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)

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.

Japanese - the new international cuisine?

so international week sort of lost its umph - 和食 just seems so much easier sometimes.

Thurs: K as super hungry by 6pm, when I went to get some rice to throw natto into for her, I realised that I had set the timer on the rice cooker for 6:30AM.....this happens a bit, actually. So I had to "チン" some rice for her, and I had the left overs of the quiche. J got home only 30mins later, and he had a simple meal of natto-rice too.

Fri: 金目代の干物, miso soup, 冷奴, salad

Sat: hot dogs - freezer clean out ;-)
Sun: Kura-sushi. They have all these new items on the menu, esp some stuff for World Cup so I had a big blow-out here trying all the new stuff, as well as my usual favourites. K had 5 plates of sushi herself, including 2*salmon!!!

cooking for 4

Apr 1st: (first night my parents are here, and I am hit with a mix of allergies and fever and headaches....) Dinner: chicken, 青梗菜 and mushroom alfredo sauce spaghetti

Apr 2nd (Fri): K's 3rd birthday party at home. Lunch was yakiniku (we remembered as the meat came out that it was Good Friday, oops). Redeemed ourselves (?) at dinner time with 手巻き寿司

Apr 3rd (Sat): Flounder ムニエル with baby potatoes and エリンギmushrooms, salad for mum and me. Wa-style sea mackeral 煮物 for dad and J. (J's idea to cook it like that ;-))

Apr 4th (Sun): Chinese at home, thanks to J. Fried rice, ふかひれsoup, 青梗菜 in oyster sauce, mabo nasu

Apr 5th (Mon): Asparagus, bacon, onion and spinach quiche (pie crust was one of the best I have ever made, yay! may have gotten my pie-crust "mojo"?? FMIO: 5eggs used with about 1 cup milk and it made a nice consistency, cooed at 180deg for 25mins, then another 10mins before serving), salad and pumpkin soup (with some onion/carrots/potato/garlic thrown in too - this was yum!)

Apr 6th (Tues): planning to have mash potato, pumpkin, zucchini, corn on the cob, and steak. Just like being at "home"

I am not used to making meals for 4, so this is an interesting challenge - to have enough for everyone to eat!! And to be able to make enough without being stuck in the kitchen all night. Getting lots of help from J over the weekend, and Mum too so am grateful for that :-)

Kinda back into it

There was not much to post about while J was gone - lots of scraping things together. Although, looking over what we have had since he was back, there is not much to post about here either (lol)

Sat night - Kura sushi (J's request after a week in China!)
Sun lunch - ramen
Sun dinner - big spulrge out at "Red Lobster" on the way home from Olympic shopping for dog food for R.

Mon night - curry, using up the suji from Hanamasa, which was pathetic, like bits of skin, won't be buying that again (prob wouldn't anyway as Hanamasa is a fair way away)
Tues night - fish (sawara) fried in butter, served with brocolli and atsuage and moyashi in nam pla (Thai fish sauce), some miso soup with CABBAGE (pre-cooked in seasame oil), pickles, lotus root stuffed with mince (leftovers to clear out the freezer) and natto, and half brown half white rice - last of the white rice until it gets delivered Thurs, (so tomorrow night is gonna be a pasta.) I quite enjoyed the brocolli/atsuage in nam pla, ttytt, but J was not that impressed.

Wa repeating itself

Thursday night dinner (the first real cooked meal in a while in the TJKR household, but still simple since trying to use up what I can in the house coming to the end of the month (=the end of the monthly money!),lol)

* 金目代の干物
* 牛蒡きんぴら
* ふわふわ egg roll
* salad (lettuce, sweet corn and tomato)
* natto


Friday night
* mandarin style marinated chicken drumsticks, with a bit of asparagus, eringi mushrooms and 長ネギ
* なめこ汁 (can of nameko, so really really slimey! lol)
* leftover fish
* かぼちゃのカレーミルク煮　(recipe from Kel's blog - this WAS yummy! thanks!!)
* カニクリームクロッケ with shredded cabbage

Saturday - out shopping in the morning (my suitcase wheels broke while J was using it on his business trip, so had to get a new suitcase) so stopped by the Ringer Hut for lunch ー　ちゃんぽん！

Dinner at PIL for ひなまつり - yummy!!

Sunday- lunch at Kura-sushi...I made the mistake of asking J what HE wants ;( Although the tempura whiting and squid they have there is quite tasty (I still would have preferred pizza, lol!!)

Sun Dinner - J rang up after the gym to ask if I needed anything from the supermarket, like milk, so I said, yeh grab some milk....he came home with 3 shopping bags. I couldn't control myself and blew up, saying that if he had bought another cabbage I WOULD shoot him. Low and behold, a friggin cabbage appears. (there is still half a regular cabage, and about 1/3 chinese cabbage in the fridge.) I was this close to shoving the cabbage where the sun don't shine....all this time I am trying to 節約 and be frugal using up food we have first....ok, so we just weren't on the same page, but I think after my ranting and raving last night, we are finally close to the same page at least, lol (and I doubt J will be buying any cabbage anytime soon).

Anyway, Sunday night dinner, courtesy of J was:

* 親子丼 (I used to eat this all the time at a Japanese take away in Bris, so to me it is actually 懐かしい - I never think to make it myself though)
* cabbage (lol) and potato miso soup
* natto and spinach
and strawberries, banana and apple for dessert.

nira-tama success!

salmon (grilled) and asparagas spears

pumpkin and maitake (recipe comes from the supermarket). It seemed to be a bit plain, needing more flavouring, hmm. bust still ok.

かぼちゃとまいたけのガーリック炒め

* まいたけ　100g
* かぼちゃ　1/4個
* ベーコン　2枚
* にんにく　１かけ
* オリーブオイル　大2
* 塩　少々
* こしょう　少々


1) cut maitake up
2) remove seeds of pumpkin, wrap in cling-wrap and microwave for 4mins. Slice into 1cm thickness
3) dice bacon (I used that roll ham-sausage meat stuff)
4) slice garlic
5) add olive oil to frypan and cook garlic and bacon. Add pumpkin, cooking on both sides.
6) Add maitake and cook through, add s + p to taste.

にら玉, using this recipe. turned out very very nice. my first ever time at にら玉...thanks for suggesting it for nira leftovers, kel.

湯豆腐

leftovers of milk soup from Tues night

and a few other leftovers like chili prawns and the rest of the 八宝菜

Tuesday 和食 and fish

　金目鯛の干物

nameko miso soup - we bought a big bag of nameko at a 道の駅 on the way home from Gunma on Sunday

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cabbage, carrot and tuna. This was quite nice, the honey was a surprise, but I did eat a bit of this.

spinach, with 昆布つゆ would have like to sprinkled かつお節 on the top, but can't find it/may have run out of it

　brocolli and tomato salad, with seasame dressing

サツマイモと人参のきんぴら. I enjoyed this again

pickles

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　カリカリ大根. Not impressed at all, it lacking something, and overpowering with garlic and ゴマ油 flavours. 残念

rice

I felt good about tonights dinner, using up stuff in the fridge, trying a few new side dishes, even if the daikon one didn't work. But I personally didnt eat that much of it - got full on less than half a bowl of rice, a few bites of fish, but did eat a fair amount of the cabbage/tuna dish.

a sharp sword to swallow...

swordfish in teriyaki marinade, garnished with finely juliened long onions and white seasame seeds (J's concoction! I was not so keen on the swordfish, felt it has a strong aftertaste. Might be just preggy tummy talking

red and yellow capsicum, button mushrooms and sashimi leftovers cooked lightly in marinade sauce leftovers

tofu with melted cheese, topped with soy sauce and black pepper - this was yummy!

carrots and cabbage, namul style. This was a good little side recipe, will be using again (prob next time I am stupid enough to buy a WHOLE head of cabbage, lol!)

rice

edamame

イクラ (leftovers)
and of course a cupcake for dessert ;)

Golden Eye, 007

Plans for tonight's dinner are:

金目鯛 (干物), cooked in the oven - wonder how that turns out?

pad thai left overs （具 only really) was gonna make a zucchini champuru but realised that that was basically what these leftovers were!

牛すじトマト煮こみ left overs, like as a soup not needed with all the other stuff

rice

natto, if needed　(K had this for dinner with brocolli as J was late comig home. She then had some of ↓ this and some 金目鯛 when J came home too.)

湯豆腐

salad - lettuce, tomato, button mushrooms

塩辛 that j made on the weekend because J didn't have ↓he didn't want ←

beer XXXX for J, and a Kirin "Zero" for me!

and brocolli with mayo

And ha! just googled 金目鯛　and it turns out its english name is the "splendid alfonsino!" . Reminds me of something out of Happy Days.