My New Year's Resolution for this blog was to post every day regarding either what I made for dinner, or if I didn't make dinner, at least what I ate. The point of doing so is primarily to inspire myself on days when my mind is blank regarding dinner. But I also have the secondary hope that maybe you'll be inspired, if not to make something that I've made, then at least to try cooking!
In any case, I'll have to give myself on a break on posting every single day, and I think I have a pretty good reason:
last week on Sunday, our baby girl Misaki was born! I will still tell you what we had for dinner since then, though! I didn't make the majority of it, and for that I thank God, the moms from
Koji's school and various friends from church. If the reports I hear are true, for some reason people are lining up to make us dinner, so I may not have to cook for awhile!
April 5th: Misaki was born at 6:40. At around 8 pm, I realized I hadn't eaten all day and I was getting hungry. So I had:
*turkey sandwich of bread and turkey, onto which I squeezed a mustard packet
*shortbread cookies
*cranberry juiceFine dining!
April 6th: the rest of the family came to join Misaki and me in our hospital room. They had
*takeout from Pita Inn which frankly looked more delicious than my "celebration meal" of
*shrimp scampi? I've never had shrimp scampi anywhere else, but I'm not sure that's what people usually mean when they say "shrimp scampi"
*brown rice
*ceasar salad*raspberry cheesecake--this last was for the fam, since I don't care for cheesecake
I was disappointed that my asparagus was forgotten, and that I didn't have any milk to go with the
cupcakes Cheryl Lynn's kind friend Becky made for me.
April 7th: while my head was still spinning around from checking out of the hospital and trying to get settled in at home, our first dinner, made by Miwa-san, arrived:
*roast beef with carmelized onions
*white rice
*salad of greens and tofu
April 8th: though it was
her birthday, and though she has graciously volunteered to cart Koji to
and from school for the next couple of weeks, Miho brought us
*nikujaga
*steamed asparagus
*natto
*white riceMeanwhile, Jennifer also brought us dinner! So we supplemented the above with
*fruit salad and
*pear and apple pie, saving the ribs, broccoli and rolls for later
April 9th: Maki-san made us
*nimono, which is a generic name for all kinds of "stewed" food--this one included chicken drumsticks, hardboiled eggs, carrots, and burdock root
*eggplant in a dressing of soy sauce, sesame seed oil? and ??
*white riceApril 10th: Jenny and Rich supplied us with a delicious dinner all the way from Charlotte, with the help of Pita Inn. Did we mind having Pita Inn for the second time this week? Not at all! Thanks very much for dinner, the only thing that could have made it better would have been eating it with you!
*beef shwarma
*chicken shwarma
*saffron rice?
*lettuce and tomato salad
*pita
*hummus
*tabouleh saladApril 11th: we were so spoiled for the last several days, when it was time for dinner and we didn't have anyone knocking the door down to give us food, I hardly knew what to do! I had already used Jennifer's ribs for lunch, so in the end I went with the easy and quick
*macaroni and cheese with broccoli and hamI also (foolishly) thought I had enought energy for baking a bit, so I made some
lemon bars and a
pear cranberry cobbler. By that evening, I could barely walk for the pain in my back! I don't remember feeling this way after the other two kids were born, so I don't know what's going on this time.
April 12th: Happy Easter! He is Risen!
With all these kids being born around this time of year, we haven't had a chance to form any family Easter traditions other than going to church. Maybe we can remedy that starting next year. In any case, for today, the kids were invited to an Easter Egg hunt. After the Hunt, they were offered dinner, but no surprise, they didn't eat enough, so though it was time for bed when they got home, they started claiming they were hungry. I had NO dinner plan, so I finally offered them a conciliatory piece of
cheese and put them to bed. Then Aogu and I needed to eat, but my back was hurting and I was incapacitated, so he came up with:
*ochazuke
*roast beef and onions (left over from Wednesday)
*pear and cranberry cobbler
tonight: Phew. The start of another week means dinner made by someone else, thank you God! Junko-san made us:
*meatballs in diced red pepper and onion sauce
*german potato salad with asparagus and bacon
*salad of smashed tofu? and konnyaku and ?...OK, I didn't quite know what it was, but it was good and it got me to eat konnyaku, which is saying something. I always think I should eat more of that stuff, it's supposed to be SO healthy but it's also SO tasteless.
*white rice
*sweet potato yokan, not pictured
And, full disclosure, I ate some of the
chocolate bunny that Izumi got at the Easter Egg Hunt yesterday. She's too young to appreciate
Dove chocolate, don't you think?
Hiroko-san made us some Japanese style fried chicken with a vegetable sauce to pour over the top and a really great green salad with strawberries, tomatoes and grapefruit. I haven't had grapefruit in ages, probably because I'm too lazy to cut it, so this was really special!
Asami-san made the fanciest looking meal we've had so far, chirashi zushi. This is "scattered sushi," or sushi rice with other ingredients mixed in/sprinkled on. The pictured dish included shrimp, green beans, egg and seaweed, and was delicious. I also threw some tofu into wakame (seaweed) soup, which was a surprisingly big hit with the kids. 
Mio-san brought us garlic chicken and asparagus with dressing, to which we added white rice.
April 27th:
