Happy Holidays!

Look at the festive the peppers I picked up at the farm store on Sunday!

This is probably going to be my last post for a while, since the holidays are upon us and I will be busy attempting to entertain my brother Andrew after his arrival in Fukuoka tomorrow morning. We will be meeting up with extended family in Fukuoka on the 24th (my cousin Mike spent the fall semester studying abroad in Osaka) and attending Keizo's rugby game on Christmas together, followed by "Christmas Dinner" at the apartment. I am planning a big Japanese style nabe (hot pot) followed by the Christmas cake we ordered from the bakery up the street.

But before I start cleaning the apartment, finishing my grad school statements and writing some New Year's cards, here's one more meal from the past weekend. In my recipe collection it goes by the name "Orange Tofu Stir Fry," which is a tad un-inspiring, but at least I know where to find it. It goes together quickly; a perfect meal for one when Keizo is playing rugby in Okinawa.

Again, not sure why the picture wants to be sideways, but here it is. The sauce is orange juice, soy sauce, some sugar, chili paste and cornstarch. I used carrots, broccoli, mushrooms, some of the festive peppers from the photo above, and of course, more hakusai. Thankfully, by cooking it and smothering it in sauce, you can't really tell how limp it has become. Just one more serving to go!

Happy holidays! Please stop by again in a week or two for more food-y adventures.

Strawberries in December?

The answer is "yes"!

Strawberries are a winter crop in Japan, grown in green houses of course. Their peak season isn't until February/March, and by then you are so sick of mikans you are willing to pay any price to get your hands on some. This early on in December, paying $6 for a pack of 8 strawberries is a bit much (thankfully the price goes down as they become more abundant.) But if you happen to be shopping at the end of the day, and you see some on sale for under $3 and you are already a bit tired of mikans because there is a huge box on your stair case, I can think of no good reason not to buy them.

And what better way to eat them than in a parfait with crumbled cookies and "Maple-Cookie" ice cream.

The strawberries also found their way into some breakfast smoothies as well, which were undoubtedly more nutritious, and only slightly less delicious.

Laurier

We renewed "Yummy-san's 3 Step Cooking" book at the library, and promptly went to the store to pick up some ingredients for dinner. Salmon filets and "laurier." Perhaps you are more botanical than I am, and know that "laurier" comes from the scientific name for bay leaf. I had no idea what we were looking for, but as soon as Keizo pulled down the package in the spice aisle, it became pretty clear.

Last Friday's recipe was "Salmon with Laurier, Olive Oil and Lemon Juice" with "German potatoes" and since we are in Japan, rice on the side. Preparing the fish was really simple. Slice down the middle and fill with bay leaves. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and pop in the microwave for 10 minutes on the "grill" setting (Yes, the microwave/oven/toaster is also a grill!)

After it's been cooked and served, drizzle with olive oil and lemon juice, or in our case, kabosu juice from the Wai Wai Farm Store. [Japan has so many different types of citrus, it's unbelievable. They all pretty much look like lemons, limes and grapefruits to me, but it's much more complicated than that.] The potatoes were pre-cooked in the microwave, then added to some sauteed onions in a fry pan and sprinkled with a pack of seasoning from the grocery store.

Simple, fast, mostly healthy and delicious!

As you wish

One of my favorite foods from my first stint in Japan was okonomiyaki, a thick pancake like concoction with a variety of different add ons. The name itself loosely translates to "as you like grill" and fillings range from pork and seafood to kim-chi, mochi and cheese. It's most popular in the Kansai region of Japan, but you can find okonomiyaki restaurants down here in Fukuoka, and the mix is sold in just about every grocery store.

In an effort to use up the last of the now sort of wilted cabbage, we brought out the table top gas burner and grilled up some okonomiyaki for dinner. I admit that it doesn't look like much in the photos; it's one of those foods you have to eat to understand.

Cooking right at the table! You can sit down and prepare dinner at the same time!

Hot off the grill with all the necessary condiments: okonomiyaki sauce (brown), nori flakes (green) dried fish flakes (light brown) and some mayonaise (do I really need to say what color that is?)

Up close, ready to dig in.

While the mix made four pancakes, Keizo and I were uncharacteristically reserved and only ate one each. This left room for dessert, so we tried a recipe for baked apples from the tajine cooker recipe book. Sliced apples, butter and sugar cooked over medium heat, then topped with ice cream and some cinnamon. An excellent way to end the meal.

Eat Local

Unless you have grown up on a farm, it is very easy to be skeptical and less than enthusiastic about "organic" and "eat local" campaigns. Even as someone with an interest in eating organic and/or locally produced food, I don't find it very easy. Old habits die hard, and it takes a conscientious commitment to seek out and often spend a bit more money on these types of products.

I am far far away from spending every food dollar on things that are both good for me, the environment and the local economy (hello Costco!) but I like to think that every little bit helps. This attitude led me to the "Wai Wai Farm Store" in Fukutsu, which is a local cooperative selling everything from fish and produce to cheese and packaged convenience foods, all made in the surrounding area. I have no idea how much, if any of it is organic, but it's nice to support the neighbors and I rest a bit easier at night knowing that my produce traveled only a few miles to get to my plate (which I hope helps offset the pasta from Costco that claims to have been made in Italy...maybe just a little bit?)

Even without the environmental impact of food engineered to be picked green and ripen while being shipped thousands of miles, there are other reasons to eat local food. Proponents often claim it tastes better, and if recent purchases are any indication, I agree.

Example 1: Potatoes from "Wai Wai Farm Store" in a simple creamy stew (courtesy of Yummy-san's 3 Step Cooking") Bought immediately prior to dinner preparations, the potatoes were incredibly fresh, a tad sweet and practically melted in the mouth. The broccoli and onions were also from the Wai Wai Farm Store, but were overshadowed by the incredible potatoes.

Example 2: Itoshima mikan. Keizo acquired these through a teammate, and recently we have had a daily consumption rate equal to 3 or 4 each. Thank goodness they are small, seedless and easy to peel! I feel that most citrus can really be hit or miss. There is nothing quite like a fresh, juicy orange and little as unappetizing as one that has been frozen and is dry and crunchy as a result. These mikans have been juicy and incredibly sweet. Some of the larger ones are a tad sour, perhaps they are miffed at being stored in the cold stairway and not in the cozy kitchen. Since the stairs lead to the front door, Keizo has made it a point to collect a few every time he goes in or out in an effort to eat them all at the peak of freshness.

Example 3: Grilled shitake mushrooms with soy sauce and butter, served at Naoko-sensei's house. Like many of the delicious things she serves her calligraphy students before class on Wednesday nights, these mushrooms came from her garden. As an adult, I have come a long way from the repulsion I felt as a child to acceptance and even enjoyment of fungi. These shitake took that enjoyment to a whole new level. I honestly didn't know that mushrooms could taste like that, and judging by the "mmmmmms" and "oishiis" uttered by everyone around the table, no one else did either. Warm with a subtle smoky flavor, it didn't take long for the plate to be cleared. I will definitely be trying to recreate this dish on my own.

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For more information about eating local and the impact of the modern food system on the environment, I recommend checking out grist.org and the books The Ominivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver.

Date Night

Last Tuesday, Keizo and I ventured into Fukuoka City for a look at the Christmas Illumination (the Japanese do get very excited about a holiday that none of them get off of work) and dinner out at one of the zillion fashionable little restaurants in the Daimyo neighborhood.

First, the lights! Tenjin Core's flashy display matches the tacky clothes inside.

Kego Park maximized its small pond with lots of reflections.

And my favorite, the two-story, recycled plastic bottle bear in the courtyard at Egala Hall. It changed colors and had a disco ball on the top of its hat.

For dinner we ate at Alohana, a Hawaii-themed restaurant that neither of us had been to before. We got there a bit early for the dinner crowd (quarter to seven on a Tuesday) but by the time we left, it was pretty full. The food was good; but more impressively a great deal. We chose a set menu that also came with 2 hours of unlimited drinks, for a mere 3,000 yen a person ($35 US)

Since he was driving, Keizo had to stick with the non-alcoholic beverage menu, but there were plenty of virgin cocktails for him to sample. They all had nice tropical names, and I don't remember the name of this particular one, but look how pretty it is!

I was not driving however, and got to sample from the alcoholic beverage menu. I tried a few, but my favorite one was the "Jack Johnson" (so named because it was his personal cocktail when he visited Alohana after the Fukuoka performance of his last Japan tour) which was served in this funky curved glass and tasted a bit like liquid tiramisu.

Our set menu included 6 courses, starting with caesar salad...

...followed by chicken slices in mango chili sauce...

...garlic shrimp, a tuna quesadilla, and a plate of loco moco (rice covered with a hamburger patty, an egg and rich brown sauce) which are not pictured. I guess I was too busy eating and planning my next trip to Hawaii. We finished with a plate of tiny desserts for each of us; a square inch of strawberry short cake and a shot of mango gelato.

Pumpkin Cookies

Don't let the simple title of this post fool you. These are no ordinary cookies. I truly believe they are in part responsible for keeping Keizo and me together while we lived a vast ocean apart. I first made them at home in October 2009, as a special Halloween treat to send to Japan. Since then, they have become frequently requested and somewhat well known; Keizo, the generous guy that he is has shared them with his teammates, friends and family. Even people who have never met me have eaten my pumpkin cookies.

The basic recipe is from allrecipes.com and starts with a cup of shortening, followed by two cups of sugar. How bad can they be?

Then you add a can of pumpkin puree (not so easy to find in Japan, but given the importance of these cookies, we made it a top priority) flour, baking soda and other cookie ingredients. You could throw in the chocolate chips and call it a day, but I prefer to add a whole bunch of yummy things. This particular batch included coconut, raisins (dried cranberries are better, but I didn't feel like searching for them,) chopped almonds and milk chocolate chunks.

Mix together and drop by teaspoonful onto a cookie sheet. I had some left over pumpkin seeds from the Sweet Pumpkin cookie mix so I decorated a few of them before baking.

The full recipe makes around 6 dozen cookies, but not wanting to stay up all night transferring batches into the oven, I cut it in half. I wrapped some up to give to Keizo's sister to show my appreciation for showing me around Tokushima before and after his game there last weekend. She was pretty excited when she saw them; Keizo and I are excited that there are still some left for us.

Bulgogi-don

In most dishes, I feel rather neutral about meat, something that comes in handy when I am trying eat vegetarian. Like most rules though, this one also has some exceptions. There are times when only a real beef hamburger will do, Thanksgiving without turkey is hardly worth it, and there is no doubt that barbecue sauce tastes much better on pork or chicken than anything tofu based.

We recently received a large hunk of bulgogi (Korean style marinated beef) as a gift from our downstairs neighbors. Quite generous of them, especially considering how delicious it is! Keizo and I have eaten bulgogi-don, or meat over rice twice in recent weeks which has only used about half of it.

The meat is sweet and juicy, an excellent complement to plain rice. Keeping the rest of the meal simple allows the bulgogi to take its rightful place as the main dish. [Not sure why the picture of the whole meal demands to be sideways, but hopefully you get the gist.]

Up close. Rice and bulgogi topped with green onions and strips of nori. Delicious. Even the usually ambivalent toward meat girl had seconds.

Taste of home

I am happy to report that the amount of cabbage and hakusai in the fridge has diminished considerably. We've been using it in almost every dinner for the past two weeks; steamed, in salads and cole slaw and in my mom's delicious HEARTY STIR FRY.

Her recipe easily makes enough to feed eight hungry people. When combined the pasta, cabbage, apples, sausage and cheese barely fit in the largest pot we have in our kitchen. Despite the fact Keizo ate three ample servings, we still had to split the leftovers between two different Tupperware containers. Fortunately, it's just as good reheated as it was the first time around. Thanks for the recipe Mom!

Let's Baking!

Confoundingly for a blog with betsu bara in the title, there is nary a dessert entry to be found. Let's change that.

First though, I want to brag about the microwave. The microwave not only changes to an oven at the touch of a button, it gets use almost daily as our toaster. Just turn the nob to #12, which is the toast setting and then with another twist, input the number of slices you wish to have toasted. Yeah, you have to manually flip the bread over if you want both sides golden brown, but it seems like a small price to pay. There is a drink button and a magical "warming" button that with one push heats whatever you have placed inside to a steamy 70 degrees Celsius! Japanese technology can be truly wonderful.

But what about Japanese desserts? Not too shabby, especially if you like sweetened azuki bean paste and matcha. I like both just fine, but don't really ever crave either after a meal. Usually I am a chocolate or don't even bother kind of girl, but neither of the following have any chocolate in them. Instead they are autumn inspired, SWEET PUMPKIN COOKIES from Muji, and GINGER PEAR TARTS which I concocted with a nashi that was way too mushy to eat.

The pumpkin cookies came from a box of mix I bought at Muji. They looked so cute on the box I couldn't resist. They turned out to be one of the more challenging mixes I have ever put together (Betty Crocker and I go way back too!) The dough was really sticky and not so conducive to rolling into pumpkin shapes, but Keizo did the best he could. Then brushing them with egg whites and not getting the egg white all over the baking sheet was another challenge. I ended up with a bunch of nice crusted on egg whites at the end. Lovely. The cookies were good, very dense, and cute to look at, even if they were a bit lumpy.

If you have read this far, there should be no doubt in your mind that Keizo and I love food. Our fridge is quite full at the moment, although not quite as full as it was right after our trip to Costco and upon the receipt of the generous farm box from his parents. Sometimes though we have more than even we can handle. Such was the case with a nashi (Asian pear) that was left over from shopping more than a week ago. It got a little lost in the shuffle and by the time I got it out to slice up for breakfast on Tuesday, it was pretty mealy. Not wanting to waste it (fruit in Japan is not cheap!) I thought it would be perfect to add to some kind of pastry crust. With Keizo at work and it pouring rain outside, I wanted to make do with what I had on hand. So I found a recipe for "Kart Wheels" (jam tarts) in my Gold Medal Flour Alpha-Bakery Children's Cookbook(copyright 1987!) and looked at allrecipes.com for some kind of pear pie filling. Since I only had one mushy pear, cutting the recipe down to size was a bit of challenge, so I used it as more of a guide. And while the end result was awfully pale, they won high praises from Keizo and were utterly delicious hot with vanilla ice cream.

Warm from the inside

Some days just call for soup and last Friday was definitely one of them. When Keizo got home from work, we bundled ourselves up against the strong wind and went to check out the local library. It's not very big, but they have a huge shelf of cook books, a large picture book section (just about my Japanese level) and even a tiny shelf of English language books, ranging from travel guides to novels. Perhaps most importantly, they also have central heating. We spent over an hour browsing and left with a nice stack of reading material and rumbly tummies. Who can look at cook books and not get hungry?

Given the weather, we decided a warm, hearty meal was in order. We selected a recipe from one of the new borrowed books "3 Step Cooking" and headed to the grocery store. Although the book is written by a Japanese woman, who writes under the pseudonym "Yummy-san" it features recipes inspired by different international cuisines. She must live in Tokyo, near a nice import store, because some of the ingredients proved a bit hard to find in our "local" grocery store. For example, we couldn't find a can of garbanzo beans and had to make do with two plastic packs of mixed beans; nor could we locate a bag of "Oriental" style frozen veggies, so we bought the "Japanese" style ones. Thankfully the taste did not suffer from our substitutions and we ended up with a steaming pot of delicious minestrone soup in under 15 minutes.

Sprinkled with some parmesan cheese and served with two slices of reheated Costco pizza (featuring real melting Mozzarella and basil leaves!) it was a fabulous way to heat up after having the wind cut through all every single layer of clothing. Thanks "Yummy-san!"

If you are interested, you can see "Yummy-san's" blog here.

Words are not enough

To describe my level of excitement upon coming across a recipe that contained two of my favorite ingredients in one, very oshare (fashionable, mod) dish. In fact, one of the ingredients was the dish. How amazing is that!!

Kabocha and avocado both reside near the very top of my all time favorite fruit/vegetable list. Both can be eaten alone or make tasty additions to a variety of meals. Kabocha goes into soups, pastas and curries; and avocado is a great accent for salads, Mexican food and of course, sandwiches! But I hadn't ever really thought of combining the two until Keizo and I ran across this beautiful blog and its recipe for BAKED KABOCHA WITH CREAMY AVOCADO SALMON FILLING (my own loose translation of the Japanese) The moment I saw it, there was no doubt about what we would be having for dinner.

Assembling the meal was pretty simple actually, using our microwave/oven. We pre-cooked the kabocha, were about to cut a hole in the top when the bottom collapsed, so we flipped it over and hollowed out the inside. We added the filling, which was avocado, salmon flakes and some mayonnaise and topped it all with Gouda chesse and put it back in the oven to broil. Rice and hakusai salad (one down, about 1/2 of the other to go at the time of this post) formed the rest of the meal and we sat down to eat.

Straight from the oven, the baked kabocha was delicious and the filling was super rich. We weren't able to finish it all, and sadly the leftovers didn't hold up very well. Probably won't make this one again any time soon: I still love kabocha and avocados, but it seems there is a good reason they don't usually appear in recipes together.

Omuraisu

One rare day last week I actually turned on the rice cooker around 11 so we had lunch during the noon hour! After remembering to start the rice ahead of time, the second hardest part of this omuraisu recipe is getting the thin egg crepe out of the pan and onto a plate, not the floor. Using the recommended heaping tablespoon of butter the first one came out beautifully, and is pictured below. Thinking the non-stick pan would be all ready to go for the second one, I didn't add a second round of butter. There was no photo shoot for the second one, but it made for a tasty mid-day meal just the same.

One is the loneliest number

Except when you are an ex-vegetarian with a carnivorous boyfriend who is out of town!! Keizo played a game in Osaka last weekend, leaving me to enjoy some meatless meals by myself. My general rule when cooking for one is not to make anything too complicated. So I didn't.

I went to the store to pick up some salad fixings and instant soup. After I finished paying at the main register, I noticed that the bakery at the front of the store was getting ready to close for the night and all the bread was 50% off. Bread in Japan is usually of the very white and squishy variety, but this bakery had some interesting looking rolls for sale. I bought a "Naan Pizza" bread and a miniature garlic baguette.

Back in the kitchen, I washed the veggies, toasted some garlic bread and added hot water to my soup packet. I also cut up 1/2 a sweet potato and a remaining chunk of kabocha from the fridge, sauteed them in olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper. Throw everything on one plate (when cooking for one, you never want to use more dishes than you absolutely have to) and cha-ching, a lovely dinner for one.

The garlic baguette really made the meal, crispy and perfect for dipping in the corn soup.

No passport required

To cook food from other countries! A few weeks ago, Keizo and I "left" Japan for a brief tour of its neighbors to the west. We had onion chijimi, which is a soft, egg and flour based pancake from Korea, eaten hot and dipped in sesame sauce with steamy Chinese style fried rice on the side.

Keizo is an expert at fried rice (a.k.a. yakimeshi or chahan), deftly scrambling the egg and adding just enough soy sauce to give it flavor without it becoming unbearably salty. He also added a can of tuna to this batch, at which point I sort of scrunched up my face, but he said it would be good and it was. In the end, I was more than happy with my role of table setter.

Totally terrific tajine!!

Who knows what a tajine cooker is? I must admit I did not, until Keizo was telling me about it over Skype one evening before I moved in with him. He was very excited--he'd just bought it at Lumiere (Japanese store with almost everything at a low prices) and it made cooking for one a breeze! I smiled and nodded, asking what he ate. For the next few days, the answer was always some combination of meat and vegetables that he just put into his cooker raw and ta-da! ate fully cooked only minutes later. Finally I asked him to show me this amazing kitchen addition.

It's a two piece ceramic dish that is brilliantly engineered to steam food to perfection over a gas range or in the microwave. Originally from Morocco, they are a popular in Japan, maybe because a whole meal can be cooked in one dish, over one flame, in your tiny one room apartment. Regardless, our first tajine supper converted me on the spot.

VEGETABLES AND SALMON IN MISO BROTH. Keizo found the recipe in Japanese on the internet. I really hoped he bookmarked it because it was beyond good. The veggies were not overdone and the fish stayed moist. It probably helped that we bought it literally minutes before. Menu planning is not something we practice at the moment. Generally dinner comes about rather last minute, involves a trip to the store for fresh ingredients and the sort of impulse buys one only makes when hungry, with a sit down time much closer to 8PM than 7PM. For now it sort of works, and in this instance, it was great success!

The second tajine dinner was also a result of last minute meal planning and while good, didn't quite match up to the first. SHOGAYAKI and HAKUSAI with PONZU DIPPING SAUCE translated means ginger pork and Chinese cabbage with a soy sauce vinegar sauce. Too many words. This probably would have been a bit more successful had I grated, rather than just chopped the ginger and put it between every layer in the tajine cooker, instead of just over the meat as directed in the recipe.

For the recipe, I only used about 5 leaves from the giant Chinese cabbage we bought from the farm stand in the supermarket for a mere 200 yen. There are probably about 30 more leaves left on that one, and as if we didn't have enough, Keizo's thoughtful parents sent us a huge cooler box of produce from their garden today, which includes another one of even greater size and a regular cabbage the size of a large dinner plate. Time to get creative I guess!

Tried and true

I doubt even celebrity TV chefs can make gourmet meals day in and day out. So considering my non-TV chef status and the frequency that I have been cooking lately (lunch and dinner, several days a week) it's not a surprise I have fallen back on some easy favorites.

First up is TACOS RICE! Tacos rice and I first fell in love during a vacation in Okinawa during my first stint in Japan. Steamy white rice, smothered with taco meat, lettuce, tomatoes, cheese and salsa. Eating is believing. Of course it helped that I hadn't eaten real Mexican food for months prior to my introduction to tacos rice. But even after a year back in Arizona, I still think tacos rice is legit. Which is why it appeared on the table during a recent lunch hour.

And second, the ever popular KARE RAISU! Or in plain English, curry rice. I had no idea that curry was a popular Japanese convenience food. Not that it's the same "curry" you would find in India or Thailand; for starters, its about 1,000 times milder. I like my curry with tons and tons of vegetables. And only vegetables. But since I am cooking in lieu of rent these days, I also need to satisfy Keizo's dietary needs, so I believe I put some pork in this batch. Whatever was left over from dinner the night before. Plus carrots, onion, kabocha (Japanese pumpkin,) potatoes and some eggplant. Keizo made the salad, which is spinach with frozen mixed veggies and apple slices with a lemon shiso dressing. Oishikatta! (It was delicious)

What the in world is a betsu bara?

"Betsu bara" is a Japanese expression that translates literally to "separate stomach." It is usually used to refer to a person who after eating a large meal still has room for dessert. For those who know me well, it should come as no surprise that this is one of my favorite Japanese expressions.

My betsu bara plays by the rules (i.e. always space for something sweet after a meal) but my boyfriend Keizo's betsu bara is more of a free spirit, engulfing anything from cake and ice cream to several extra helpings of curry and rice. If I worked out for a living (he's a professional rugby player) I would probably do the same. But since I don't, his stomach capacity never ceases to amaze me.

Food and eating play a large role in our relationship. Since meeting in 2008 we have both tried new cuisines and honed our culinary skills--first in my kitchen with nearly zero counter space and now in his where the slightly larger work surface takes up any floorspace that could be used by a second chef. Despite the odds (food related and otherwise), we have turned out some delicious meals. There is little doubt in my mind that food tastes better when shared, so this blog is for sharing our delicious victories and maybe even a few comical failures.

Here's to continuing the adventure!!