Recipe Roundup - 1/2016

It's been a while since I've written about food on this blog, which at one time was all about food.

In part, I attribute this to the fact I do less cooking and have assumed more of a management role in the kitchen since Keizo moved in. I plan the menu and make a grocery list while he takes care of the shopping and a lot of the prep work. This doesn't always work out quite as planned as he's much more of a free spirit in the kitchen, using recipes (or a photo) as inspiration, and then making things up as he goes along. While I wasn't particularly thrilled when he substituted black beans for lentils in a curry recipe, at least he's been experimenting in the kitchen long enough to make completely edible, and usually pretty tasty dishes.

Recipes were followed pretty closely for each of the standout meals from January, including taco/margarita night, a flavorful deep dish pizza, a creamy pasta dish and some homestyle Japanese cooking.

Shrimp Tacos - Another winner from Real Simple. Keizo made the filling, and I assembled the avocado creme and made a quick salsa from some odds and ends we had on hand: onions, bell pepper, lime juice and thawed pineapple chunks. The margaritas were basic, but oh so tasty after a busy week at work.

Moroccan Spiced Deep Dish Pizza - I bought Keizo a cast iron skillet for Christmas, and it quickly became a prominent player in our kitchen. This was our first ever attempt at deep dish pizza as well as the first time we used the skillet in the oven. The flavors in this recipe are intense and rather different from what we usually cook, but really my only complaint was how chewy the dough turned out.

Salmon and Lemon Bucatini - Back in December, friends gave us a code for a free Blue Apron delivery, and we ended up using the service for the rest of the month. This was one of the recipes we really liked, and decided to buy our own ingredients to make it again. The dish is tasty, comes together quickly, and hits all of the major food groups - what's not to like? We found this to be true of about half of the recipes from Blue Apron. We also got to try some new foods, cooking techniques and only shopped for breakfast and lunch staples. On the other hand, with the two-person option there were never any leftovers, and the pre-portioned ingredients arrived in a ton of packaging. We paused our deliveries through the end of January, but we're thinking about trying it again, maybe one week a month for new ideas.

Nikujaga - Literally "meat and potatoes" in Japanese, nikujaga is a simple, yet oh so tasty dish that really banishes the winter cold. Keizo mastered this meal, serving the nikujaga, miso soup, salad, and pickled daikon the traditional way on different plates. Maybe I can get used to this new management role after all ;-)

New Recipes: July

Hello August! (I started this post August 1st, but wonky internet and my brain going in a bajillion different directions turned it into a two-day affair.)

I have a crazy/fun month ahead with a move and a new job starting in early September.  This has all come together in the past 72 hours, so it's still very new and despite having to be out of my cozy basement abode by August 14th, I have barely started packing!  However, before finding out about my new job, I had already made the decision to end my work with the City of Charlottesville.  My last day was Thursday, so now only things like updating the blog, finding a new place to live, and enjoying the unseasonably cool weather, are keeping me from getting things into boxes.

July was a good month for new recipes, at least at the beginning.  I exceeded my goal of four new ones, but like the blogging, the new recipes have slipped during the final weeks of work (and general life uncertainty):

Recipe 1: S'mores Brownies

I mentioned these in a previous post; any problems with the recipe were likely my fault.  I am holding onto the recipe, but I am not in a rush to make it again.  There are too many other delicious desserts out there!


Recipe 2: Zucchini Fritters

While I was looking forward to this recipe, the fritters were not one of my favorite uses of zucchini this summer.  I don't think I got  enough moisture out of the zucchini shreds, so my fritters were a bit soggy in the middle.  I tried dressing them up with some plain Greek yogurt, but I found I liked them better plain.


Recipe 3: Summer Veggie Potato Salad

This is a different take on potato salad sans mayo, but don't worry, the olive oil/balsamic dressing has calories a plenty.  I found the dressing to potatoes ratio a bit high, and by the time I got through my leftovers, the last servings were pretty soggy.  Otherwise, this recipe is fresh and summery.


Recipe 4/5: Roasted Vegetable & Ricotta Pizza on Quick & Easy Pizza Crust

This pizza was delicious!  The dough was quite tasty and had good texture without much effort on my part; I am thinking of making it again this week to use up some flour and other ingredients I don't want to move.


Recipe 6: Mini-White Bean Burgers

These are the best veggie burgers I have ever made!  Granted, this is only the second time I can recall trying to make my own, but these didn't require a food processor, held together really well and were quite tasty. 

I am glad I got in so many new recipes in July.  For the next week, I am going to be cleaning out the pantry which doesn't bode well  for recipes requiring new ingredients, or complete meals for that matter.  It's also harder to cook with pots and pans in boxes.  The next "new recipes" post might have to wait until the end of September...

Meals of March

Well, selected meals from the crazy month of March.  Note the two place settings!

Welcome to Charlottesville, VA, a medium sized town with enough restaurants to seat the entire population at once! Let's stay in and eat some chili...

with some gorgeous corn muffins on the side!

Keizo and I ate a lot of kale chips while he was here.  Wash kale, tear from stems, place on baking sheet, drizzle with 1 Tbsp olive oil, coarse salt and pepper.  Bake/broil for about 10 minutes, mixing once until saku saku (light and crispy).

Homemade pizza on no-rise whole wheat dough.  This stuff sticks to your ribs.

Banana/coconut/PB chip pancakes.  Difficult to flip over, unbelievably easy to eat.

Teriyaki fish, buttered rice, leftover pasta and spinach salad with yogurt-y dressing, broccoli, nectarine and Craisins.

Poorly photographed fried egg sandwich, one of several that were consumed.  One of the Saturdays I had to be at school, Keizo and my housemate drove out to Polyface Farm and returned with eggs and breakfast sausages.  The eggs did seem "firmer" than the ones from the grocery store, but were the same pale yellow color.  Taste also seemed about the same.

*****

Since he was in C-ville for goodness sakes, we did have to eat out occasionally.

The gelato sampler at Splendora's.  I will have to show immense restraint not to order this just for myself the next time I go there.  Clockwise from top: mint, coconut, mango, tiramisu, and hazelnut, with a scoop of Guiness in the middle (it was St. Patrick's Day after all!)

Blue Mountain Brewery's nine beer sampler, enjoyed on the patio at sunset after an afternoon of hiking.  It was as amazing as it sounds.  I hope to repeat several times this summer.

Historic Michie Tavern's endless Southern buffet!  The stewed tomatoes were my favorite part, although that isn't to say didn't also get seconds of the BBQ pork and buttery biscuits.  If you go, I highly recommend fasting both before and after.

Tabemono

Homemade Loco Moco.  Keizo makes a mean fried egg.

Mac-Do's "Grand Canyon Burger" for him.  

100 yen milkshake for her (the perfect snack size!)

Naoko sensei's ozoni, aka New Year's Soup.

Naoko-sensei's Apple Crumble a la mode.

Okonomiyaki patty from food stand near Miyajidake Shrine.

Keizo also makes a mean gin tonic. 

Frozen pizza is way cheaper than delivery and is sans squid, mayo and corn.

Budget gurume! 

Garlic-chili pasta sauce from the 100 yen shop served with salad.

 Tonkotsu ramen at Ippudo, a Fukuoka institution.  

Perhaps the one good thing about Japanese winter.

Cheesecake crepe from swanky sweets shop.  

Arigatou Hannah-chan!

The stash I brought back, which will not last nearly long enough.

Dining Hall at Home

Apparently there is something about Wednesdays that makes me feel the urge to cook. Tonight I was inspired by 3 days of cloudy, wet weather and an ongoing hankering for pizza. And fries. A typical student meal, except without a meal plan I get to make them myself.

I only used 1 of the suggested 4 sweet potatoes the recipe called for and neglected to modify the other ingredients, so these were oilier than they should have been. Not exactly crispy either. Next time I might try them in a frying pan instead of the oven.

I made my own yeast-less pizza dough with this recipe. On this one I remembered to halve all of the ingredients. I had a nice round base all spread out on the cutting board, but when I tried to transfer it to the pan, it ended up looking like this:

I covered it with these...

...starting with a layer of pesto and meatless crumbles.

The was a slight mishap with a sliding hot mitt as I was removing the pizza from the oven, making it look even wonkier than it already was, so there is no photo of the final product save for the slices on my plate below (note the missing cheese on left piece.)

Cheeseless...so sad. Also sad is the fact that I unwittingly bought low fat feta cheese at the store and it tastes nothing like the full fat version and doesn't really melt either. At least this meal used up a fair amount of the container.

Mmmmmm fries. Thankfully it would take something much worse than failing to calibrate a recipe properly to make sweet potatoes taste bad.

And now that dinner has been cooked, eaten and cleaned up after, it's back to school work. Ugh, there have already been a few days where I can't believe I signed up for this willingly!!

Pizza Party!

Two's company, but three is a party!! And what do you serve at a party? Why, pizza of course!

One Saturday, Keizo and I made a quick trip to Costco, which is barely 10 minutes from my parents' house. As I pulled into the parking lot, he uttered an amazed "We're here already?" The Costco in Japan is about 30 minutes from his apartment, making it a rather inconvenient place to pick up just one or two things.

We stocked up on some household staples and grabbed a plain cheese take and bake pizza. When we got home, we got started assembling the toppings bar; we had spinach, sausage, bell peppers, sun dried tomatoes, olives, onions and mushrooms!

We also picked up some wine, and since we were at my parents' house, there were actual wine glasses to drink from!

One of my best friends from high school joined us for dinner and we got started decorating our own pieces of pizza. Then we popped the whole tray in the oven at 400 F for about 10 minutes and we were ready to eat.

Jenny and I showing off our mad pizza decorating skills on round 2.

After dinner, we were joined by Jenny's husband and we brought out the board games. First we played Jenga, then moved onto Pictionary, which provided us with hours of entertainment. I don't think they left until after 12. I really hope we'll all get a chance to do it again...just not quite sure when that will be.

Balance

Even though I am just a spectator, I find Keizo's rugby games exhausting. The game itself is 80 minutes long, plus a 10-15 minute half time. Getting to the ground isn't hard, but requires a walk to the station, a train ride, transferring to the subway and then taking a bus, which takes about an hour and a half each way.

Last week, it was particularly cold with intermittent snow flurries (See giant thermometer!) Keizo's team won though, and my friend Hannah I spent an hour in Starbucks afterwards to regain feeling in our fingers and toes, making 90 minutes on the freezing cold bleachers much less painful.

When I finally made my way back to the apartment, neither Keizo nor I really felt like leaving again to pick up dinner supplies. So we called "Pizza California" and had them deliver two medium (American small) pizzas and some nice, hot and greasy tater tots on the side and plopped ourselves in front of the TV for the evening.

Teriyaki chicken pizza on the top, and Italian sausage on the bottom.

After spending Sunday night in all out couch potato mode, Monday's dinner needed to be something a bit more nutritious. We focused on vegetables and made eggplant champuru when we couldn't find goya (bitter melon) and put some sweet potatoes in the tajine cooker with a little bit of butter. The eggplant turned the rest of the champuru ingredients (tofu, pork and scrambled eggs) a bluish tint, but it still tasted good was a complete 180 from the night before.

Mochi Madness Pumpkin Party

If your freezer looks like this...

...and there's a darling kabocha hibernating in the spare room...

...what in the world should you make for dinner?

I am so glad you asked. The frozen mochi (pounded rice cakes) is but a fraction of the total amount we have received from Keizo's generous parents. I like mochi; but not having grown up eating it, I really don't know what to do with it. We had some toasted with soy sauce the other night for dinner instead of rice and it was okay, but we really needed a recipe that would help us use up a chunk of it. And thanks to the Internet, we found one!

Mochi pizza! While Keizo sliced up some potatoes to mix with the softened mochi to form the "crust" I got started cutting up the kabocha for a side of pumpkin soup. After "roasting" it in the microwave, I scraped the flesh from the skin into the blender and blended it with chicken stock, poured the mixture into a pot, added fresh cream, nutmeg and some rosemary and voila!

Keizo assembles the pizza in the fry pan--much faster than waiting for the oven to heat up!

Soup and pizza just before we get ready to demolish them.

The pizza up close. I insisted on canned pineapple and ham as the toppings of the evening.

The pumpkin soup recipe made a whole pot full, so I got to enjoy it for several meals, including lunch with a side of cheesy garlic toast.

I think we will definitely be making both of these again as they were warm, delicious and there is still a bunch of mochi in the freezer.

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.