riceless is nice sometimes too

Realised on Fri night that we had run out of rice. As in, i used up the last of it for dinner! And since we forgot to buy any when we went shopping on the weekend, we are gonna tuff it out until Sat when there are 5* points at the supermarket.
So this week is going to be pretty much riceless (I still have enough frozen for probably one dinners worth). I am ok with a riceless week, of course, but if last night was anything to go by, J will be eating cup ramen for midnight snacks all week (you know, Japanese people are never "full" unless they have eaten a bowl of rice, ROLLS EYES)

**************************************

Mon: Oven-roasted herb chicken fillets, with mashed potato, pumpkin, cabbage and asparagus wrapped in bacon. YUMMY asparagus, from Hokkaido.

Tues: Pasta. eggplant, bacon, mushroom, capsicum in tomato-mushroom sauce. Served with side salads (green salad, three beans mix, tomato/shiso/cucumber). Corn on the cobb (forgot to serve it last night). Possibly with french stick, if I can get to talk to J before he goes past the bread shop on his way home from work.

Int food week : Italianesque

TUES: minestrone soup (bacon, onion, carrots, cannellini (white kidney) beans)) with french bread; brocolli quiche. yum.
Only thing is, if I call this meal Italian, does that mean I cant make any pasta later on in the week??

fri night = steak night!

Wed - goya champuru, rice, vege soup, salad.

Thurs - total write off, thanks to BIG day out. LEft over pasta, and pizza for K and I. J even gad to get his own meal as I thought he would have eaten already after a day trip to osaka for work, but he got home early and un-eaten (? for want of a better word) to nothing!!

Fri - steak with hot pasta salad (mushrooms, onion, eggplant, yellow capsicum, snow peas and pasta spirals in "prego" tomato and mushroom sauce), dinner rolls from costco. Am looking forward to tonight's dinner☆

Sat 27-Wed 31 Mar dinners

Trying to keep standing in the kitchen time down low with meals that require close to zero prep:

Sat - easter picnic (store bought bento lunch), dinner was

Sun - lunch K and J had noodles, while I was out to it with a headache. Dinner was yummy 肉じゃが, rice, pickles, thanks to J.

Mon - 肉じゃが leftovers, rice, HUGEなめこ and tofu in miso soup, salad, salmon and ひじき煮物

Tues - Pork 西京焼き steaks, 冷奴、nameko-miso soup again, grilled asparagus spears, salad,ひじき煮物, and にら玉 with あんかけ

Wed - and tonight we are having Pad Thai.

My parents get in from late tonight (after dinner) so will see how our menu changes ;-)

I'm too boring for this blog

I have been very lazy and boring with cooking the last few weeks. I feel like I have lost interest in food and cooking, and seem to randomly throw something basic together at the last minute, with no forward planning. I have seen how this has affected the fridge - leftovers have increased, and this has led to food being thrown out on rubbish day - もったいない!

J is away from Wed this coming week, so I hope that by the time he gets back, my cooking mojo will have returned too. Until then, it will probably be simple meals for K and me for a week anyway, hopefully using up some pantry and freezer goods, so I don't have to buy too much in the way of groceries, as there is no much left in kitty for this month either....

Anyway, here is a round up of the last few days of boring dinners. The weekend was full of noodles, starting with Fri night dinner.
Fri 12th
* Nagasaki ちゃんぽん
* Gyoza (frozen)
* spinach おひたし


Sat 13th -
Lunch くら寿司
Dinner 中華18番 (880yen set menu dinner, I had 八宝菜, J had マーボー豆腐set, K had ラーメン)

Sun 14th - Lunch
*corn soup （市販）
* pasta　with cabbage and sausages (J made)



Dinner:
I had left over corn soup
J had そうめん
K had a bowl of natto rice (with carrot and spinach hidden in there, lol) AND a bowl of そうめん This kid is gonna have noodles for legs!

Mon Feb 15th -
* shiso in egg roll
* spicy pork and cabbage, with green capsicum
* salmon
* rice
* miso soup (wakame and tofu)
* salad
* しらす in daikonおろし


And a photo with everyone's hands and K's dishes in it too, lol!

Simple meals while K is sick

Last night was simple wa and bits. K has been sick, I was starting to feel not so good last night either, and although I had thought of Chinese for dinner, J told me at lunch that he was off for 500yen chuka lunch - who can beat that?!? So I simply threw together some pieces like:

* salmon 西京焼き
*shiso, cuc, tomato salad : it is from my "to try" list, but I just realised I had already made last year, and thought the same thing again "would be better with more vinegar in the dressing" lol.
* leftover salmon roe, squid, egg roll, avocado
* miso soup
* rice

and I had 梅干 on rice - am a bit taken with this at the moment, and since I wasn't feeling too hot, didn't want the fish, it did the job for me.
K had miso soup and rice with furikake, keeping it simple for her while she is under the weather too.

Really don't feel like making a big production number tonight either, so maybe just a simple spag bol or the likes. Might put some bread on to go with it while I remember.....

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!

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!)

thursday and friday on review

J wrote an email to say that he had to go out with clients for dinner on Thursday night, so we just had the left-overs of the chicken soup, K also had some しらす with rice, her fav at the moment.

After a big day of Halloween party at playgroup, and a night before where I had about 2-3 hours sleep max, topped off with a massive headache, I was wasted and went to be wih K at 9pm before J even got home.

Felt a bit better today after taking it easy. Went to go buy bread for lunch, only to realise that the carseat was still out of the car, after a toilet accident a few days ago (it had been washed, but not put back) so we flagged the fresh bread and had spag on toast for lunch.

Dinner tonight was a success:

potato bake, with a delish white sauce touched up with some maggi stock cubes, oh,, the flavour!! and bacon, onion and carrot hidden in amongst the potato, you know, for nutritional value (and a frugal friday-ing type empty the fridge move)

steak

yellow and orange capsicum and eringi mushrooms, stir fried in butter and seasalt

salad - sunny lettuce, tomato and avocado

and the best part - J brought home a French stick!! so we devoured that with the French butter! yum.

"doing" lunch

Had a friend over for lunch, and since
1) the oven is still in the lounge room
and
2) I don't even know how to use it
I decided to branch out, be brave, expand my repartee and step away from my standard quiche or lasagna and try a new kind of entertaining. I am not sure if it succeded or not, though!?? I was sort of aiming for something else (better) but this is what happened:

chicken and vegetable noodle soup (carrot, long onion, chinese cabbage, celery)

croissants and cheese and sesame seed bread rolls (toasted under the grill)

salad (baby leaf lettuce, yellow and red capsicum, three beans mix, cucumber)

tomatoes in sea salt and virgin olive oil

and yakitori

And for dessert, cuppa tea/coffee with matcha castella, to remind us of our time in Nagasaki together on exchange.

I wanted to have foccacia with the soup, but trying to find some nice bread in this area just about did my head in yesterday - one bread shop I wanted to try was closed (I can never catch them open!!), the bread shop at Daiei was crap, as was the one in Sotetsu Rosen. Ended up buying at Itoyakado (yes - three supermarkets and a bread shop later I finally bought bread, although it was still not what I was after). I really hope I can find a better bakery around here soon. Of course, once I get my little bread maker, it will be so much fun making our own BROWN bread - ahhhh, drooling at the thought of it.