Last of the autumn bounty

The days are definately shorter and colder. It seems that autumn is fading out and winter is rolling in. Last weekend I received a box of apples, the last gasp of fall's bounty. Well, not quite, but it sounds dramatic, doesn't it? ^_^ I did, however, receive a box of slightly over-ripe apples. They were a bit soft for eating directly, but perfect fodder for applesauce! I made this sauce with very little sweetener and no spices. I plan on using it for baking and cooking things such as loaves and curry. After cooking it, I put it in the longest baking pan I had to cool it down faster. When it was cool, I divided it up into containers for freezing. My freezer is fairly bursting with pumpkin, zucchini and now, applesauce! By the way, you may notice I left the skins on the apples. Firstly I believe the skins, when washed, are very healthy for your digestive system. Secondly and most importantly, I am too lazy to peel that many apples. ^_^

Today's bento for hubby consisted of grilled salmon, rolled omelet, sesame pickled cucumber, berry tomato and mixed vegetables.

The day before yesterday's bento was a fried pork cutlet on rice with carrots. It is hard to see the rice in this photo, but it is there peeking out the side!

Last weekend my husband prepared ramen, making his own special spicy miso broth. We were lucky to get some Eringi (King Oyster Mushrooms) on Saturday, so we made great use of them. Some of the mushrooms went into this soup and were delicious! We don't get them often, so when we do, it is a great treat!

I made another pumpkin loaf last week. I know I posted one already, but this is a shot of the inside. When using fresh pumpkin you tend to get chunks rather than the smooth consistancy that comes in a can. Both have their time and place, but sometimes it is nice to actually feel like you are eating pumpkin. This loaf highlights that, I think.

Onigiri (Rice Ball)

These are the onigiri (rice balls) I made for my husband today. They are very easy to carry and are perfect for road trips. My husband had to travel to another city today to make some deliveries with his job and he requested onigiri instead of his regular bento, as he needed to eat in the truck. Onigiri is a shaped ball of rice with some sort of filling inside. Typical fillings include but are not limited to salted salmon, roe mixed with mayonnaise, ume boshi, tuna with mayonnaise, mentaiko, dried bonito flakes and pickled seaweed. You can get creative with this and try things like sausage and other types of pickles. Even canned chicken or ham would work. The point is to use something salted as it needs to last in your lunch. Onigiri is sort of like the Japanese answer to sandwiches. We use items like ham and pickles in our sandwiches because they don't go bad as quickly. It is a similar story in Japan--things like salted salmon and ume boshi work just like deli meat here. I shaped the rice with a small piece of salmon inside it. I then wrapped a piece of nori seaweed around it. Once the rice ball was cool, I packaged it up in tin foil and presto! A very portable lunch! Onigiri makes a satisfying lunch or snack anytime and it is quite healthy for you as well. Onigiri works best with Japanese koshihikari short grain rice (sometimes called sushi rice in the supermarket).

Supper tonight was another donburi. This is a pork cutlet on rice with egg and onion. Onions and garlic are simmered in sake, soy sauce, dashi and sugar. Then a sliced cooked pork cutlet is layered on top. Beaten egg is drizzled on top and simmered until cooked. This is placed on top of steamed white rice. Pickled ginger goes well with this dish. It is satisfying at the end of a long day of physical work (my poor man!).

Tomorrow is Friday and I am thinking spaghetti!

Sausage bento

I made this bento for my husband the other day. The sausage is a bit dark in the photo, because I couldn't get the flash on the camera to work. So we have rice with sesame, the mini sausage, broccoli and pickles. I do try to make the bento with three items--at least. This is a very easy and quick bento to make, provided you have the rice on hand already. We always set our rice cooker the night before, so in the morning the rice is cooked for breakfast and lunches. The sausages only take about 10 minutes in a frying pan and 3 minutes in a microwave. The broccoli takes 30 seconds to steam in the microwave. What I do is set the sausage cooking while I eat breakfast. Then when I am done, I just need to assemble the bento. Easy! ^_^

A new favourite loaf

An unexpected visit from my parents on Halloween yielded delicious results! They appeared at our door bearing a very seasonally appropriate gift--a pumpkin! And what a pumpkin it was! Huge! I let it sit on my kitchen counter for a day so I could bask in its glory for awhile, knowing full well I wouldn't see another like it for a whole year. Then yesterday, I finally worked up the mettle to break it down into pieces. I peeled and chopped it up for freezing, as it is a baking and cooking staple. Normally you should cook the pieces before freezing, but I couldn't be bothered (it was quite enough to chop it up!). I reserved a few pieces to make a new recipe, Pumpkin Loaf. I don't want to call it a bread, because that implies yeast and this is a quickbread. However, it acts very much like a bread and can be used as such. Let me say, delicious! I used a mixture of white and whole wheat flour to give it more of a nutitional punch and lessen my guilt for indulging. It has quickly become my favourite loaf! So moist and delicious, I could eat it for breakfast, lunch and snack! Bonus: pumpkin is good for you! So ha!

Here is a bento lunch I made for my husband yesterday. On the left you can see some salted salmon which I pan fried. The upper right is just some sliced cucumbers and below it is a tamago-yaki (rolled sweet omelet). Rice is of course standard. We made the salted salmon ourselves. It is super easy! We bought a huge piece of salmon from Costco and sprinkled both sides of the fillet with pickling salt (any salt would work just as well). We then let it sit in the fridge for an hour. Then we sliced it into individual servings and froze it for quick lunches. Salted salmon is also nice broken into flakes and mixed with steamed rice.

This is actually one of my husband's favourite dishes: ginger pork. Though it is not swimming in sauce, the flavour is very much there. The meat is sauted until the sauce soaks in and evaporates away. The result is tender, ginger infused pork with a hint of something sweet and salty. I served it on a bed of cabbage steamed with butter, vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper.

Definately making pumpkin loaf again!

A little of this, a little of that

This donburi (one bowl) dish should actually have a third row with it. The dish is called Sanshoku Donburi which means three coloured donburi. However, I am missing the third row which is typically a green vegetable such as broccoli, peas, asparagus or slivered green beans. However, my husband requests that I serve the vegetable portion separately. Thus this is a two coloured donburi. Beneath the topping is plain steamed white rice. The egg is scrambled fried with a scant amount of sugar. The ground meat is a mixture of beef and pork, fried with fresh grated ginger, soy sauce, sugar and mirin. This dish is very popular in bentos especially with children. It is delicious served hot or at room temperature (in the case of a bento).

This is a super easy dish I modified to my own tastes from the Campbells Kitchen website. The original recipe was for sweet and sour pork. As you can see, I used chicken drumsticks, along with chunks of carrot and some soybeans. The base of the sauce uses tomato soup with some vinegar, sugar and worchestershire sauce to make it sweet and sour. The soybeans were canned, so I could avoid the eight hour cooking marathon. For the first time I have found canned soybeans and it has been a pleasure, that's for sure! They are a truly delicious, nutritious and versatile cooking ingredient. Unlike other canned beans, they are not mushy.

This is a bento I made for my husband on Monday. Tiny cocktail sausages work very well in bento because of their size. You can see I did a variation on tamago-yaki. I rolled steamed broccoli inside it which worked quite well. Spinach would have also worked nicely. On the rice I included an ume boshi (pickled plum) which is a popular addition to bento, due to their antibacterial qualities. It is said that ume boshi prevents food from going bad. In Japan, when someone is sick, you often feed them rice gruel with ume boshi. They say it will heal all that ails you. Better stock up for the winter! P.S. The green turtle is a decorative pick.

Last weekend my husband cooked himself some fresh ramen for lunch. We only had one package of fresh ramen, so he went ahead and prepared it. I had Kraft Dinner. We were both satisfied.

And now for my favourite muffins! Chocolate Zucchini Muffins! So moist and delicious! Thanks to my parents who so generously donated the zucchinis!

The weekend is here again, which means time with my honey! Can't beat that! ^_^

Heart warming comfort food

Ah, banana bread! So many variations, so much goodness! This particular loaf does not contain any extra goodies (i.e. chocolate chips, walnuts, etc). I was rather in a hurry, so I just threw together a basic banana bread. It is super delicious toasted with peanut butter for breakfast! I sliced and froze the leftovers so I can enjoy the dense goodness for days to come! Next time I may indulge in a few bits of chocolate...mmm!

Here is a bento lunch I made a few days ago. The rice has ume shiso furikake for seasoning, as well as sesame seeds. The purple stuff in the left corner is sauted purple cabbage. Purple cabbage does have a tendancy to turn blue when cooked, though this can easily be remedied by adding an acidic ingredient such as lemon juice or vinegar. The carrots are cooked in vinegar, sugar, soy sauce and sesame seeds. Everything is rounded out by a hard boiled egg, cucumber slices and pickled onion.

This is a Japanese stew called Hayashi Raisu (should be eaten alongside rice). I forgot to take a photo the day I cooked it, so you get to see leftovers stored in Tupperware. ^_^; This stew is really so delicious! It combines thin strips of beef with carrot, onion, mushroom, tomatos, red wine and demi glace sauce. The demi glace sauce is really what makes it special!

Comforting food as the rain comes down!

Bento Lunches For My Honey!

These are some examples of bento lunches I have packed for my husband. In the one pictured above, we have rice with black sesame (the yellow stuff is daikon pickles), hamburger with a bit of corn tucked in beside it, salad, fresh veggies and kinpira.

This bento has some leftover niku-jaga, hijiki onigiri and lots of salad with fresh vegetables.

This bento has rice mixed with ume boshi and seaweed, salad, red bell pepper, tofu nuggets, tamago-yaki rolled omelet, carrots and dipping sauce.

Again we have sesame rice, along with teriyaki salmon, simmered soybeans and salad.

The lunches are easiest to make if you plan to have some leftovers. I try to do this as often as possible, but sometimes in the mornings I find myself just boiling some eggs (like today for instance). Tonight I was a bit more prepared and set aside some leftovers to reheat and arrange for my husband in the morning. In addition to the main bento, I often pack a separate container of sliced apple as well as some sort of snack (ie cookie) and a thermos of soup and a thermos of coffee. It is all surprisingly compact...

Happy lunching! ^_^

The Forbidden Seaweed

For a side dish tonight I made "hijiki no nimono". Hijiki being seaweed and nimono meaning various simmered things. While I didn't add many things to my hijiki (due to an empty fridge) it was delicious. It is one of my favourite Japanese side dishes. Hijiki is labelled a sea vegetable and while it contains a delightful array of vital minerals, it also contains traces of arsenic. My opinion is that you would have to eat a truckload of hijiki everyday for a year in order to build up detectable levels of arsenic, but Canadian Food Regulations deem otherwise. Though I am not 100% sure, I do not think Canadian retailers can import hijiki seaweed. I have yet to see it anywhere. My supply comes directly from Japan, thanks to my mother-in-law. Again though I am not sure, I think you can buy it in America. ANYWAY...I re-hydrated the hijiki and simmered it in the standard Japanese ingredients: sake, mirin, soy sauce and sugar. I added a bit of carrot to it, but in an ideal world, I would have also added shiitake mushroom, burdock root, fried tofu, konnyaku and edamame. Unfortunately, financial circumstances being what they are, carrot was all I had on hand. See the re-hydration process below:

Almost all hijiki is sold in dehydrated form and must be soaked in water for about 15 minutes before simmering. A quick rinse through cold water before simmering eliminates excess salt. I have had success freezing cooked hijiki for a quick bento addition. Also, simmered hijiki added to rice is amazing and can be eaten as is, or shaped into onigiri (rice balls). An interesting note: while hijiki seems to not be imported by Canadian retailers, it was served to us on our Air Canada flight from Japan...makes you wonder.

The main dish of the evening was an ume shiso ground pork donburi. You may notice we ate a lot of ground meat this week... Ground meat is very inexpensive and versatile. Since I lost my job we are really having to be economical...thus ground meat. Luckily it is used extensively in Japan and so I have lots of ways to use it. In this dish, ground pork was simmered with...you got it--a certain ratio of soy sauce, mirin and sugar...no sake this time. I should mention the Japanese use sake, mirin, soy sauce and sugar in varying concentrations for almost everything! It is the basis of true Japanese flavour. Items such as miso, ginger, garlic, dashi and sesame oil are also key. After simmering the pork I added green onion, mitsuba, shiso leaves, ume boshi (pickled plum) and ume su (ume vinegar). This mixture was used to top steamed rice. Very delicious!

We also have a cucumber tomato vinegar dish, salad and the ever present miso soup. And of course the forbidden seaweed. ^_^

Tamago update! This is the miso egg I made yesterday. You can see how it absorbed the miso and took on a nice golden colour. The flavour actually penetrates the yolk and needs no other seasoning. I made my husband's egg with spicy korean paste and put it in his bento, along with some spicy sausage:

Because the egg is sort of pickled from the salt in the miso, it keeps very well in a bento. When we go on road trips, I always pack us a bento lunch of onigiri and these miso eggs.

Tomorrow I will head over to Superstore and buy some food. I have my list and I am on a mission! ^_^

Matcha and Green Tea

Well, here is my husband's bento for today. Though I'm sure he doesn't approve of the pink container...well...what can I say...it is cute. ^_^ This bento is made using the leftover meat sauce from last night. I think the sauce suits white rice very well. It is kind of like eating chili. The cucumbers have a dash of vinegar, salt and black sesame seeds. The closed containers are shown below:

I really love these containers. The 'happy sweet berry' container is so adorable! I have a pink version of the blue bento box for my own lunches. In fact, my bento making cupboard is filled with all sorts of goodies that will eventually make their way onto this page.

Now who doesn't love a good cup of tea? Shown above is powdered green tea called Matcha. Usually it is darker, but I added milk and sugar so the colour is quite pale. The Japanese tea ceremony uses Matcha and recently it has become quite popular in Canada. Since Matcha is a powder, it is easy to use it in baking things such as Matcha Roll Cake. As well, Matcha can be sprinkled into yogurt, milk or ice cream. Matcha ice cream with dango and sweet bean is one of my favourite Japanese treats! Because Matcha is slightly bitter, in Japan it is often served with a small sweet.

 

Today I began to make 'miso tamago' or miso egg. This particular dish takes at least a day to make and is best left overnight. You start by hardboiling some eggs and then peeling them. Then you mix together about one tablespoon of miso and one teaspoon of maple syrup or honey together in a bit of clear wrap. Next you place the egg into the clear wrap and cover it with the mixture. You let this sit in the fridge overnight--the miso basically pickles the egg! The next day when you unwrap the egg, it has a rich golden colour and the flavour has actually seeped deep inside. It is perfect for bento! You can play with the flavours a bit too. I added spicy Korean bean paste to miso because my husband loves spice! It will go in his bento tomorrow.

You can leave them longer than overnight like this. The longer they sit, the richer the flavour, but I find that overnight is enough.

Supper tonight was super simple and a bit of a cheat! I made 'ochazuke' which is quite simply tea rice. However, I used the above flavouring packets, rather than brewing some strong flavoured green tea (not Matcha, but regular green tea from loose leaves). These packets contain green tea pellets, nori seaweed and dried salmon. Ochazuke is super easy to make. You place steamed rice in a bowl, add some fish such as tuna or salmon, sprinkle the packet and add hot water. Done! It is best served with wasabi and extra nori.

I also made some deviled eggs, salad and miso soup with our own garden turnips. It was simple, yet satisfying. I do feel like a bit of a cheat for using ochazuke flavour packets, but they are so very convenient. My husband's mom sent us lots from Japan, so I might as well us them. Often ochazuke is eaten for breakfast. When I lived in Japan, it was the first breakfast I ate there. The first time was very...interesting. Now it is routine. The moral? Don't be afraid to try something different!

A Saturday by myself...

This morning my husband had to work, so I packed him a special bento lunch to cheer him on. There is simmered pork from last night (pork cooked in soy sauce, sake, mirin, sugar and water), along with some salad and steamed rice. The gimped word 'love' is written using pieces of nori seaweed. The little black dots are black sesame.

At roughly 5:00pm, I decided to make whole wheat buns. I had run out of home made bread at lunch time, so I got motivated and whipped up another batch. My husband does not eat whole wheat bread, so these should last a long time in the freezer. They are 100% whole wheat and SUPER light. I attribute this to a couple of tricks. One of which is my grandma's trick of adding vinegar to the dough. The other trick is my own--vital wheat gluten. Wheat gluten is a yellow-ish powder that adds height to bread, which is perfect for whole wheat goods. I added about half a cup vital wheat gluten for these buns. As well, I added a lot more sweetener than the recipe calls for, which is for no purpose other than I like sweet bread. A quarter cup sugar was added, as well as a quarter cup Splenda. These buns rose quickly and were done by 8:00pm exactly. Delish!

Notice how the one bun on the right decided to be unique in shape. ^_^

Just a look at the raw dough before rising. I make all my bread by hand--no food processor or mixer and definately NO bread machine. Kneading dough is a good way of taking out your frustrations!

For supper I prepared 'Mabo Dofu'. This dish is made of minced pork, simmered with tofu, green onion, garlic, ginger, 'to-ban-jan' (spicy Korean paste), chicken broth, sake, sugar, soy sauce and miso. It is really delicious and oh so inexpensive to make! You can purchase the sauce in asian food markets, but it is ridiculously easy to make it from scratch.

Tomorrow my husband wants to make sushi. Stay tuned for that!