Preemio Award

My friend, Abigail, gave me the? a? Preemio Award the other day. Recipients are supposed to write seven things about themselves. As this is a cooking blog, I will attempt to entertain you with seven silly things about cooking/food and me!

1. Carrots - WHAT is it with CARROTS here in Japan??? First, they are kind of short and really big around. Second, they go bad in my fridge in a day or two - ROOT VEGETABLE!?!??! Third, according to my husband, they should not be cut into rounds (wagiri), but should be cut into the equivalent of short carrot sticks. This makes them sweeter he says...the crazy thing is - it does. I don't even really LIKE carrots - but, don't tell Jun or Ryu!
2. Ginger - I am a GINGER freak, I think. This last trip to the US, I caught a terrible cold. AND...had NO candied ginger to fend off the germs! As I was getting well, I found some ginger candy at a health food store. And, was introduced to this website - the Ginger People.
3. Strange - I LOVE strange RECIPES. For me, STRANGE is a reason TO make something new, not to avoid it. Sue just posted a recipe for body powder. Vicki posted a recipe for soda bread you cook on the griddle. Abigail posted recipe for okonomiyaki made using top ramen. How STRANGE - to me, at least, and FUN! (I made the soda bread and okonomiyaki!)
4. Spurts - I cook things in spurts. I am currently in the Granola Making Spurt. I made up two recipes - Peanut Butter Granola, and Gingersnap Granola. Too yummy. I am in the process of making a Chocolate Granola recipe. I bought some healthy flours to put in granola while I was in the US this trip. I can really FEEL all those fiber things cleaning the cholesterol out of my veins. Really. I'm serious! SCRUBBING!!!
5. Lettuce - I didn't grow up on lettuce. We were a canned/frozen corn, peas, and green bean family with some broccoli and carrots thrown in for good measure. I do remember the occasional beet, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts - YUCK! But, we weren't adventurous vegetable eaters. Ryu isn't either. Lettuce - adventurous? Well, I seem to not like raw veggies all that well. We have thrown away more heads of lettuce than probably any other veggie! But, I bought some again yesterday. We'll see.
6. Cookbooks - Jun and I like to read Cookbooks. Not to find something to make, but, because they are interesting. I especially like old ones with old fashioned recipes. Jun especially likes my cookie ones with pictures! I USED to collect cookbooks. Now I live in a tiny tiny apartment, so we read and reread the good old ones!
7. CONFESSION - the REAL reason I started to cook - as a kid - was because in our family we have the Golden Rule that is THE BEST! If you cook dinner, you don't have to do the dishes - nor clean the kitchen. I HATE to do dishes - so cooking was a wonderful golden trade off. My mom was happy too, as she was happy not to cook, and had two other kids to do the cleaning! HAHAHA!

I'd like to tag the following three women because I enjoy their blogs and wonder what THEY cook on a weekday night.

1. Tammy in Ukraine
2. Sue at Living and Learning
3. CG at Okaasan Mommy and More

Furikake - Sprinkles for the top of your white rice!

My husband likes furikake. Actually, furikake is the savior of many Japanese housewives, or housewives of any nationality, or I guess anyone at all, who make obentos. These sprinkles add so much flavor, color, fun to the white rice part of a lunch.

We have been buying furikake for years. It has yellow chunks that are supposed to be egg. Hmmm. And dried seaweed - nori. Well, I hate the stuff. I think all the yellow chunks are are lumps of sodium with no health benefit at all.

So, when I was at church last week, and a lady was showing me the furikake she had made and said it was easy - my ears perked up. Her suggestion, my friend Kaoru's help, and an idea or two from the internet turned into this furikake. The hubby loves it! YEAH! It is NOT cheaper than the purchased sodium, but, it is worth it.

Furikake

50 gm. tiny white fish (raw, not dried)
1/3 cup sesame seeds
1 cup bonito flakes (not packed!)
1 Tbsp. soy sauce
3 Tbsp. mirin

In a dry frying pan, "dry" the fish out. Then add the sesame seeds and bonito flakes. When the sesame seeds start popping a bit, add the mixture of soy and mirin. Then, stir over low heat till all the moisture is absorbed/evaporated. Won't take long. Store it in an airtight container in the freezer! It doesn't get hard, even when frozen, and lasts a long time - or not - if you serve it on lunches every day!

I also heard you can use dried radish or daikon leaves. I just got a batch today to try. I will also cut up some of the tons of dry seaweed sheets we have been given and add that next time I make it. Hubby also bought some dried shrimp he wants in a furikake. A friend just told me she cuts up konyaku and uses it in furikake. So, I guess the ideas are endless. And, though the fish is a bit expensive (we paid 350 yen for 50 gm. of fish), the other ingredients are CHEAP! I might even dry out some scrambled eggs for my own version of the purchased stuff!

Reason #2 Why I Will Never Be A Great Cook

I was trying to blend some homemade pumpkin the other day in the tiny/cheap blender I bought when I realized that mothers in Japan MAKE their baby food because it isn't available in the stores in the single food types for the beginners. My cheap streak, kicked into overdrive by sleep deprivation, resulted in a small/worthless blender. Somehow Jun was fed during those formative months, but...

I realized I will never be a good cook because I don't own, and really don't plan to own, any cool kitchen equipment, and if I do buy anything, it will be second hand or cheap because I am CHEAP! ARGH! I've dreamt of food processors that blend butter and flour, but I have a pastry cutter - my splurge. I've dreamt of mixers with dough hooks, but I've found recipes that don't take much kneading. I've dreamt of juicers, but then I'd have to buy fruit - and I'm too cheap for that usually. Our ceramic lemon juicer is adequate. I've dreamt of a hand-held electric mixer to make cakes, but a former co-worker showed me I could make them (from a mix) just fine with a fork. And, if I had something to whip cream, well, I couldn't just buy the pre-whipped stuff, could I? And, I don't like whipped cream all that well either. How's THAT for talking myself out of equipment? Now, I have heard of a "silpat" that is popular for baking things. I have no idea what it is. Kind of a re-usable oven paper, I think. But, I am even too cheap to buy oven paper - I grease and flour my pans when necessary. What was that, Mom? Heavily grease and lightly flour?

I would like another set of measuring cups - with the 2/3 and 3/4 sizes included. A 3/4 tsp. would be nice too. Oh, and I DID splurge on a kitchen scale to weigh ingredients for Japanese recipes. I LOVE scales and tape measures and thermometers. Am I crazy?

So, most of my recipes call for more elbow grease than perhaps their counterparts would. But, hey, THAT kind of grease tastes like Love - Right?

Gingersnap Granola

Growing up, our breakfasts were pretty standard. To us, anyway. For example, pancakes were NOT a special dish saved for Saturdays and Sundays. We had pancakes ALL THE TIME! When I went to a friend's house and saw they got RAISIN Bran, I was just too jealous. We only had Total. We had hot oatmeal and scrambled eggs often too. But, breakfast was rarely "special." (Sorry, Mom!)

It was in the very early 70's that I was introduced to granola, at a friend's house. Hot and homemade right out of the oven for breakfast! YUM!

The Peanut Butter Granola is the first granola I've ever made. And, boy have I been making it. (Ryu bought some baby chocolate chips to add to it!) But, one day, I suddenly had a hankering for Gingersnap Granola. You know, that hard and crunchy gingersnap cookie? But for BREAKFAST. Not to say I don't eat cookies at breakfast time, but...wouldn't it be great to eat them LEGALLY?

I searched the web over and found a very few number of Gingersnap Granola recipes. But, they gave me a start. I've worked on revamping this recipe, and NONE of the tries has been bad! Well, I guess there IS one bad thing about the recipe. Unlike the Peanut Butter Granola, it is a bit more clumpy. JUST right for eating with one's hands as a snack. I could eat this for every meal and snack all day! Too yummy!

Jun started off calling the granolas I made, "Mama Made It Cornflakes." Now she calls the Peanut Butter Granola - the "White Granola," and the Gingersnap Granola, the "Black Granola."

Gingersnap Granola

2 cups oatmeal - I use the regular old ones.
1 cup of various flours (whole wheat, corn flour, corn meal, crushed up All-Bran Cereal, crushed up Genmai Cereal (a whole rice flake cereal - I crush the cereals in my hubby's coffee grinder!))
1/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 tsp. ground dried ginger
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. salt

Mix the above well, and heat your oven to 140 C. Around 250 F.

In a small saucepan, warm the following ingredients:

1/4 cup oil
1/3 cup water
2 Tbsp. molasses (kuro mitsu works great)
1 tsp. vanilla

When the "wet ingredients" are warmed, pour over the oat mixture and mix well with your hands. Squeezing and squishing to mix it all in well. Spread the mixture out as thinly as possible on a baking sheet. Bake for one hour at 140 C. Stir every 15 minutes after the first 30 minutes. When it is done, it will still be soft. This is your chance to carefully break up any big chunks, and let it cool. Then add:

1 cup raisins (I tried almonds in this recipe as well as dried apricots. Jun and Ryu wouldn't touch the "orange things", and the almonds overpowered the ginger, so...I stick with the raisins!

Store it in a dry place in a zip-lock bag...or whatever!

Homemade Powdered Sugar!

Who knew you could MAKE powdered sugar!?!?! Living here in Japan, where powdered sugar is sold by the Tablespoon, I pass over any recipe requiring it. Today I stumbled across a site that has a RECIPE to MAKE powdered sugar - using potato starch (katakuriko) that IS available here in Japan. So - here it is!

Passover Powdered Sugar

Rice Krispie Egg Treats

When Tana sent the big box of yummies, there was a hug box of Rice Krispies included. While trying not to hoard them, I have been holding out on using them till I found the perfect idea. And...Easter came! We invited our friends over to celebrate. Their little girl is about six months younger than jun. I wanted to decorate and hide eggs, but...didn't want the mess in my living room of decorating without a kit. So, I decided we would use Rice Krispie treats instead.

I used the standard recipe for

Rice Krispie Treats

and spread them out on a pan a bit larger than recommended, so the Treats were about 1/2 inch thick. I pushed them down pretty firmly, as I wanted a firm cookie-like Treat.

The next morning, I printed off an egg shape from the internet and Ryu used the kitchen scizzors to cut the Rice Krispie Treats into egg shapes. They were the PERFECT size.

I bought a jar with 6 different kinds of sprinkles in it...some time ago. Jun was SO eager to use these sprinkles. I thought the kids could put them on the RK Treats and they would stick. Luckily I tried this out before the party. They didn't stick! But, then I barely moistened the top of the RK Treat with water, and the sprinkles stuck fine and the Treats quickly dried out! They turned out GREAT! See the pic below!

Incidently, I use this same recipe with cornflakes, granola, choco krispies (sold in Japan), and other cereals to make treats. But, having the regular Rice Krispies was a treat as they AREN'T sold here!

Easter Menu 2009

A Japanese friend was asking how we celebrated Easter this year. She is a Japanese Christian, but our church really doesn't have a lot of traditions around Easter at this point, so she really didn't know how to celebrate.

So, I told her I'd post on the blog here about the menu part of our celebrations. For all reading, this is not necessarily a traditional Easter spread!!! But it was special for our day, easy to make, and yummy! I'll get recipes posted as soon as possible!

• Italian Sausage and Cheese Bread (instead of ham and scalloped potatoes!)
• Hot Cross Buns (A TRUE Easter food - the cross symbol reminds us of the cross Jesus died on! Thanks for the inspiration, Heather!)
• Raspberry and Blueberry Clafoutis - can't wait to read THAT recipe, I'm sure!
• Strawberry Jello (jelly) with a ton of strawberries and a bit of banana in it. - I grew up on this!
• Rice Krispie treats cut in egg shapes for decorating - I'll post some tips and pics.
• Mugicha - barley tea, and Iced Tea

It was a simple menu because I could make it all the day before, and just enjoy our friends.