Variations on chicken...and some beef

On the lighter side of cooking, we have here a chicken salad with sesame dressing. For those of you who questioned the merits of my deep frying, this is for you ~_^. The chicken is simply poached in water and then sliced. The vegetables can be whatever pleases you or you have on hand. The dressing is a little something my husband whipped up. It contains, among other things, ground up sesame seeds, peanut butter, soy sauce, sugar and miso. It is actually a protein laden dressing that tastes very fresh. I do think it is necessary to use natural peanut butter which contains nothing but peanuts (no sugar, salt, etc). You will be glad you did.

This little dish is lemon chicken. It goes well on a bed of onions and red peppers, but since I did not have either of those on hand, broccoli became the partner. The chicken breasts are lightly dusted with flour and then seared until brown. They are then simmered in chicken broth and lemon juice with dash of salt and pepper. Cornstarch is used to thicken it up near the end of the cooking time. I threw in a bit of garlic as well. If you have fresh lemons on hand, I recommend added some of the zest to the sauce.

I have posted gyudon before, but here it is again--the delightful beef bowl. Who can resist the strips of beef and sliced onion cooked in a salty sweet broth? It is always a treat! The side dish shown above is a spur of the moment thing. It consists of sliced berry tomatoes with pepper cheese. It was melted with a mini kitchen torch.

Now for the record, it is not what you eat, it is how much. I am of the opinion that you can eat any type of food you want....in moderation. Portion size has been ballooned into proportions unheard of in other parts of the world. For instance in Japan, fried food is eaten (ie tempura) but it is not eaten everyday and only one or two pieces at a time. The most tempura I have ever seen served to one person in Japan was four. The vast majority of Japanese people are thin. This I think comes from portion sizes and daily exercise...not in the form a of gym, but rather from everyday walking and biking. They walk A LOT. Goodness knows, A LOT. And did you know that Japanese women love love love their sweets? Cakes, mochi, cookies, you name it! But again, portion size! They don't typically buy entire cakes, but rather, one piece. One piece of cake! Something to think about, isn't it? ^_^

We have a variety of meat again!

Having gone to Costco last weekend, our freezer is now absolutely full of a variety of meal--drumsticks, chicken thighs, pork, beef, salmon, ground meat and shrimp. I now have some choice again about what to cook. Tonight we had lemon asparagus chicken drumsticks. The lemon lightens the flavour and so though the meal is hearty, it is not heavy. Lemon pepper further enhances the flavour.

This is of course Gyudon or beef bowl which I posted earlier. Really the meat should be cut much thinner, but even with partially freezing the meat, I can't seem to get a thin enough slice. Ah well, it was still delicious! Some supermarkets will slice the meat thin for you, but often they require you to give them a day's notice.

And finally we have banana chip muffins. Though the recipe calls for three bananas, I found that two worked much better. The dough had moisture, but was not gummy. I substituted half the white flour for whole wheat and used Splenda instead of sugar. The chocolate was real though. ^_^

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!

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! ^_^

A week's worth of photos!

Tonight's supper was very economical. It consisted of meatball soup with vegetables and herbs from our balcony garden (turnips, turnip greens, mitsuba). I did throw in a couple of mini carrots and a green onion I had in the fridge. The broth is basically a miso base with some Toban-jan (spicy Korean bean paste) and sesame oil. The salad is seaweed mixed with shiso leaves from our garden, dressed in a home made dressing of vinegar, soy sauce, sugar and seasame oil. Rice and a green salad round the meal off. A close up of the meal is below.

Today I decided to make cinnamon raisin buns. I made them with half whole wheat and half white flour. I shaped them fairly large, so I only got about nine out of the batch. I really love raisin bread with Cheese Whiz on it for breakfast. Something about the cheese and raisins...

Yesterday I had a major craving for cookies and decided to make chocolate chocolate chip cookies with raisins. The raisins were not part of the original recipe, but I added them anyway because I have raisins lying around the pantry.

Back on Thursday I made another economical supper. This is the Japanese one bowl dish Oyako-don. Did you know Oyako literally means "family" or "parent and child"? This dish consists of eggs and chicken cooked together and put over rice. Hence the "family." ^_^ The pink garnish is pickled ginger.

Last Sunday I made raisin buns for my husband--no cinnamon, no whole wheat, just fluffy white bread with raisins. I used an egg wash on the top of the buns to make them shiny.

There you have it! A weeks worth of pics! I seriously need to learn how to download photos off the camera myself...

Gyudon in a cute bowl!

My husband has most Tuesdays off, so that is his official cooking day (I love it!) This week he prepared the Japanese donburi (one bowl) dish called Gyudon. It consists of super thin slices of beef and onion wedges simmered in a sweet and salty broth of soy sauce, sake, mirin, sugar and dashi (kelp and smoked fish broth) on top of steamed rice. So delicious when the broth soaks down into the rice! Pickled ginger and mitsuba are used to garnish the top.

The bowl is pretty cute too! My husband bought it from his Japanese tableware shop. It is almost identical to the bowls used by a shop he knows in Japan. It was such a deliciously authentic day! I teased him that he should cook everyday, but he promptly said one day per week is enough. ^_^