Haha

So I found cabbage from Hokkaido today at a new store I was checking out! First cabbage in months;)
Watch this space for nabe in the next few days!!

Tonight will be chicken pasta bake, side pizza, salad and depending on weather I go fit a tomato or cream based pasta bake, there might be minestrone soup too(from a can;)

200th post

I feel pressure to write something deep and meaningful for the 200th post here, which is possibly why I have been on hiatus for weeks again?

No the truth is that
1) I just don't have the time to do ANYTHING these days, let-alone blog
And 2) buying and cooking food is now a stressful and time consuming task.

A lot has changed since 3/11. I know that everyone has their own opinions and ideas, but for me, my life in Japan has completely changed, and trying to procure safe food for my kids is something that I think and worry about each and every day.

So I am a born worry-wart, glass-half-empty, kinda gal. I try to err on the side of caution.
These days I fear the unknown threat of radiation in food products, the air around us, the ground we walk on, the grass the kids play in, the acorns and leaves the kids want to pick up when we go for walks....,,
So long as we are still in Kanto (Japan, even) the only thing I can try to control (as in, try to have as little radiation exposure as possible) is through food. So I refuse to buy from the usual suspects like Fukushima, Miyagi, Ibaraki.... But I also stopped buying local stuff too. now I try to source everything from Kansai, Kyushu or Hokkaido(certain things) and avoid anywhere in the 500km radius of Fukushima, since, in my opinion, there are so many areas affected by fallout, current testing is questionable and government-set limits are too high.

Paranoid, much?!

Probably.

But at the moment, trying to avoid possibly radiated food is the only thing I can do for my family, the only thing I can do to keep myself going and get through.

Unfortunately, sourcing products from non-affected regions is hard work. Most supermarkets are overflowing with cheap produce from Fukushima (cucumbers come in bags of 4 or 5 for 100yen or less!! But I have found certain shops, like the OK store providing foods from Western Japan a lot more, obviously due to demand!! With cooler days lately, J is craving for some nabe, but until I can find cabbage from somewhere other than Gunma, we won't be having any...:-( anyway, I also haven't bought mushrooms for months, bar some shitake I found once from Shikoku.

instead, these days I like to "brag" to other Overly-cautious buyers like myself about the small, but great finds I sometimes have.
So here are the results of a recent shopping expedition:

**Cucumbers from Kyoto, 100yen EACH
** tomatoes from Kumamoto 400 yen for 5
** frilly lettuce from Fukuoka, 100yen for a teeny tiny head of lettuce
** eggs from Hiroshima, 300yen for a pack of 10
** sole from Holland, 78yen each.

Yes, nowadays not only can I list up nearly every item I buy each time I go shopping, but I can also say where the product s from, and the price.

Ouch! (that's the purse strings tightening on me again) Our food budget has gone through the roof - the meaning of -a "bargain" has
changed to mean "Something I can buy and feel comfortable feeding my family with"


So, yeah, finding time and energy to write about food has sorta lost its appeall these days.....I make do with what we have, the fridge is often almost bare, and i find cooking in itself a chore most days due to limited ingredients:(

I wish I had a nice one-liner to sum up this post, but I don't. ...right, I am off to give the kids some Kagoshima rice with Oita-shirasu to eat:-)

A meaty weekend

Saturday night: after a trip to costcos!!
Marinated spare ribs, minestrone soup, kinda caesar salad(tried to make the dressing myself, but it wasn't quite there), homemade bread rolls!!

Sunday night:
Hayashi rice(more like a casserole actually, bit of a fail in the sence that J wanted hayashi rice haha), salad with lettuce, tomato, olives, corn and broccoli

And kids meal:

September starts!

And hopefully a return to record keeping!

I have also taken a deep-freezer inventory, in the hope that we can use up frozen meats etc ( and save a bit on our grocery bills) . of course once it is used up, I wil have to restock, lol!

sept 1

*Lost the recipe for the pork, but it had capsicums, atsuage and onions done in tobanjan, sugar, sugar, touch of soy and mirin ( I think) and cooked in sesame oil. Yum!
*pumpkin sesame-miso
*Daikon and tomato salad with Japanese dressing
*Asparagus
*spinach and tofu miso soup

Kid's dinner: slightly re-arranged with spinach, egg, pork chanpuru and some sweet potato and green peas!

And in August we fasted....

Or so it would seem-- my last food update was from the end of July!
Yikes!!!

Yeah, summer WAS pretty damn hot (we lived all but a few hours on three occasions) without the air-con too!

I didn't even keep a list of our dinners in August- but I do know we ate Goya chanpuru a few times(Goya from MIL), unagi once and found a new way of preparing pumpkin(胡麻和え) which was great for hot days!!

Oh and this is what we ate on Aug 31st!!

-sanma
-chicken wings in sweet chili sauce, honey, tomato sauce marinade
-pumpkin goma-ae
-tofu topped with okra and bonito flakes

Sensing a theme here.... Jul 27-

Oops, this was sitting in my draft box......

Wed Jul 27th

Indian vegetable curry made from scratch ( aka madras curry powder)
Tikki masala chicken drumsticks
Rice and Naan
Potato salad with cuc and red onion
Dessert-- melon, watermelon, grapefruit


So the vege curry was very mild, perhaps needed a bit more umph but if i think suitable for the kids too (L ate some, K was still recovering from tummy bug so didn't give her any)

Thurs Jul 28th

*Pad Thai again made from scratch. Was flustered and a quich yahoo search resulted in this recipe which is apparently abominable (yep I kinda agree. Damn you yahoo search engine. Am sooooo going back to google)
*Cuc'n'tom salad
*Green moroccan beans

So I totally forgot to add Nira to Pad Thai. And we didn't have any bean sprouts so it was pretty bare. Also lacking flavor(those quintessential Thai spices and herbs I guess) with this recipe

This week so far....jul 23-

sat Jul 23
* sushi-ro dinner, after a big day of pot-luck party with friends for lunch, kindy and pre-school summer festivals (kakikori!!) in the afternoon

Sun jul 24

*yakitori BBQ for lunch at home
* udon

Mon jul 25th
* Kim-chee and pork (豚キムチ)
*Chijimi (potato, nira, carrots)
* Rice
* edamame
* Tomatoes dressed with salt and olive oil
* Cucumber and eggplant pickles
*Broccoli and mayo

tues Jul 26th
Planned to do mabo-Nasu but realized didn't have Tochijan or Tenmenan or one of those ingredients to make the sauce, so went for Japanese style sweet eggplant and mince instead.
With rice and salmon and pickled cucumber and miso soup with onion, bacon, egg (j made this)

July 20, 21,22

* Raisin and craisin toast for breakky this week! yummy stuff ;)

Wed July 20th

refreshing summer eggplant side-dish. (yummy)

fried enoki mushrooms in ponzu (average)

salmon

rice

garlic shallots with egg in chinese sweet sauce (nira-tama)

Thursday July 21st

mashed potato

pumpkin

butter sauteed carrots and beans

pork tenderloins with Onion and zucchini really yummy!!!!

Friday July 22nd
Am thinking spaghetti Bol or lasagna with pumpkin soup.....(edit: ditched the pumpkin soup as didn't have enough milk in fridge so just hidden veges Spag Bol with freshly baked bread. Yum yum yum!!)

Chicken Pizza...with a twist

Saw this on a tv show and thought it was a good idea, so gonna try it tonight.....fingers crossed it turns out!!

****
well I would have taken a photo of it, but J got into it as soon as it hit the table. It is really more like a Korean chicken dish, has nothing to do with pizza, lol!
I used 2chicken breasts, basically one each (with a bit taken off for the kids) and made it without the moyashi as didn't have any, but this was really really nice, and even J said he enjoyed it too! Served it with a salad, but could be served with rice too. Will definitely be making again!

July 11-15

Mon July 11
ゴーヤチャンプル this time the real McCoy, with SPAM!!

Tues July 12
soft corn tacos with mince, lettuce, tomato, guacamole and tinned chicken and beans chili

Wed July 13
Prawns and mushrooms in oyster sauce
(really enjoyed this! Simple, quick but yummy)

Thurs July 14
found out at 4pm that there was a festival at the next train station, and since J had a work nomikai, I picked up K from kindy and went down for a looksies. we had some onigiri before we left, and then splurged on a kaki-kori at the festival, followed by KFC :)

Fri July 15
Curry rice, in the pressure cooker-- thank goodness as the kids slept until after 4pm ( I may have indulged in a small granny nap myself too ;)

Sunday July 10th

So after a day walking around Chinatown, eating a buffet-style Chinese lunch with gyoza, spring rolls, Peking duck, sweet'n'sour pork, tapioca, manjus etc, we come home to make Hiyashi-chuka for dinner, lol!

fri July 8th

salmon
Mushrooms in ponzu
Salad
Parmesan coated zucchini slices
Miso soup

June 5-

Tues June 5th

fresh bread
eggplant bacon, spinach, onion spaghetti
potato salad with carrot, brocolli
coleslaw leftovers
tomato and cucumber slices


Wed June 6th
焼きなす
ginger pork, served with lightly cooked cabbage (;http://www.kikkoman.co.jp/homecook/search/recipe.php?numb=00003220
bamboo shoots with okra, dressed with ponzu and a dash of oil, topped with bonito flakes; (J commented that this was a winner - light and good for summer) (;http://cookpad.com/recipe/1435690;)
potato salad leftovers
corn, cucumber and tomato salad


Thurs July 7th

* Hokkaido hamburg with mushroom gravy
* mashed potato
* butter corn
* carrots and green beans in butter/sugar/dill sauce
* bakery bread rolls

Mon July 4th

*Abalone (酒蒸し and 甘辛煮)
*Coleslaw
*Chicken drumsticks and bamboo shoots in broth 煮物
* tofu dressed with okra, katsuo-bushi and konbu-tsuyu
*tomatoes(from our garden) and broccoli
* brown/white rice mix

June 27 July 1

June 25-27 away for weekend. Dinner at saizeria mon night on way home.

June 28 - chicken schnitzels with whole baked baby potatoes, carrots, cabbage and zucchini
Schnitzels crumbed in panko, parmesan, Italian parsley, garlic. Served with sweet pickles, yum!

June 29- Hokke fillets, chinjao rosu, rice. l was soooooo clingy and fussy last night -- he ate no dinner himself, neither did I (had some rice with furikake at about 10pm). Had to use up those pesky piman(red and green). K had natto, Hokke and piman rice ;)

June 30- yakisoba with 生春巻き(goi cuon= Vietnamese spring rolls)
**edit** ditched the spring rolls and went for:
* prawn and squid 塩焼そば　(salt rather than sauce yakisoba)

July 1- hmmmmm....curry perhaps?
***edit*** Friday night I ended up doing frugal friday course of:
* zucchini and tuna champuru (poor man's version of champuru, J was not very impressed, but I actually really enjoyed it!!)
* fried dumplings (焼き小籠包)

I sea food

**Preface**: PIL rang up Sun afternoon to say they had sent us some seafood from Hokkaido(wakkanai to be exact) where they are spending 2-3weeks driving around. Mon morning the delivery guy came with two big boxes, which I opened to find:

15 scallops, in shells

octopus

sea cucumber (I DO like this)

2 snow crabs

1 king crab legs

some kind of fish fillets

AND an entire Salmon!!!! Which J had to hack into while still frozen to cut fillets
Hope this explains some of our seemingly extravagant meals for this week :)
**********************


Sun Jun 19- curry and rice
Mon Jun 20- seared s+p scallops and zucchini, curry leftovers
Tues Jun 21- steamed salmon and vege in a pot, rice
Wed Jun 22- Chinese chili prawns; cabbage in oyster sauce; snow crab; rice. Kids had vege prawn maze-Gohan but K also enjoyed the crab!!
Thurs Jun 23- Spag Bol with carrots, red piman, zucchini, onion, mince. Cucumber, tomato and shiso salad. French baguette
Fri Jun 24- ??

June 13-

mon Jun 13 --
spinach, onion, eringi mushroom quiche
mashed potato; pumpkin, carrots
Cream of celery and cabbage soup

{planned menus for the upcoming week}

豚キムチ -- tonight!!

yakisoba (big cabbage in fridge!!)

chili prawns (J's request)

beef stew/casserole

Would ideally like to have fish one night too, so may have to revise this as we go.

June dinners in review

(lucky I keep note most nights in my notebook)

Wed Jun 2nd - チンジャオロース (inspired by Lulu and her menu planning!!)
Fri Jun 3rd - yakitori, inari, chirashi sushi bentos. J had a biz trip to Osaka, and we picked him up at shink station, and got some bentos for dinner then too.
Sat Jun 4th - 回鍋肉
Sun Jun 5th - lunch for MIL birthday at yakiniku, somen noodles for dinner!

Mon June 6th - J had work dinner, so natto rice night for me and the kids, plus a piece of the crumbed cod (tomorrow's dinner)

Tues Jun 7th - garlic breadcrumbed cod, eggplant/zucchini/onion short pasta in tomato sauce.

Wed Jun 8th - J had work drinks, so rice and shirasu and spinach for the kids.

Thurs June 9th - teriyaki chicken drumsticks, miso soup

Fri June 10th -
b'fast was the most tasteless bread ever! Used salted butter and thought that it would mean I dont have to add the tsp of salt!! Oh no! So so so bland!
lunch - onigiri and teriyaki chicken leftovers bento
dinner - Indian vege curry (packet mix from Aus) with zucchini, potato, beans. We never have Indian at home. Wouldn't you beleive it that the only day we do, J has Indian all you can eat for lunch!!! rotflmao ;) oops. Kids had rice with shirasu/leftovers.

Sat June 11th -
b'fast - fresh white/rye bread toast
lunch - chinese at bamiyan
dinner - vege platter (carrots, cucumber, olives, cheese and french onion dip; sweet pickles/ sweet chili sauce/yoghurt dip) and bbq at home with friends. Steak, eggplant, asparagus, pumpkin, chicken wings. YUM! and lots of champagne;)

Sun June 12th -

b'fast - fresh bread, croissants, scrambled egg, bacon, sausages
lunch - eringi mushrooms and zucchini fettuccini in white cream sauce
somen, steak and onion in ponzu, salad

Tues May 31st

(just testing to see if I can post this from my computer -- please oh please may my publish button work this time ;)

Pumpkin soup - with carrot, cabbage, onion and dill (from the garden!)
French stick
Hot Pasta Salad - capsicum, zucchini, eggplant, onion and sausage
Oven baked Chicken breast

Will it work today?

mon May 30: 豚の生姜焼き salad, potato salad, zucchini in olive oil, 冷奴，5grain rice, snack end peas

Bloody blogger/ iPad

I wrote up our meals for the last two weeks on the new iPad, and thought I had saved to draft but somehow they disappeared? or never saved? So now I have limited memory of what we have eaten (especially the sides)....which means it must have been pretty average! lol

 

**edit** just tried to publish this post and blogger is frozen! arrggh!! what is going on!?!? oh and I found my saved blog post from last week!

I FINALLY managed to get this post up by emailing it to my blog...ggrrr

****

Week of Mon 16 - Fri 20 May
<li> curry (*2 nights in a row!). We normally NEVER have leftovers,. but I got a bit shitted off when J said that I could eat the curry for lunch the next day....I was like how about YOU eat leftovers for once -- so we had curry again! Of course, it is always better the day after ;)

<li> Goya Champuru

<li> Chinese 中華丼

 

Week of Mon 23-Sun 29 May
This was a week of trials -- new foods that didn't live up to expectations. This meant that J had cup noodles EVERY night after dinner, lol! Sorry ;)

<li>Mon - Mexican night: tacos and mexican chicken soup (disastrous!! i will never believe another menu where everyone says it tastes great...it was too plain!! and now I can't even find the link for it to warn myself in case I try it again, lol!)

<li>Tues - eggplant with harusame mabo-style (package food, pretty average taste, imho) and にら玉

<li>Wed - <em>buri</em>煮付け. Forgot to blanch the fish in boiling water first (oh, faux pax!) so J reckoned it tasted to 生 (fishy). I thought it was ok.....

<li>Thurs - bacon, capsicum and brocolli quiche made with ready made puff pastry. The puff pastry base was not too bad, and super easy for when I get home at 4pm and need to

<li>Fri - natto rice, umeboshi, soy beans. J had work dinner with clients so it was simple frugal friday for the kids and I.

<li>Sat - french stick with prosciutto, cheese, soramame, cucumber in moromiso, tomato. Oh, and a few 梅酒ソーダs (hiccup)

<li>Sun - J made: からすカレイ煮付け　(J wants me to point out that it was from Norway, ノルウェイ産) potato salad, rice, pumpkin and onion miso soup, okra in タレ and served with katsuo bushi, cucumber and tomato salad.

 

Back in japan

Our first week of eats in two months...
(got back to Japan late Mon night, and enjoyed an ume-onigiri in the car ride home from Narita!!)

Tues May 10
Natto rice for lunch
Salmon, rice, salad, Eggplant and Atsugi-age (http://cookpad.com/recipe/786370), pumpkin nimono

Wed 11
Salad, Doria-- chicken, carrot, broccoli

Thurs 12
Pad Thai

Fri 13
Eggplant and cabbage yakiniku炒め (http://cookpad.com/recipe/1434378 )
mushroom and onion butter 炒め; sprouts and tofu miso soup; 冷奴; salad

Sat 14
Sushi with PIL as we went to pick up R finally!! Welcome home R(^O^)

Grainy

L has had a fever all week so basically not eating much more than plain rice or bread, if anything at all.

Mon 7
Pork, 春菊, mizuna, mushroom kimchee nabe, with noodles ( realized too late that had no tofu or oysters for that matter lol, J added frozen squid to the pot when he got home)
Kids had noodles in broth (altho L did enjoy a bit of my kimchee laced pork to suck on)

Tues 8
Dinner- salmon; renkon Kinpira; baby leaf, beetroot, mixed beans, cucumber, carrot and tomato salad; 6-grain rice

Wed 9
B/fast: 6-grain bread in my attempt at whole grain bread. Unfortunately the grains were a bit too hard!!!
Lunch: Egg s/w
Dinner- niku-jaga; mizuna, baby leaf, tomato salad; rice; renkon and yamaimo burgers(?) which I kinda found ok, surprisingly ad I don't usually like yamaimo http://www.kikkoman.co.jp/homecook/search/recipe.php?numb=00001806

Thurs 10
B/fast -- cereal
Lunch-- ham and cheese s/w
Dinner-- I had leftover nabe while the kids had shirasu and rice
(J drinks with boss after work)
Grapes after dinner

Teriyaki chicken finally makes an appearance!

For weeks now I have been wanting to have teriyaki chicken, after kel mentioned it!

Finally got some chicken (drumsticks?!) and marinated them up. Also found some fuki-no-tou at the supermarket, and seems the only way to really eat it is done in tempura. So i braved it- my first ever tempura!!! With batter from a packet, of course. Relatively easy with the IH stovetop. But still a bit of fussing around. Doubt I will bother again

Thurs- breakfast
Lunch- onigiri
Dinner- teriyaki chicken, tempura maiatake, fuki-no-tou and かき揚げ; 揚げ豆腐 with 小松菜 in konbu tsuyu; 16grain rice

Fri- dinner- natto rice for K, shirasu rice for L, curry rice for J and Thai food with beer for me! (I actually had a night out!!)

Sat breakfast - onion and bacon bread from bakery (yummy, and only 390 yen for a big loaf!)
Lunch - udon at home
Dinner - we went out to the Peking Duck restaurant "Cafe 8" again!! Loved it!! Even L seemed to enjoy his duck!

Sun - breakfast - onion, bacon bread
Lunch - Denny's (I had katsudon, K had udon, of course! L had some of everyone's rice, noodles, and J's veges)
Dinner - beef stew and rice, farmers market brocolli

looks like we are into broccoli at the moment

Sun breakfast- croissants
Lunch- ramen at chinese restaurant near garden shop that has like 50 old bats working in the kitchen, a bit like a co-op type restaurant. Old-style ramen taste.
Dinner - J made a mac'n'cheese type pasta dish

Mon breakfast - croissants
L had yogurt/farex and kiwi fruit

lunch - out at friend's house cream stew
L also had a banana and some cream cheese pita-rolls

dinner -
L had rice with pureed broccoli, and a selection of broccoli, cherry tomatoes, blueberries
K had rice with tofu, and side selection as above
I got left over curry
J had rice, salad, アジ干物, 冷奴

Tues breakfast
Lunch - egg sandwiches
Dinner - ginger pork (that K helped me make, which meant she actually ate it!!) with rice, salad, and stir-fry eggplant/asparagus and maitake in oyster sauce

Wed breakfast - pizza toast
Lunch - rice with fried cod.
Dinner - J has work drinks, so I am using up the eggs (we bought them 2* times this week, so have a bit of an overload. Vege Quiche (broccoli, sweet potato and eggplant?? hmm, wonder how that will go) and mashed potato.

***
edit: So I ended up doing a slightly twisted version of this recipe which basically means I added eggplant, capsicum and asparagus. Was pretty good! ended up serving with steamed sweet potato. L lapped it up (K not so much so, but she enjoyed the sweet potato at least)

Chinese for some...

well, for J only as he was away in China until tonight. Leftovers for the rest of us.

So we have had a somewhat frugal week, by which I mean I have done NO Shopping (for the first half of the week at least), using up bits and pieces out of the fridge and freezer wherever possible. I also managed to have two "0-yen" days, when I resisted the urge to go buy just some bread or whatever and we ate at home, with what we had. I made up for the lack of spending on those days with a dinner date and donuts, tho, lol!!

Mon: L - yoghurt and mango slices; K cereal
dinner - rice with shirasu for the kids; I had leftovers of kimche nabe

Tues: Breakfast - found some frozen bread, so toast all around ;)
lunch - pizza toast
me - leftovers
dinner - yakisoba

Wed : breakfast - cereal, blueberries,
lunch was out at a playdate. We slept in until 7:30am, so I only made snacks of peanut butter rolls (in tortillas, lol) and bought bento from the conbini.

Dinner - I relented to K's constant request and we had pizza at Saizeriya.

Thurs : breakfast was cereal for K, bubbles n' squeek for L (without the bubbles, or was that without the squeak? ok, all he had was fried potato and pumpkin, lol)
snack for K: salmon onigiri
Lunch : udon noodles after playgroup, banana
afternoon snack: donuts (naughty!!)
Dinner: vege pasta salad (to make up for the afternoon snack!?) with capsicum, asparagus, brocolli, mushrooms, onion and tinned tomato

Fri : b'fast - blueberries and apple for L
cereal for K

Lunch - tomatos, cucumber, cheese and soy beans for K
L and me - left over vege pasta salad with toasted tortilla (seriously good -- have never toasted them in the oven toaster before. What a fab idea!!)

Dinner - well, J got home and wanted his sushi fix, so we picked him up at the train station and headed straight to sushi-ro where K had 2 (plates of) prawn, 1 egg and a bowl of udon, L had 2 egg, some udon and a banana and J and I had the other 17 plates between us.

Fri 18th Feb

B'fast - L was awake at 6am, so he had a banana before anyone else even got up ;)
And I had 3 cups of tea(with real milk, of course), lol!

Raisin Bagel for me and K, then she followed up with a piece of toast with peanut butter.

Morning tea - apple

Lunch -
K: chicken and cheese s/w
L: cream cheese s/w, some chicken, pumpkin, carrot (if he got any in his mouth? there was a LOT on the floor...) and one quater of K' s/w that he stole of her plate, lol

ME: yummmmmy French cheese and coppa (is that what is it called, the nama-ham type stuff)

Afternoon snack - yoghurt would be good, I think ;)

Dinner: plans to do a 菜の花 and bacon pasta (maybe ペペロンチーノ） and fresh rye/white bread which is cooking up right now. Oh, and some cheese and ham, which has to be used by today - oh, the things we have to do ;P

Thurs Feb 17th

B'fast - cereal for K (small bowl only)
- mango in yoghurt for L and me

Lunch - onigiri and anman

well, the story behind this is that K chucked a major wobbly at playgroup, screaming for udon about half-way through, putting her shoes on and attempting to leave.....not really sure why,, except maybe that I wasn't paying attention to her coz it my turn to run an activity. Oh, and maybe she was actually hungry, looking over what she had for b'fast, and no snack before playgroup, oops ;(. Anyway, we ended up with conbini bought lunch, eating it on the way home rather than our regular eat together after playgroup "date"

Dinner - Kimchi nabe for J and me. Pork, oysters, chinese cabbage, shiitake, shimeji mushrooms, tofu, leek and udon.

K and L had grilled chicken, pumpkin, carrot, asparagus; and udon noodles.

Wed 16 feb

Bfast: sultana and cinnamon bagel toasted
L also had half a banana

Lunch: chicken (olive oil, paprika, oregano, basil); avocado
K also had cheese
L also had young corn, fried potato, spinach cheddar muffin
I got nothing coz they ate all the chicken lol is ok as I had a lovely chicken teriyaki pizza ice from breadshop when out for r's morning walk ( k got a custard cream bread in anpanman face shape)

Dinner: アジの干物, rice, nameko miso soup, potato salad (with asparagus), 冷奴, pumpkin and shimeji mushrooms in butter/こんぶつゆだし

a full day

This blog has mainly listed out dinners, as I know that I am not (what is the word I am looking for here??) enough to upload what we eat at each meal, each day, however recently I have been trying to make sure that L, and K for that matter, get a good balance of food, so I am gonna try to upload our full daily menu to analyse our eating habits/diet.

(does that paragraph make sense? brain not working, ready for bed...)

Tues Feb 15th
B'fast: spinach and cheese muffins (gee, they really are good!!)

Lunch: Chicken mince, onion, grated carrot, grated pumpkin, tinned tomato* "mac'n'cheese"
Well, am guessing it was like a mac'n'cheese, as I have never had it.
Simply fried up the chicken mince, onion, carrot and pumpkin in olive oil, then added half a tin of tomatoes, then cooked fusilli pasta then mixed in grated cheese.

Dinner: Seafood Thai curry with tumeric rice
Scallops, prawns, abalone, lotus root, carrot and young corn (It makes me laugh that I had all these ingredients in the house, lol!)

The kids had つるつるわかめ, fried potatoes and salmon-rice (L also tried out a corn, but I don't know how much of it he ate ;)


* I didn't intend to put tinned tomato in - still had a bit of tomato puree (in a glass bottle) which I threw into the chicken/vege mix, only to look at the rim of the bottle and see MOULD!! eeewww!! I was this close to throwing the whole thing out, but had nothing else for lunch, so I threw out the bits that had sauce on them (luckily I had tipped the sauce all in one spot, so it was easy to separate) and then used the small amount of un-tainted mix to make the new pasta sauce with tinned tomatoes.

mid Feb

Sun Feb - 6th buta no kakuni, rice, salad, hiyayakko with shirasu

Mon 7th - nabe :oysters, pork, chinese cabbage, japanese leek, shiitake, shimeji mushrooms, tofu, shirataki..all very "white"
(lasagna for lunch -- hosted playdate)

Tues 8th - "wa": rice, salmon, leftover pork kakuni, renkon kinpira, 揚げだし豆腐, miso soup

Wed 9th - french bread, french cheese, french ham! ooh-la-la ;)

Thurs 10th - tinned spaghetti on toast (J had drinks after work)

Fri 11th - hotel dinner, Shimoda Prince Hotel, Izu Penninsula

Sat 12th - sukiyaki at PIL's

Sun 13th - ramen noodles, tonkotsu!!! (yay!)

Mon 14th - brown/white rice; さわらの西京焼き; pumpkin, mushroom, onion and spinach in oyster sauce; namako (sea cucumber); つるつるわかめ (something MIL was sucked into buying bought from TV-shopping, tastes ok, but kinda expensive)
Also made spinach and cheese muffins for the kids - YUM!!! followed this recipe, adding half an onion and garlic, as commentors suggested.

what do you do for dinner, on a cold winter's night??

肉うどん, of course (!?)

While I had thought of doing a nabe, for the night before J goes away for a biz trip to France, I didn't have any pork, or plain fish and was weary of trying a nabe with beef (altho sukiyaki would have been nice, I don't think the beef we had was good enough for that!), so I went back to what I know - niku-udon, and threw in all the veges we have, so a nice fridge clean up to boot too.

Sliced beef with chinese cabbage, carrots, shiitake, shimeji mushrooms, sliced daikon, Japanese leeks, and flavoured the broth with katsuo-dashi and konbu-tsuyu. Easy, peasy, but yummy.

/

Thurs Jan 27th
* さわらの西京焼き　(from the shop)
* 中華丼風 vege stir fry (shiitake, chinese cabbage, carrots, green piman)
* green salad (like,really green!! lettuce, mizuna, avocado, cucumber)
* daikon miso soup
* rice

Fri Jan 28th
re-heated some curry (2 diff sorts, actually!!) from the freezer!

the rooster

Tues I bought a big chunk of pork, with the intentions of cooking up a roast, since I had a bag of new (baby) potatoes. Seems I am not that up with the cuts of meat, and I bought a block of pork belly!! After I got the thumbs down from both J and my folks, I decided NOT to "just try to roast it and see how it goes" and keep that pork belly for another day, so last night we had whatever I could scrimp together at 4:30pm -- which was pasta with bacon, brocolli, onion and tomato based sauce.

Wed morning I told K what we had to do for the day, which involved picking up J's work shirts from the dry cleaners, getting L's haircut (!!!) and buying some meat and pumpkin for the roast...By dinner time last night, K was so excited, and kept on asking where the rooster is ;)

Wed 26th - kinda Australia Day dinner - Roast pork (herbed up with thyme, pepper and cloves and roasted in roughly cut onion and apple juice) with roast veges (potato, pumkin and sweet potato), asparagus spears and honey-butter carrots.

OH YUM!

mid january

Mon 17th - chicken cream stew
got home at 5pm, so packet mix stuff.

Tues 18th - ブリ　照り焼き
j bought yellowtail at the lil grocery shop by his work -- it has a better fish selection that the big supermarket, would you believe!? , which always has only the same boring old fish. For a country that supposedly lives on fish, I wonder sometimes what everyone eats, as all I can ever find at the supermarkets are the same old salmon, a bit of overpriced cod and then some dried up crap, uh, himono.

Wed 19th - hmmm, cant quite remember, lol!

Thurs 20th - pad thai and gyoza

Fri 21st - salmon, rice, and a huge serve of vege stir fry

Weekend - stayed at in-laws and had yakisoba for lunch, and chinese for dinner on sat, then sushi-ro for lunch on Sunday and ramen for dinner.

Mon 24th - used the left over salmon from Fri night to make salmon fish cakes and my goodness they were delish!! the ENTIRE family loved them - L had 2, so I only got 1 myself, lol, but smothered half of it in sweet chili sauce and that was pretty damn nice too. Served with rice, yu-dofu (and ponzu sauce)

weekend at home

Sat lunch - sushi ro. a nice change from kura-sushi :)
Sat Dinner - pork nabe with goma dipping sauce

Sun lunch - onigiri at home, after a morning trip to the park
Sun dinner - bacon and mushroom tomato based spag with salad

A quiet weekend at home - only 1 meal at a restaurant!!!

just eating again.....

still trying to think of simple meals to cook during the "witching hours", lol

Tues: brown rice with oyakodon. My first attempt ever. It went very well if I do say so myself!!

Wed: Lasagna (after making it last Fri for friends who came over for lunch, I am a bit addicted again. And the fact that I only had one small piece then, and it was all gone so J didnt even get any meant that I could make it again in such a short turn around without feeling bad about cooking the same ol thing again ;)
And of course, L just LOVES his lasagna ;)

Thurs: Thai stir fry veges, and gyoza. Followed this recipe, however realised half way into it that we only had one tbs of nam pla left, so substitued with soy, AND we had NO garlic!! Arrgh. Still it worked out quite nice, so I must try it again with all ingredients accounted for, lol!

Fri: tonight is going to be "wa" our Friday night frugality. Rice with sanma (the lovely Pacific saury), still have plenty of chinese cabbage so something with that in it, and whatever I can scrape together at the 11th hour. My goal is to NOT give in and go shopping for "just that one extra ingredient" to make dinner.

八宝菜

Took R for a walk yesterday afternoon, past the chinese joint we went to 4 weeks in a row when we first moved in here, and havent been to since, and saw their sign for happosai so decided that was what I wanted for dinner. And since K and J were sick, our pre-decided dominos pizza night seemed like a waste (best saved for more genki times).

Didnt have any pork or squid, but in a pinch we made it with all the chinese cabbage, carrot, snow peas, kikurage (dried), prawns (frozen) and eringi mushrooms we had around. Oh an I keep a stock of quail eggs just for these occasions, so it was pretty yummy!

I miss getting chinese chuka-don from sukiya (in both our last 2 apartments we lived really close to sukuiya)but now that I have made it quite a few times myself, as long as we have the veges, it is super easy and just as yummy homemade too ;)