Remember me?

My kitchen doesn't seem to - it has been a while, I guess.....

While I did cook up most nights while my parents were here, it was my first time ALONE IN THE KITCHEN since L was born. While he is usually fussy this time of night, tonight he obliged with falling sound asleep around 5:30pm, so I did a "carpe diem" and came up with the following:

miso soup with wakame (and tofu, if J remembers to buy it on the way home)

rice

pork 西京焼き (pre-marinated stuff from the freezer)

green salad (shiso, lettuce, mizuna, tomato, cucumber and avocado)

ふわふわ egg roll

青梗菜 and carrot in butter/昆布つゆ
and gonna throw some natto, 梅干 and anything else that might be festering in the fridge to the mix.

Ok, so not a meal to really write home about (or really blog about) but kinda feel good that I have been able to put this together. Of course, J rings up to say he is gonna get his haircut on the way home, so now we have to wait for him. Bet little L wakes up in the meantime, and it all goes pear shaped, but for now, I am giving myself a little pat on the back, lol!

The week in meals

Mon 12th night - chinese chicken & cashew nuts and mabo nasu, egg roll at mum's request :-)
Tues 13th night - mum's famous hot pasta salad with sausages. very nice.
Wed 14th night - curry; leftovers frozen for post-baby quick meals
Thurs 15th night - made my folks suffer through 和食 with salmon, rice, pickles, egg roll with nira, mushrooms and spinach in butter/garlic/めんつゆ sauce, side salad and dad's soup! (they thought it was a veritable feast with so many different dishes, lol)
Fri 16th night - quiche and mashed potato
Sat 17th night - since I have so much pie crust left (why this time I have enough for three, when I usually only have enough for 2, I donU't know, but it is a VERY GOOD pie crust - I may almost be tempted to say I have found my pie-crust groove!!) am going to make a shepherds pie for dinner. yum!
Wow - never done so much cooking while J is away, lol. And making bread most days - breadmaker working hard!

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.

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.

unagi

J will be late home from work, so K and I were going to eat first...until for some reason the よやくswitch on the rice cooker didn't work, so the rice is still not cooked. As in, I just flicked the switch now (oops.)

May have to pre-eat last night nabe and noodle left overs before the main event which will be:

unagi-don

niku-jaga

probably some pickles

I think that is all. Boring, only 2 dishes, but it will be enough. And when it is late, I am not that worried about making something spesh, as I can't judge what time J will be home, so figure it is better to have simple and hot and freshly cooked as opposed to been sitting there for the last hour waiting.

first wa in a month

First dinner back home on Thursday night:

salmon
rice
egg roll
wakame miso soup

How Japanese can you get? I also know realised that I have to learn to cook everything again.....our new house has an IH hot plate, so things like the egg roll turned out pretty average, since I am used to making it over a gas burner. Also couldn't work out the griller menu, so it was taking forever to cook the salmon, until J came home and showed me how to work it (set it to "cook fish"). *sigh*

I am gonna sound all Japanese here, but I was kinda looking forward to a meal with rice, after a month away. how sad is that. K shoved it into her too, hehe.