weekend eats

Saturday - a semi impromptu trip to Kamakura and hours of walking around trying to find somewhere to eat, we ended up having "pain de campagne" (カンパーニュ） for lunch baked in a 石釜 at Jyomyoji 浄妙寺, followed by german sausages (from the 鎌倉ハムshop）in a soft bread roll for 400yen each down 小町通 a little later.

Sat dinner was: sukiyaki!! Haven't had it for ages so was nice. Washed it down with a beer (of sorts)for me and a chu-hai for J

Sunday:
☆　pancakes for breakfast
☆　onigiri (with flaked salmon, and with 梅干) for lunch
☆ teriyaki chicken drumsticks, rice, salad with smoked salmon, 魚の煮物, egg + にら for dinner






see a pattern?? we eat 豪華 when J is in charge of the kitchen.....also means we overspend at the supermarket with both the fish and the chicken being used in one meal! not to mention the smoked salmon in there. *sigh* so much for this week's budget again......

lasagna

Made a lasagna for lunch, and there was leftovers (which J couldn't believe - he asked me "didn't they like it" lol, but we had already had a delish cake my friend brought over for morning tea less than an hour before hand)

Also some salad leftovers, so that was dinner!

Lasagna- meat with grated pumpkin, carrot and spinach (recipe below)
Salad - lettuce, tomato, green beans, carrots and mushrooms in one and lettuce, SD tomatoes and daikon in the other.

I had the leftover pasta from last night, and mini meat pie.

K had peanut butter sandwhiches (she wanted bread and I wasn't in the mood to argue!! She had a good lunch, tho)

********* (edit)
I don't really have a recipe anymore for Lasagna - this is one dish I can now cook without having one!! But I got the original recipe from GaijinWife, for her ラブラブlasagna, about a year ago, and now I usually tweak it depending on what I have in the fridge.

This time this is what I did:
400g pork/beef mince
1/8 pumpkin, grated
1 small carrot, grated
several leaves of spinach, finely chopped
1/2 onion, finely chopped
lasagna sheets (dry, not pre-cooked)

Brown the mince, remove from frypan
In same pan, add a bit of oil if necessary then fry off the onion until translucent in colour, add pumpkin, carrot and cook until tender. Add spinach and cook for just a few minutes.
Return mince back to frypan, and add meat sauce flavouring (I use Rumic, a powdered flavouring) and just a bit of water

White sauce:
40g butter
2TBS (heaped) of flour
2&1/2 cups(?) milk

Meanwhile, melt butter on low heat in saucepan, add flour and mix well until glubby. Slowly add milk a little at a time, stirring constantly until it starts to get a bit glubby at the bottom while stirring. Allow to come to a bit of a simmer, then turn off heat.

Layer a dish that fits in the oven with meat and vege mixture, lasagna sheets (not cooked!! this is what makes this recipe so simple), then たっぷりwhite sauce, repeat. make sure the top layer is well covered with white sauce. Sprinkle grated cheese on top.

microwave for 20mins
Then in oven at 150deg for 20min or until top is golden brown with melted cheese!!

I still think I am layering たっぷり with white sauce, but sometimes even not enough and the bits of pasta sticking out at the top get hard in the oven. Next time - more sauce!!!!!

the grated pumpkin in this makes it nice and creamy!

barefoot and pregnant but not wanting to stand in the kitchen

While I was all full of energy (well, at least not on my last legs) when I got home from playgroup, about 30mins after K went down for her nap, I just about passed out from exhaustion! So I went up and joined her, and we slept until nearly 5pm (yikes) which meant that there was nothing prepped for dinner, and I couldn't be bothered fart-arsing around the kitchen for hours on end tonight! A quick search showed that I didin't have a cream stew roux, and couldn't be bothered making one(seeing a pattern?) so I pulled out the jar of alfredo sauce and grilled the left over chicken to make chicken, mushroom, green beans and onion alfredo spaghetti with wa-style salad (lettuce, daikon,shiso, mini tomatoes and 和風 dressing).



As it turned out, I also pre-made the lasagna for tomorrow's lunch (friends coming over) at the same time, so I guess I wasn't *that* unproductive.

And I wasn't barefoot inthe kitchen either.

Also managed to put a loaf of bread on before passing out, so we had fresh rye bread with dinner, yum! Recently I have been enjoying my bread with cream cheese spread. oooooh it tastes so guuuuuuuuuuuuuud!


************edit, a few hours later***********
I just realised that I may have used up my "get out of jail free card" for the week by making the simple meal tonight - now I have to think about something for friday night dinner. With people coming for lunch, I dont think I will be wanting to do a big production for dinner tomorrow night either. damn it.

Q for kel: you talked somewhere about menu planning - do you plan for the week in advance? just interested....

うめ～梅！

since I knew J was gonna be late home today, and he usually rings to say he is on his way home just as K and I are in the bath*, I wanted to prepare stuff that could be easily heated up at the last minute, so this is what I did:

＊　chicken 梅シソ (only had chicken breast, as J bought it when shopping on the weekend, and when I said to buy chicken, he thought I meant for me only, so he bought breast.Haha, now he has to eat it too - he doesn't like it, reckons it is always ぱさぱさ). I have made this recipe before, with sasami, but this was just as good, I guess since it is steamed it keeps the breast meat moist. The 梅干 were big plump ones done in honey, and delish! I just love de-stoning them, coz I get to eat the flesh left around the stones. I still have a lot of shiso left over, as bought one of those trays for 99yen (must have about 8 bunches of 10leaves each.) so tomorrow I am shiso-ing again. But I really like shiso too, so this is good!

＊　brocolli with tuna/mayo/cheese/egg topping this was yummy, will bookmark this to use again.


＊　豆腐のねぎ炒め, since I had some tofu about to go out of date. This also was good, kinda like a poor man's (as in simple version)　マーボー豆腐

and rice (1/3 玄米 2/3 white rice, since I actually remembered to soak the brown rice from this morning!) and pickles, leftover squid marinated in mirin to round it off.


*of course, we could have an earlier bath, but this afternoon we went to the neighbours for a play in the afternoon, so there wasn't much time after, and K had to eat (brocolli, chicken 混ぜrice)

Happy Australia Day

I feel like glossing over the fact that we had maccas for lunch, but this blog is really meant to be nothing more than a food diary for my own benefits, (and hiding the maccas wrappers would feel like cheating on a test) so I am fessing up! Even remembered at the counter, just before ordering that I should check my keitai for mail coupons, and got a happy meal for 290yen (that is a 200yen discount!) for K with chicken nuggets, and a cheeseburger and choc thickshake for myself. We had spent the morning shopping/fighting/tantruming/stressing so I felt I deserved a simple lunch. And the smiles are free at maccas, right?!?

Came home and went about making meat pies for dinner. I went against my better judgement and used this recipe for the pie crust....now, I know that Ihave had trouble in the past making a nice pastry, so it may not be all the recipe's fault, but I found it far too wet and sticky, which meant I had trouble rolling it out, which meant I probably overworked it, which meant that it was "tough". I wasn't too impressed.


My pie filling was great though, using a recipe out of Women's weekly (I save clippings sometimes, even in this day and age of searching on the net for recipes, lol) I am very ahppy with the filling, and hope to use it again IF I can ever perfect a pie crust (big ため息）It was so simple - just fry off some mince, then fry up 1 chopped onion, 2 crushed garlic, add 2tbs flour, then add 1cup beef stock and 1tbs worstershire sauce. Tasted just like a meat pie from the shops. I used puff pastry for the lids, which was a good idea in the end, considering my failure with the short-crust pastry.

I ended up making party pies for K, in silicon muffin cases, and single serve pies for J and me - in the gratin dishes, the best thing I could find, and I think they did the trick!! Served with mashed potato and a big glass of milk for both K and me!

Anyway, here is the pictures of our Australia Day pies - slather a bit of tomato sauce on it, and you beauty mate!

Baked beans

J is away on business trip, and I am satisfying another craving (how many things can I crave, honestly!?!?) with baked beans on toast for dinner.

Lunch was yesterday's leftovers, so an easy day in all.

Nabe party

Sat lunch was, as always (!?)　くら寿司. It is like a tradition. I was happy tho, as we got some yummy ゆば, and they now have てんぷらイカand てんぷらキス which was yummy too.

Got home, and gave the house the big one-over for J's mates and our もつ鍋 party (starting at 8pm or later!!). I am not that keen on motsu myself, so I had some onigiri with K when she had her dinner, but I also had some nabe later on when every one came. We also had yummy cakes and chippies and salami and cheese and crackers to nibble on all night. Everyone was up talking until 2am, so it was a big night.

Somehow managed to sleep in until just after 8am, then got up and made some coffee for everyone, and although J had said he was gonna make pancakes, but I guess his hangover got the better of him, and we just had バウンクーヘン with coffee (bad hosts, are we!) No one seemed to mind though, some more chatting and then everyone headed off.

I have been itching for some 石焼ビビンバ for a while, so on Sunday after everyone left at about 11am, I suggested it - and J remembered the 焼肉 joint (chain restaurant) down the road, so we headed there in the hope they do lunch and have 石焼ビビンバ. We were lucky on both counts! I got the 石焼ビビンバ and 焼肉 set, and J had the 国産牛2種盛り set for 1180yen each (大盛り210yen extra for J). K ate most of my meat, and a fair bit of J's too, lol.

I ate it so fast, all I could take a photo of was the empty bowl!! It definately satisfied my craving. Am hoping we can go back there when my parents come too.

We got home and passed out, absolutely buggered after our big night, then J got into the kitchen and whipped up this:

for dinner on Sunday night.

☆　鮭の西京焼き (pre-marinated fish from the supermarket)
☆ marinated squid
☆ 厚揚げ with carrots and snack end beans
☆ rice, pickles and mso soup for J
also had to include K's bowl of rice in the photo, lol

a real frugal friday

Lunch was leftover pasta with fresh bread (soft white loaf today - I wanted to make cheese bread, but it turns out you can't do that on timer, and I wanted it for breaky too, oh well)

Dinner was leftover curry and rice (I seem to have amassed about 5go of cooked rice in the freezer - time to move it on) and last night's leftovers too. Worked out well as J went for a haircut after work, so K ate early (unagi and rice, miso soup and egg roll) then we had a bath, then all I had to do was reheat when J got home.

And that's it for today.

at J's request

うなぎ
with

長ネギ with 梅肉 sauce

きんぴら牛蒡

a selection of pickles

egg roll

大根、大葉、tomato salad (that no one touched in the end coz we were so full already!)

rice

wakame miso soup

Didn't take a photo of the unagi as it was too big for the donburi bowl, so it didn't look pretty, so J said "don't take a photo of that" lol.

I really like the　長ネギ with ume, it makes me feel like i am in an izakaya, so tonight I even whipped out the beer (Kirin Free of course)....but I am kinda regretting it now, coz it has filled me up, and even given me a 偽headache. I might be getting a 偽hangover the way I am going...aarrggh.

And while J and I were having dinner (since he got home a bit later that usual, K had already eaten), K set up the kids in the living room,like this (lol)

herb bread

K said she wanted pasta for lunch....so I compromised with her and said we would have it for dinner! Made a mushroom, chicken cream sauce spag like this:

»Fried off some chicken.
»Then Fried off some mushrooms and onion in:
»1/4cup sake, (since no dry white wine, but basically the same, right)
»1/4 cup chicken stock (鶏がら - chinese chicken stock, lol turning very asian style already)
»s, p, bit of garlic
»added some white sauce to it to thicken, added some ham and 枝豆 (for a bit of colour)

and that was it. Sort of followed this recipe, I guess.

Served with tomatoes in sea salt and olive oil, and lettuce/avocado/cheese salad.

Oh and the main event (despite being at the back of the photo) was my first attempt at HERB BREAD!! I managed to remember to put the breadmaker on just after lunch time, but I wasn't sure how much herbs to put in. One recipe said oregano and basil, but had no basil so went with
about 1/4tbs each of paprika, oregano, rosemary (ie, just less than a tablespoon of herbs). I think I could have added more - it smells very herby, but the taste is very mild. Will get some basil and try again I think. Was still good tho!!




While searching, I came across this Chicken, Ham and Mushroom squares recipe: now this looks NOICE! Once I get some pie pastry I am gonna have to try this one out for sure!

洋 baby, yo!

I have had these baby potatoes sitting around for a while now, just waiting for the perfect opportunity to be boiled up and teamed with a lovely, regular, western meal. So it goes:

♦ grilled pork chops(seasoned with s+p), served with apple sauce
♦ boiled baby potatoes, served with butter
♦ honey glazed carrots
♦ green bean amandine
♦ pumpkin
♦ steamed cabbage


I would have had some nice fresh bread with it, but fell asleep putting K down for her afternoon nap, and then didn't have enough time to set the bread maker to be ready before dinner, oops. And wouldn't you know it, the first thing J asks when he sits down "isn't there any bread?? where are the carbs?" (doh- whacha call potatoes, dahhhhling?)

The green beans done in almond were absolutely delish! What a find, will be making this again for sure!

Tonight's menu:

☆ renkon　肉詰め
This was a bit bland - perhaps because I used lean beef mince?? J smothered it with 粒mustard (as had no more karashi) and then said it was ok...hmmm


☆大根　じゃがいも salad
now this was nice! Made it with broad beans.

☆春菊の白和え this was good too!

☆ rice, miso soup (for J), some 春菊, salad and other leftovers and ginnan "popped" in the microwave with some salt.

*****
oh yeah, and I forgot to add that I realised at the last minute AGAIN that I was missing a main ingredient - bread crumbs!!- so I used weetabix instead, and it worked like a treat!!

grocery shopping and kamakura weekend

Saturday: Lunch was a bit all over the place as we went out grocery shopping in the morning, then had an appointment to see the stove guy at 1pm, so K had peanut butter s/w in the car on the way there and J mixed something up for himself when we got back.
Dinner was yakisoba, courtesy of J, of course, on the weekend he is DA-MAN!

Sunday lunch: 定食　at Kamakura
Sunday night: mandarin chicken with big salad, rice and 揚げ豆腐 with なめこ




When J said he was making Mandarin chicken, I envisaged chicken with orange (mandarin) sauce...haha. He just meant chinese style chicken. It was still yummy!
and some nicely presented strawberries for dessert.

豆乳ゴマ鍋

In the fridge: cabbage AND 白菜, 京にんじん(still, they are big buggers),mushies, 大根, 春菊 from PIL's vege patch......it was always gonna be nabe one night this week, and tonight is the night (as J said when he rang earlier 出た！ Gonna give the soy milk broth a try, agian, 市販のもの. All I really had to buy was some more tofu, mushies and pork for the nabe. J just rang from close to Tokyo station, and is coming straight home, so he will be home about 7pm. Better chop-chop, literally and get it ready.

baking a pasta bake

no photo tonight, since obviously the camera is still right beside the computer in the living room, a whole room away from the dining table, lol.

not very exciting stuff anyway:

☆ ham sausage pasta bake with a bit of onion, tomato, regular cheese thrown in (a little bit bland, like some commenters said. My fault, was totally racking my brain all afternoon for something simple to make, and use up the ham sausage that is near its due date, but should have put a bit more effort in. The evaporated milk/egg mix was a good idea though I think). Maybe if I had have used ricotta and the other cheeses it would have picked it up a bit, but only had my red chedder and some kraft parmesan to sprikle on the top)
☆ daikon, sd tomato and lettuce salad
☆ rye bread (made this morning). still lovin' my bread maker!!

I tried to eat a lot of salad cf pasta, you know, for the weigh in (and to counterbalance the choc muffin I had with my cuppa this afternoon DOH!)

bits and pieces maketh the meal

★　もやしのナムールレモン炒め
★　minestrone (type) soup with 大根、京にんじん(leftovers from NY)、cabbage, onion.
★　肉じゃが (there was a lot of it, lol)
★　かにクリームクロッケ (市販のもの）, served with shredded cabbage
★　冷奴 topped withしらす and konbuつゆ
★　egg roll, very ふわふわ, very nice! even got a comment from J about how ふわふわ it is,lol
★　rice, leftover chicken and 長ネギ,　塩辛

(yes, we have ANOTHER head of cabbage - J bought it. I actually almost ate half of it while prepping tonight, very sweet! I can see it gracing our table for a few more nights yet, tho)

and I actually had this post written last night, but couldn't publish as the photos was not uploaded - why? because I remember now to take photos, but then leave the camera on the dining table. Which is NOT beside the computer. So when I sit (flake out) on the lounge to blog, I can't be bothered getting up to get the camera to upload the photo. How lazy is THAT!

Sat: J felt like chau-han (as K is now calling it, lol - gotta get her into the Chinese language!) for lunch out of the blue, so that is what we had.
Costco run in the afternoon, timed well with a pizza for dinner there. We bought a whole cooked one, and did a fair job of it! J wanted supreme, as he reckons it is silly to buy just pepperoni for the same price, but I really am not a fan of supreme, for some reason. We got it anyway.

Sun: headed across to pick up the fold-up bed and some other stuff in storage at PILs. Had a big bowl of noodles at the chinese joint we used to go to a bit in 千歳烏山. Then as soon as we arrived at PIL, the FIRST thing they said was "are you busy, lets go out for an early dinner - sushi!". Anyway, we went over to uncle K's to say hello and Happy NY, and it was decided we would all go out for dinner, but Uncle K didn't want to line up in the cold so we headed to Sushi-ro(he had an operation to remove half his stomach Sept last year due to 胃がん, and can't eat much, as in, only 2 plates of sushi anyway). It was only about 3:30pm, so we were all full still from lunch,and K was mega tired, so we didn't eat much, but it was nice to be out with them all anyway.

Came home and polished off the last of the costco pizza, not because I was hungry, but just because it was there. Had it cold. (J:"why don't you heat it up just a little bit?" Me: "you are obviously not a gaijin". Nothing better than having left over pizza cold, I say)

Monday: bits and pieces for breakfast and lunch. Then while I was napping with K, J prepped dinner -

肉じゃが

鳥肉and長ネギ

rice, pickles

しじみの味噌汁




Tuesday:
K and I had the leftovers tonight as J was away in Nagoya for a business trip, and ate 味噌カツ弁当 on the shink on the way back (yum!sounds nice)

Frugal Friday again

J was supposed to be having dinner out with clients, but mailed me at lunch time to say it was cancelled and he would be home for dinner (damn, he gave me enough notice, I couldn't NOT make anything)...but I didn't want to go shopping, so it was another night of scratching something together from the almighty (and seemingly never ending) supply of chinese cabbage and daikon.

薄切り大根と白菜
　I didn't want to make a whole lot and have it left over, so only used about half the amounts of daikon and cabbage, but it seemed like a lot when cooking so I used the whole amounts of flavourings - which meant that it turned out a bit too strong (and there was a whole amount left, haha) But I think it would be nice piled on the rice

nabe leftovers, semi-雑炊 style (well, threw an egg in there anyway)

cabbage and hotate cream煮. Had some dried scallops that I "brought back to life"?/reconstituted?/un-dried? (not sure what it the process is called) to use for this. Didn't make a pasta out of it, just the topping. Enough left over now for a pasta dish out of it for lunch tomorrow - forward thinking ;)

squid, cooked under the fish grill and served with soy sauce-mayo. Simple and delish.

rice and 山のくらげ which K got into!! She likes her tsumami, be she cant wait until she gets beer with it, haha

Thursday lunch & playdate

Had friends over for lunch (M, H and T) - decided to make filo pastry type thingies for lunch (using the "pie sheets" from the sueprmarket. Had several different filling recipes in mind, but decided to go with chicken (seared) stuffed with alfredo sauce mushroom, and rolled in a slice of bacon. They turned out really nice!!

Served with salad (yikes - had no lettuce, so used the few measly leaves of サラダ菜 left, and boofed it up with 大根、 avocado and sun dried tomatoes.

Store-bought pizza for the kids.

Also made up a pumpkin soup using this recipe - it was a bit too heavy on the spices for the kids (actually, not sure if it was the garlic or the spices, but it was not kid friendly) but yummy all the same.

Not sure what we are gonna do for dinner - am kinda hoping J doesn't come home for it, as I am full a goog right now, and all that is left over is soup. Not really feeling like making up a meal either.......that's bad isn't it. (oh well)

*Edit* J came home around 8pm - it was curry and rice leftovers for him, and taco left overs for me. K had rice and shirasu. Cleaning out that freezer....

back into the swing of it

It's been a week since my last post - seems longer. In the world of daily dinners, I guess it is a lot. We were away at PIL for NY, and I was gonna take photos of sechi ryori, but my camera battery was dead so didn't really get a good one. Not that I particularily got for the sechi ryori anyway (I think the only thing I ate were the sweet black beans). We indulged on expensive (PIL taste) steaks, tonkatsu, sashimi, ad several serves of noodles of various kinds. Since coming home on Sun night, we have eaten left overs and bits and pieces as I hadn't been shopping until this afternoon.

Mon night J made up a curry (although he wouldn't eat the leftover curry in the freezer the night before GRRRR) and last night we had tacos.

Tonight was nabe night. Our neighbour had said she had some 白菜 and other veges for us from her parent's in the inaka, but when she and her kids came over for a playdate today, they forgot to bring the veges....so we went out shopping and loaded up tonight. I used to be so taken with nabe, it always seemed so yummy, lots of veges...but recently the nabes have been a bit flat. I think it is the broth - have to find a good one. Or a recipe for a good broth. I feel like a soy milk nabe actually so maybe next time.

Made a lemon slice (like this, except a bit flatter this time - think I got excited and brought out the bigger dish, but the mix was not enough) and yoghurt steam cake （蒸しパン) in the breadmaker which turned out ok (not much taste really), but good for kids. And how easy!! Definately be making that again, esp when kids come over, and to take as snacks for K when we go out!