got the hotsies

These ready-to-eat curries have been sitting in the cupboard for a while now, since before we moved, I am pretty sure. We had one, once, and I found it far too hot, and apart from that, J found it pretty tasteless まずい. So every time I try to fob them off on him (there are still 2 left) he resists my efforrs. So they have sat and sat for ages, untouched, until tonight when I decided they needed to be braved. But since it is so spicy hot, I needed to tone it down with alomst half of those big yoghurt containers (like,. 250ml of yoghurt!!!) or else I can't physically eat it. I guess it was good to get rid of the yoghurt, too.

K had "Winnie the pooh" curry, with added 大豆, which she was calling なす for some reason?!??

For lunch she had udon, but nothing at the cafeteria near playgroup excited me, so after K had finished, I did the unthinkable and went for KFC, lol.

Last night K had the rest of the ひじき煮 with rice, but didn't like the "tuna" in it (i.e. コニャク）Gee she has some mixed up ideas about what food is what, lol! I meanwhile enjoyed my umeboshi with rice - I am gonna turn into an umeboshi myself the way I am going. Gee, we are really eating away at our frozen rice supply....tommorrow night might need to be pasta, lol!

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....

A touch Korean

A BIG day out at a playdate, and we didn't get home until close to 4pm, both uf us utterly buggered. All the way home I was wondering what I could do for dinner - K was asleep in the car, so I didn't really have the option of stopping off to pick up anything on the way home either. Well, a bit of serious thinking cap action later and I came up with (da-dah!):

牛肉キムチ炒め (although we didn't have any コチェジャン, there was 豆板醤 and テンメンジャン though, hehe. it was lacking a bit of flavour coz of this)。And as luck would have it, the recipe requires nira, which we have left over from our pad thai the other night! yay, fridge-clean out to boot. I was sooo wondering what I was gonna do with that other half a bunch of nira - it always happens that I end up with it sitting there for ages only to throw it out, since I no longer bother trying to make home made gyoza (it was a disaster the first time, and not much better the 2nd or 3rd times - so NOT worth bothering I decided), the only other recipe I know that calls for nira, lol!

So using only what is in the house/freezer/fridge, I am going to scrounge up yet another meal. I feel like I am making progress on my plan to reduce the もったいない in the house, and where possible cut down on spending in regards to food. So, yay for frugal friday on a Thursday.

Will add the left over 牛すじトマト煮こみ (for me and K, probably to eat before J even gets home we all ate this together tonight) and some rice, salad (lots of lettuce still), miso soup for J, flavoured bean sprouts (like Korean style) that I must have bought yesterday with tonight's dinner in mind, like a premonition, and, well, surely that is enough? Or maybe even make an egg roll if I am feeling in the mood. We DO have about 3 doz eggs to use up (after a miscalculation at Costcos - not realising that we still had almost a dozen in fridge at home, oops!!). (edit: made an impromptu zucchini champuru that sort of toned down the korean)

Actually, all this thinking about kimchee has got me craving 石焼ビビンバ! And yaki-niku.....

freezer foods

no motivation to cook for just K and me, so it is leftovers (actually not-used-overs?!?) from stuff I bought for friend's visit on Sunday night but never used:

* fried rice
* yakitori
* soy beans

all about to be heated up in a flash.

doesn't hurt once in a while to have a tv-dinner(or the japanese version of that, lol), surely!? and it is a freezer-clean out to boot!

いただきま～す