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! ^_^

The delightful world of Omu-raisu

The dish you see here is in fact Japanese. It is called Omu-raisu (Omelet Rice). It is basically ketchup fried rice, covered with a thin omelet. Sometimes the Japanese top it with a demi-glace sauce but we usually just use more ketchup. In this case, I sprinkled and melted hot pepper havarti cheese (we also used ketchup afterwards). Mixed with the rice is a bit of onion, garlic, mixed frozen veg and cubed ham. In Japan they often add mushrooms to it. In fact, in Japan they have ENTIRE restaurants dedicated to this single item and all its variations. They keep the egg much more runny, but I prefer to cook it solid. It is really delicious when you taste it in its authentic environment. If ever you find yourself hungry in Japan, try Omu-raisu!

In addition to the omu-raisu, I made potato leek soup. First I boiled a couple of my mom's garden potatoes. I mashed them until they were super smooth. Then I made a roux using one tablespoon of margarine and one tablespoon of flour. I added about 1/2 cup milk and 1 cup chicken stock (I saved some simmering broth from last night which had chicken, soy sauce, sake, mirin and brown sugar). Once this mixture started to thicken, I added the mashed potatoes and a bit of chopped leek. I didn't need to add any extra seasoning, as the leftover chicken broth was very flavourful, if not a bit dark from the soy sauce. In any case, the soup was soothingly smooth, slightly sweet and very delicious. The moral is always save your chicken stock!

On a side note, I made bread today, but you have seen that before. Tomorrow I may tackle pie crust for a raspberry pie I am planning for Thanksgiving.

Hot Pot for a cold day!

Well, last night (and all day today) we had our first snowfall of the season. Mind you, it is all melted now, but it was coming down fairly heavily last night and today. When my husband came home from work (yes, he worked Saturday) he declared how cold it was outside. You can imagine he was very pleased to find hot pot simmering on the stove. This hot pot is served in individual nabe bowls and you eat directly from the pot it was cooked in (saves on dishes!). Basically it is a thick chicken rice stew/soup with egg on top. Using leftover chicken, I prepared a broth and added some vegetables. Then I added rice before pouring egg on top. It warms you right to the core!

One of our side dishes was potato cakes. I boiled some potato, onion and sausage together in a pot. After draining, I mashed them together, added a bit of egg, shaped them into patties, coated in bread crumbs and fried. They were nice served with a bit of ketchup.

What is this strange looking blob, you may ask? Though it doesn't look like much, it is actually a nutritional powerhouse, all the while being delicious. This is a ham and cabbage casserole. It combines shredded cabbage, onions, garlic and ham, in a thick creamy saucy. The sauce is very very basic: milk and minute tapioca! First you shred and boil the cabbage...drain. Then you fry the onion, garlic and ham in soft margarine. Remove the ham mixture and add milk and minute tapioca to the same pan. Once that is thick, add the ham mixture and cabbage. Let it boil for a bit and then pour it into a greased casserole dish. Mix a small amount of bread crumbs with margarine and sprinkle on the top. I should say that black pepper can be added to taste. Salt is not necessary considering the ham. I baked it in the oven for about 40 minutes. It was really great! Nothing to look at, but quite good. It tastes richer than it really is. The tapioca is deceptive in that it mimics cream without the calories. I guess you could say it was comfort food for a cold day!

There you have it! Cold weather fare!

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!

All things spicy

On Tuesday we had a very simple supper. Pictured above and below is Curry Udon. It uses curry roux, just like regular curry stew, only you add udon noodles and a few vegetables. It really becomes more of a soup. For a protein in this meal, I made tamago-yaki (sweet rolled omelet). Tamago-yaki is made using a square frying pan. You mix eggs with sugar, soy sauce and dashi. Then you pour a thin layer into the pan. When it is nearly cooked, you carefully roll it into a log. Then you add another thin layer to the pan and repeat. It produces a really pretty pattern when the log is sliced in half. See photos below:

It is hard to see the layers in this photo, but they are there...

Keeping with the economical theme, yesterday I made my own taco seasoning for ground meat. Now it is easy enough to purchase a packet from the store, but for their size, the packets are expensive. Anyone who has a decent spice rack sitting around collecting dust can surely make their own taco spice. I whipped mine up using chili powder, paprika, cumin, garlic powder, oregano, salt, pepper, beef boullion and cornstarch. To be clear, the cornstarch was not mixed in with the spices. It was added later, along with a little cold water to prevent clumping. This blend of spices was exactly like the the store bought packet, only much better! I highly recommend trying this economical method.

I fried up my ground meat and then added half a can of diced tomatoes (the other half being carefully saved for Thursday's supper of spaghetti). After letting the mixture simmer for awhile, I started adding the taco seasoning until it tasted satisfactory. I then added about five drops of tabasco sauce for some kick. I served this on top of lettuce and topped with cheese. Even my husband enjoyed it and he doesn't usually go in for herbs and spices. So bust out the old spice rack and give it a try!

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...