They Heard Me? Garden Report May 2005 -2-

It's amazing! Right after I posted about my balcony garden and complained about them not sprouting like in regular years... they started sprouting one after another! I haven't mentioned anything about this one before, because this is actually not grown in my balcony garden but in the corner of my kitchen, but this is myoga (Japanese ginger). I thought this was dead, but obviously not :D This thyme was all brown and looked completely dead last week, but look at these young green leaves! These parsley were seeded only 4 days ago. Look! It was so easy, just like that! Why didn’t they sprout before and made me try over and over? Basil also sprouted. See the ones with tiny round leaves? I can't understand why this happened. Looks like they were all waiting until the irregular hot weather in April to pass and nice appropreate weather to come. I can't think of any other reason... Well, I was just so happy that I had to post about it :D

Biggest Disappointment Ever - Strawberry Tart -

Strawberry Tart Yes, the strawberries were so tart…! It was unbelievable because they looked so ripe and beautiful in the pack, and they were quite expensive, too. Being inspired by the strawberry waffle cone ice cream I bought the other day, I decided to make a dessert myself using plenty of strawberries before the end of this holiday week. I wanted it to be special, so I chose the expensive strawberries. Imagine how furious I was when I tasted one and found it sour! Another disappointment was the custard cream. It was baked in the shell, and when cooled, its texture turned out to be like rubber. Did I put too much flour? I only used the required amount, but yes, I did use all-purpose when the recipe called for cake flour... The whipped cream didn’t really help much. What helped the most was probably the photo-retouch software I downloaded today. It compensates for the limited functions of my very old-fashioned digital camera and makes my food photos look much better. These 2 photos were originally much darker, but some retouches gave them a better look. My conclusion: it must have been much easier and tastier if I simply ate those strawberries with loads of condensed milk :(

A Little Disappointment ... Is It Me? Or...

This used to be my favorite. Or I should say, it was more than just “favorite.” This was a special bento (lunchbox-style to-go menu) I used to buy when I felt like giving myself a reward for working hard or going through extra B.S. etc. because this was expensive but definitely worth the price. It is one of the “to-go” menu of a small unagi (eel) restaurant in my neighborhood where they serve nothing but unagi dishes. The place is run by a middle-aged couple. The husband, the cook, looks pretty unfriendly to me but he does a very thorough job when it comes to cooking. Looks like he doesn’t store pre-filleted or pre-cooked eels in the fridge. He seems to start filleting eel after an order is made and grills it over charcoal heat in a good old-fashioned way. (I didn't see the whole procedure so I'm not 100% sure, but considering how long it takes for cooking, I guess that's what he's doing.) I always thought it was the secret of their eel dishes that are not greasy or fishy at all but just wonderfully tasty. With no special reason, I haven’t been to this unagi restaurant for more than a year. I don't know why.... I just didn’t go. Then today I suddenly felt like it, and bought this special bento. Well, it wouldn't hurt to have something special for this holiday week. This bento is a little different from their regular unagi bento. The almost scary looking black thing on top is thin strips of dried seaweed. The seaweed, minced scallion and wasabi cancel out the fishiness and bring out the good taste of the eel, and that's why I liked this more than their regular unagi bento. I was soooo excited to taste my favorite bento again. And …. after taking one bite, I noticed that something has changed. It didn’t taste the way I expected. The eel didn’t taste the same as before, the skin of the eel was harder, and rather unpleasant aftertaste of the seaweed and the scallion remained in my mouth for quite a while. At the restaurant, the cooking took as long as it used to take, so I don't think he changed the way he cooks. … Then, why the difference? Or is it just me? Did my taste buds somewhat deteriorate in the past year or something? I don’t know… It was a kind of sad experience, to be honest. I guess I’m not going to buy this bento for a while.

AT THE FAIR

"Strawberry Waffle Cone" with Shiratama dango At Kochi castle, whitch is just 7 min. by bicycle from my apartment, a “historical fair” is being held from May 1 to May 5. I visited there today and posted some photos here. There were some, not too many, food stalls there and this was what I bought at a stall selling Japanese sweets. Well, actually they had some traditional Japanese sweets and some Western sweets with a Japanese touch. They called this “Strawberry waffle cone.” As some of you may have guessed, these small white balls are “shiratama dango (rice flour dumplings),” so that was supposed to be the “Japanese touch” added to the totally Western strawberry ice cream. Warabi-mochi and Mitarashi dango I didn’t buy any of these, but they looked very nice so I just took a picture. The transparent jelly-like balls are “warabi mochi (bracken-starch dumplings).” They put these little bunny-shaped white jelly (I guess) on top, because this stall was run by a Japanese-style café in town and the name of the cafe is related to bunny. Those dumplings on wooden skewers are “mitarashi dango (rice flour dumplings with salty-sweet, soy-sauce based sauce).” It was such a nice day, not too cold, not too hot, with nice gentle breeze. Perfect day for enjoying a fair. Hope this weather lasts for the rest of the week.

Garden Report - May 2005-

Talking of my balcony garden… Dill sprouts? These look like dill sprouts resulted from my second attempt this spring. It took more than 3 weeks for them to sprout. So unusual! Well, it’s been very disappointing this year, to be honest. Last year I didn’t plan well ahead of time, so I ended up sowing some seeds quite late. When it got very hot in July, most of my herbs were still young and weak, and they died one after another because of the heat and disease. I didn’t want to repeat the same thing again, so I seeded herbs in late March this year, which I thought to be the perfect timing. What went wrong? Well, we did have a strange weather this spring… we had a cold snap in March, then it got unusually hot in April for about a week… But I don’t think that should be the reason why all the herbs I seeded this year–-- parsley, sage, dill and basil --- didn’t sprout at all. Especially, the basil seeds were usually like fail-safe…there was no year that they didn’t sprout, as far as I remember. Lemongrass Look at the lemongrass… I bought the young plant in late March and planted it here. It’s just turning brown now instead of growing. Right next to it, where covered by a piece of newspaper, I sowed parsley seeds again today. This is my 3rd attempt this year! Sigh. Now on a brighter side: Blueberry "sunshine blue" Good thing is that my blueberry is doing fine, except that right now it’s growing more leaves rather than blooming. This blueberry plant is a strange one actually. When I bought it last November, it went into almost full bloom right away. Someone told me that those flowers just die in winter and would not bear fruit, so I took them off to give the plant a rest during winter. I guess my biggest mistake was that I still kept taking off flower buds in late February and early March because I thought it was still a bit too early for the normal blooming time for blueberries. But maybe for this particular kind, sunshine blue, it WAS the normal blooming time. I expected my blueberry to be in full bloom in April, but it didn't happen and instead, my pretty sunshine blue started growing more leaves and forgot about flowers. Ahhhh… ! I guess I can’t expect many berries this summer… Dog Rose This is definitely doing good. This plant was just like this in early spring. Now see how much it has grown. 　 Apple mint and spearmint...can't tell which is which. They’re always fine, no matter what. Rhubarb My crazy attempt of growing rhubarb in this warm part of Japan is still going on. I don’t expect my little rhubarb to grow much bigger than this in this planter, though… I might bring this planter to my parents house again sometime soon and ask them to plant this rhubarb somewhere in a shade in my dad’s orchard. Well, things don’t look too exciting right now, but we’ll see…

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…