Piano Lesson

We can't do the girls' piano lesson tomorrow afternoon at their usual time.  So we asked K & A to come tonight for the lesson and dinner.  

We need to do the same again next week.  Next Sunday night, we can have anything in the world for dinner except for chili, salad and banana bread.  Anything else at all is fine.  

Okazu

Means side dish in Japanese, and it's all the conversation is about when talking meal planning.  Because everyone just knows that the main dish is white, short grain rice.  

Well, I'm a super lazy student so after all these years, I still don't have the rules down as far as the number of dishes that's proper, the different colors they should be etc.  

But I do know that rice and one side is mostly not OK, unless that side is some kind of curry or stew.  I am mostly not up for manufacturing one side, so I run with the curry/stew/rice bowl (donburi) option quite often.  

This is all said to offer context for our menu tonight: 

Rice

Norwegian Salmon, pan fried with Himalayan pink salt

Hijiki and Carrot Braise

Miso Soup with Seaweed and Tofu

Feeling a little victorious about the meal and a little sad about the dishes.  Wait, I feel the latter every day... 

Lately

I'm still making dinner.  SOO wish I could remember to consistently record it here.  Anyway, none of this looks very appetizing, but for posterity....

It's meatloaf--Mark Bittman's recipe from the How to Cook Everything app, the curry version.  Made with garam masala that really came from India and cilantro, I think it's delicious but it was too spicy for god kids.  

Also chikuzen ni, which will eternally remind me of my great friend Junko G.  Looking funky here cause I mixed in some rice.  This time I tried it with sato imo instead of gobo (burdock root) and that was just OK.  It caused me to give my entire remaining stock of sato imo to my sister in law.  

Finally, not pictured here but posted on the other blog: whole wheat persimmon bread, recipe from Pinch My Salt.  I put chocolate in and left nuts out.  An excellent use of my new to me oven!

Palak Tofu

Don't ask me how, when or why this happened but I LOVE palak paneer, which is an Indian curry.  It's made of puréed spinach and cubes of Indian cheese in a tomato and onion base.  

Recently, a mom friend of mine said that her husband who had been working in India for five years was moving back home.  Right away, I asked if she had requested him to buy lots of Indian spices for her.  Should have known better--that led to him buying some Indian spices for me and me feeling I'd better make some Indian food for them.  

So here's my first attempt.  The only trouble I foresee is this:  I won't see her for another 36 hours and I don't know if there will be any left by then.  

I found this recipe on a site called sonisfood.com and the only thing I changed was: substituted tofu for paneer since I have no idea where to get that.  

You say Potato and I say Po-tah-to

Aogu's mom got a box of big potatoes sent from a friend.  So today I made some of them into a potato salad, and I know they must have been extra delicious potatoes.  All that was in the salad besides the forementioned was hard boiled eggs, chives, mustard, mayonnaise, salt and pepper.  But it was really tasty!  

We also had hayashi rice for dinner but I cheated and made it with pork instead of beef.  It all got eaten so I guess I got away with it!

Same Old

Last night chicken soup for feverish Koji.  

Tonight, "taco slice," made slightly exciting by the unusual addition of salsa. Vegetable were left to be desired though.  

Friday Night is Unmotivated

Leftover Teriyaki Chicken 

Broccoli

Rice

Koji also ate two mikans, a banana and three kiwis

Misaki was asleep when Koji and Izumi were eating.  I wasn't hungry because I had a gigantic lunch at Mayumi S' house.  

So later we ate some impromptu beef and broccoli

A few days ago I was so excited about the oven but alas, the feeling has drained....

Nice combo

Dinner included:

Tuna mayo sandwiches on rolls (inspired on a trip to Ito's, where we were buying a backpack for Misaki's field trip)

Curry Udon

Cauliflower sautéed in butter

Steamed Broccoli

Teriyaki Chicken

Rice

Mikan 

Curry Fail

Found some masa man Curry soup in the foreign food mart at Aeon Mall but when I made it and served it up to Aogu, it didn't work as curry.  Guess I have to keep hunting for Masaman curry paste.  

Also made Japanese curry for the kids with sweet potatoes Misaki dug up at school yesterday.  Was actually very proud, for once I made dinner in the afternoon, and I imagined that would made my post work evening so peaceful and easy.  

Except that I didn't check the school lunch menu; apparently the kids had curry for lunch today.  As they (I) used to say in the 80s: "well, excuuuuuuuuuse me!".  It's a bummer to eat the same thing for lunch and dinner, but what a blessed problem, no? Unfortunately Koji didn't see it that way and our evening went to downhill rapidly from there.  

Note to self: CHECK  THE LUNCH MENU

Curry Fail

Found some masa man Curry soup in the foreign food mart at Aeon Mall but when I made it and served it up to Aogu, it didn't work as curry.  Guess I have to keep hunting for Masaman curry paste.  

Also made Japanese curry for the kids with sweet potatoes Misaki dug up at school yesterday.  Was actually very proud, for once I made dinner in the afternoon, and I imagined that would made my post work evening so peaceful and easy.  

Except that I didn't check the school lunch menu; apparently the kids had curry for lunch today.  As they (I) used to say in the 80s: "well, excuuuuuuuuuse me!".  It's a bummer to eat the same thing for lunch and dinner, but what a blessed problem, no? Unfortunately Koji didn't see it that way and our evening went to downhill rapidly from there.  

Note to self: CHECK  THE LUNCH MENU

Unmatching

A trip to the foreign food store in Aeon Mall yielded a few things we've mostly gone without for months now.  One being tortillas. So for dinner tonight we had quesadillas and vegetable soup.  I really want soup to be spelled SOOP, don't you?

I also got some "Kaya" jam, which looks like coconut milk curd? and apparently is famous in Singapore, according to my friend P.  Going to bed now so I'll be that much closer to breakfast tomorrow.  

Lately

I'm still making dinner.  SOO wish I could remember to consistently record it here.  Anyway, none of this looks very appetizing, but for posterity....

It's meatloaf--Mark Bittman's recipe from the How to Cook Everything app, the curry version.  Made with garam masala that really came from India and cilantro, I think it's delicious but it was too spicy for god kids.  

Also chikuzen ni, which will eternally remind me of my great friend Junko G.  Looking funky here cause I mixed in some rice.  This time I tried it with sato imo instead of gobo (burdock root) and that was just OK.  It caused me to give my entire remaining stock of sato imo to my sister in law.  

Finally, not pictured here but posted on the other blog: whole wheat persimmon bread, recipe from Pinch My Salt.  I put chocolate in and left nuts out.  An excellent use of my new to me oven!

Regular But Worth Remembering

Thursday night (10/3) was teriyaki chicken, "hot carrots" (sliced to matchsticks with my new from PAL System slicer and sautéed with plenty of butter) and rice.  For once in life I got the chicken marinating early in the afternoon, so cooking it all up was not the epic struggle I usually find dinner-making to be.  

No dinner at home last night because I spontaneously went with Luann and Meg to hear Francis Chan speak in Shin Okubo.  Kids stayed with Shige and ate pizza.  We grabbed some onigiri etc from a convenience store and had a second dinner of "Iranian Curry" back at their place after we decided on an impromptu sleepover.  

Pretty sure the last time--maybe the only time in these six months--we had Mac and cheese was at their house a couple months ago.  I think being there inspired Misaki, she requested the same for dinner tonight.  With no boxes of Kraft on sight, it was not so instant.  I followed a recipe from the How to Cook Everything app.  First I boiled the noodles, then realized we didn't have any cheese.  Stopped everything for a trip to Welcia.  

Got home, was ready to make a bechamel sauce only to slap my forehead again--no milk!! GRR.... Thankfully MIL saved me another trip to the market!  Verdict: pretty bland with that processed shredded white cheese.  A sharp cheddar would have been better.  The girls liked it and I was satisfied too, once I dressed it up as you see here.  Which is to say, loads of chives, hot salt, black pepper and Parmesan.

Taco Slice

Think I've posted this before somewhere, but I always figure if I can't remember, you can't either.  

We had Taco Rice tonight, which is the guts of a taco spread more appealingly than guts on a bed of rice--we prefer short grain white.  Well, when pronounced with Japanesey English flair, it sounds like "Taco Slice".  Aren't you glad it's this and not a jellified terrine of stratified taco ingredients?  Whoa.  Did anyone track with that question?

Our favorite TV show, which is to say, the only one that mostly nearly entertains me and all three kids all at once, is LINE Town.  Yes, it's a show that is based on a texting app, as far as I can tell.  It could be the other way around but I don't know if that would make me feel better.  It's at 6:30 on Wednesdsy nights, so we have a little tradition now.  Every other Wednesday, while we watch, we eat Taco  Slice.  On the alternate Wednesday we have grilled cheese.  

Good to know, right?!!

Cheese Bah--gah

Last Friday I made a mass quantity of hanbaagu, which is something like a meatloaf patty.  Therefore, it's technically not a hamburger, I guess.  Though these days there are infinity versions of hamburgers, so who can know or say which is the TRUE burger? 

Anyway. When I pulled these hanbaagu out of the freezer tonight, I was pretty desperately bored at the thought of serving them with rice and green beans again.  

Fortuitously, my eye fell on a pack of hamburger buns in the freezer and when I asked the kids if they wanted bread, they said yes (technically I don't like bread or want to serve it to my family, most of the time, but my nutritional standards remain in flux).

So I guess this picture looks just as dead boring as my original vision of tonight's dinner, but I tell you: hamburger buns aren't super common here!  You can get them (obviously) but not just in any old store.  

Down the line if and when I have and oven, perhaps I'll try making my own.  Whoa. That might push the excitement right over the edge!

CAULIFLOWER & Oyakodon

Appearance-wise, cauliflower seems to be nothing more than an albino broccoli cousin. I have vivid (perhaps false....? See TED talk by Dr. Loftus) memories of eating raw cauliflower with ranch dressing at any and every First Baptist Church potluck as a child.

 Thankfully, I've since realized that roasted is an infinitely better way to go.  

Alas for me and my love, cauliflower, for we are now separated by the expanse of the Pacific Ocean.  The implication that there is ZERO cauliflower is false.  However, what you see pictured was only the second head of fresh cauliflower I've gotten my hands on in these six months.  

Well, and so, rejoice!  Some, even a little teeny bit, is always better than none.  Right?!

Tonjiru and Shumai

Recipe from justhungry.com

Figured out that I like satoimo (taro?) when it's in this soup

Too bad I didn't learn until after the fact that satoimo is easier to peel if it's parboiled