buy one when I find them on the shelf. I had no idea what this one with many green stripes inside was... When I read the tag, I found that the green stripes were matcha cream. Boy, it must be some work to make the matcha cream look this way. The bread was soft and not too sweet, which I liked, but I didn’t taste matcha very much… And this Sakura mushipan ! The mushipan is very soft, and the anko (sweet azuki -bean paste) at the bottom adds some, not too much sweetness, which is wonderful! What I like the best is, however, the salted cherry leaf at the bottom. It has a very distinctive flavor, and to tell the truth, I hated it when I was a kid. At that time I never saw Sakura mushipan around, but Sakuramochi was already very popular. I still remembet the first time I tried a salt-preserved cherry leaf. When I was eating a sakuramochi, my grandma told me to eat the leaf, too. I thought she was kidding, but she insisted and promised me it would taste good, so I gave it a try. And I hated it. I just spitted it out and was mad at her for the rest of the day. Well, my preference changed as I grew up and now I love the combination of lightly sweetened mushipan (or mochi or whatever), sweet bean paste and the salty cherry leaf so much. The taste of the cherry leaf always reminds me of my grandma’s gnarled fingers (because after that incident I made her remove cherry leaf from sakuramochi every time I ate one). *** OH! I'm terribly sorry !!! I forgot to save the comments from 3 people given to the picture of Sakura mushipan!! Forgive me please....

Tenmusu

Tenmusu from nearby tenmusu shop When I was younger, I thought tenmusu (rice ball with batter-fried shrimp inside) was a real unfamiliar food. The idea of putting batter-fried food in a rice ball sounded so strange to me. I thought that deep-fried batter would taste greasy and awful, and would never go well with the rice. It was after I turned 20 years old when I tasted tenmusu for the first time. And guess what? I liked it!! Maybe It was largely because I grew to love green perilla by then. The green perilla is just wonderful in tenmusu, I think. Its refreshing flavor cancels out the greasiness and goes well with the nori (dried seaweed). I like these tenmusu from the shop, but more green perilla leaves and more salt would make them even better, I think.

*** From Me to Myself ***

Here’s a little something from me to myself to cope with this crisis of getting one year older ; ) My homemade Birthday Cake I spent all afternoon yesterday making this special cake. To rationalize the time and effort I was going to spend on it, the cake had to be really special, the one and only cake on the face of the earth. So I decided to do everything I had always wanted: 1. Making a square-shaped cake. Japanese birthday cakes are usually round, but I miss the kind of cakes I had in the U.S…. 2. Writing “Happy Birthday ” on a cake. It sounds like something you can do anytime, but actually, I haven’t done it before. 3. Using “sugared violet” for garnishing a cake. I saw “sugard violet ” in a baking book when I was a kid and got charmed by it. It just sounded so romantic! In order to give a little extra flavor to the cake, I added a little grated orange rind and orange juice when making the cake batter. I used “Kiyomi” orange, which is said to be the hybrid of tangerine and trovita oranges. To be perfectly honest, it made the cake a little heavy, but I loved the orange flavor! It was really a big challenge for me, but I did slice the cake in half and sandwiched whipped cream and flesh of Kiyomi orange. Now I have to confess that I’m not good at handling cream at all. It always takes so long for me to whip cream, even though I use a lot of ice cubes to cool it while whipping, and I get tired. Especially this time, the orange-colored one was runny no matter how hard I whipped, probably because of the tiny amount of water I added to dissolve the food coloring powder and orange curacao? Anyway, I’m not going to tell you how long it took for me to decorate this cake, but finally!! I managed to smooth the surface and wrote “Happy Birthday” on it. When I put the sugared violet on the cream, I had a great feeling of accomplishment. It did NOT turn out exactly as I had dreamed of, but at least I tried out everything I had been dreaming of. It is nice to know that someone (even it was myself) spent so much time and effort for my birthday, after all. A Big Piece for myself, of course. So this is my XXth birthday, folks. Looks like I love trying something new and/or different, and it’s not going to change no matter how old I get ;) BTW, I tasted the sugared violet for the first time in my life, and it’s amazing! I expected it to be just sugar-sweet with no particular flavor, but it does have very distinctive flavor!! I wonder if the flavor was artificially added… or is it something that naturally comes from the violet??? Hmmmmm…. I love it! It tastes so good with nice black tea.

Hurray!!

Guess what this is? It’s rhubarb sprout. My rhubarb seemed completely dead at the end of November last year, but today I noticed that it was alive!!! I wonder how big this rhubarb would grow this year…

Stir-fried Bean Sprouts

Stir-fried Bean Sprouts This is my favorite dish that I often make before my pay day. In Japan, bean sprouts are SO cheap. Of course, that is not the only reason that I love this stir-fry dish. I just love the crunchiness of the bean sprouts. For dessert, I had a blueberry muffin that a friend of mine gave me yesterday. The blueberries in the muffin tasted so good. I wonder when I would be able to bake blueberry muffins with the blueberries from my balcony garden... Maybe this summer? Oh I can hardly wait!!

Aren't They Cute! - Pikachu Kasutera -

Pikachu Kasutera Hope you know what Pikachu is. If not, it’s a character in Japanese anime, “Pocket Monsters.” There’s a vendor who sells this Pikachu kasutera near the Izakaya I work at. I don’t know what triggered me to go for it today, but I came home with a bagful of these cute yummies (500 yen a bag). They were still warm when I got home. Look at the closeup. Yeah, they are too cute to eat. BTW, there's another vendor near the Izakaya who sells Doraemon Kasutera. I might try them, too, someday.

Garden Report - March 2005 -

Young leaves of my blueberry It has been terribly cold and windy for the past 2 days so I thought my plants were probably frozen to dath. I saw today, however, the young leaves are growing OK in my balcony garden, telling me it’s spring now. Young leaves of my dogrose Maybe I should go look for early cherry blossoms somethime this week.

Tororo-jiru

Tororo-jiru (grated yam soup) Again I’m not sure what this should be called, but Tororo-juru (grated yam soup) seems to explain what this is. It’s grated yam and egg mixture poured into kombu (kelp)-and-soy-sauce based soup. I was going to drop the yam mixture like dumplings into the clear soup, but I just got impatient and poured the mixture in all at one time ;P

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies Yep! I tried out MrsT’s Chewy Oatmeal Raisin Cookies resipe. They look pretty nice, I think. Actually, they turned out rather crunchy than chewy ;P I guess I baked them a bit too long. Usually I need to bake longer than the baking time said in almost any recipe, because my oven is so small, old and not very powerful. Maybe it didn’t apply to this recipe. Anyway, they taste pretty good. Next time I’ll watch the baking time and might add some honey to make it more chewy. Thanks a million, MrsT!! :D My cookie jar looks so happy to be filled up with these yummy cookies.

Oyako Donburi and Soy Milk Cakey 2

Oyako Donburi (Chicken and Egg Bowl) This was my humble accomplishment of last weekend. Sorry, I’ve been too lazy to blog until today. What's in the photo above is what we call Oyako donburi (chicken and egg bowl) here. Oyako means “parent and child,” and this dish got its name obviously because chicken and egg are used for the topping. It is important not to overcook the egg and add something green---like green onion or mitsuba. Fuwa Fuwa Soy Milk Cakey -Matcha Version- I also made Rachel’s Fuwa Fuwa Soy Milk Cakey --- matcha version, this time. Again mine turned out very soft, but better than my last attempt. At least, it came out from the small cake tin alright this time. I liked the taste, but could have added a little more matcha.

White Stew??

White Stew or Cream Stew? Honestly, I’m not sure what I should call this. White Stew? In Japan, we call this “Cream Stew” --- that’s what it says on the package of the roux. Anyway, when I found all these vegs at discount, I felt as if they were all pushing me to make this dish. In addition to the discounted vegs, I added scallops, corns and onions. Good way to increase my taurine and aspartic acid intake, right? I really needed to recharge myself today... It was a nice day off today, after all. I did have a little exercise, walking along the river (in the rain). Also I painted a watercolor, which I haven’t done for months! Now I’m going to take a sip of nice white wine and go to bed early. Good night.

Mapo Tofu

Mapo Tofu I wanted something soft and a little bit spicy for late night supper today. So here it is. Mapo tofu. Oh yeah, instant sauce mix again. I was tired after Izakaya work tonight… BTW, in Japan we call this "Mabo Dofu." Mont Blanc Ice Cream My very late night supper tonight finished with this “Mont Blanc ice cream.” Actually this was a bit disappointing, but cold ice cream was really refreshing after a little spicy Chinese dish : )