Category: Food

Saturday was the Treyarch Summer Party. I thought it was strange to be having a summer party when it was still spring… The party was held in Malibu on a private beach. It took forever to get there. There was traffic in Torrance because of the Armed Forces Day Parade so it took a while for me to get to my sister’s house. There was also traffic along PCH. I think it took almost 2 hours to get there. I think it was well worth it as the view from the location was awesome.

There were also strange things that washed up upon the beach…

On Sunday, I finally prepared umeshu. It should be ready in about 6 months. The ume smelled very nice. The reason for the different colored ume is because my dad bought more. Good thing, I was short some plums.

Last night, I made poke tuna. I bought the poke mix and a pound of ahi tuna from Pacific Marukai. A pound of tuna is a lot. Luckily, I managed to catch my dad in time from making ramen. When my mom came home from work, I rushed downstairs to tell her that there was a poke tuna.

There was still some left over, so I ate it for breakfast. :9 Along with natto, rice, umeboshi, and green tea. I was gonna go without rice, but I looked at the tuna and the natto and I thought, this is wrong. Raw tuna and natto totally need rice. And rice needs umeboshi.

I also bought a new bicycle basket, sent off COD4 to my friend in Washington, bought more potting dirt, and I finally got to eat a beard papa cream puff yesterday.

Another recipe from my current favorite magazine, Kyou no Ryouri. From the same issue as the warm apple milk drink (right above, too!). I made it to eat tomorrow for dinner.

A slight jump in fooding topics…

For my actual dinner, I had left overs from several dinners, so I mixed them together to create…. a not too shabby leftover meal (sort of like fried rice, but better). I mixed daikon no soboroni and some sausage tomatoe sauce together to make…. Daikon no soboroni no sausage spaghetti! Ta~da! Seriously, it’s not bad tasting! I would take a picture, but I ate it before the thought crossed my mind….

Back to the original topic!

So tonight, I made chawan mushi. Unagi no Oda Maki Mushi (うなぎの小田巻き蒸し)to be exact. It contains udon noodles, unagi, and milk… A bit unusual, in my opinion. I’m used to having shrimp and shiitake as the main ingredients. I don’t think chawan mushis normally call for milk, too… It was simple to make, and as usual, it took longer than the touted 20 minutes. A slight problem I ran into, I only had 3 bowls. >_<;; I need 4. So I made 2 today, and I’m going to eat one tomorrow and then make the last one once I wash the bowl. I had a taste of the first one… Lightly flavored, pretty tasty.

Unagi no Oda Maki Mushi
Makes 4

1 Broiled Unagi (100g)
20g Mitsuba stems
400g Boiled Udon
Egg Base
2-1/4 cups Milk
3 Eggs
1-1/2 tsp Lightly Flavored Soy Sauce
1 tbs Sake
2/3 tsp salt
Mitsuba leaves

Estimated 320 kcal
Time 20 minutes

1.) Mix the egg base well. Use a strainer to break down the egg. Cut the mitsuba stems into 2 cm pieces. Cut the unagi into bite side pieces.
2.) Place the udon, unagi, and mitsuba stems into the chawan mushi bowl. Pour egg base into bowl. Make sure you use a large enough pot and pour 3 cm of water into it. Turn on the heat.
3.) Once the water boils, carefully put in the chawan mushi bowl into the pot. Place lid on top, lower heat to about medium flame for 2 minutes. Using a low flame, cook for another 6 minutes. Make sure to check on it once in a while. Once done, place mitsuba leaves on top.

I came across a recipe for warm apple milk in the January 2008 issue of Kyou no Ryouri. What attracted me to it was the ingredient mirin. Normally, I don’t associate mirin with sweets. Yes, mirin is sweet, but I’ve never seen it being used in anything other than entree type dishes. The recipe seemed simple enough, so I decided to try it out.

It was relatively easy to make (aside from the peeling the apple part). I peeled the entire apple before slicing into quarters. I should have sliced it into quarters first and then peeled the skin off. Aside from that, I had no problems. I should have used a strainer when I was sprinkling the cinnamon on top though. The cinnamon powder kinda clumped together. Still, it was very delicious. ^_^.v

Warm Apple Milk
Kyou no Ryouri January 2008

Ingredients (Makes 4)
1/4 Apple
3 cups Milk
120mL Mirin
Cinnamon
Corn Starch

1.) Peel peel and cut apple into thin rectangular slices.
2.) Put apple and mirin into a pot. Heat on low for about 3 to 4 minutes.
3.) Mix 2 tbs of corn starch to the milk in a separate bowl. Add milk to the pot and cook on medium heat. Mix with a rubber spatula until it thickens.
4.) Pour into cups, sprinkle cinnamon as desired.

Estimated 190kcal
Time 10 minutes.

February issue of Kyou no Ryouri had a recipe for daikon no soboroni. It looked simple enough. It said time to cook was 15 minutes. Well, it lied. It took me 1 hour. Also, I don’t know how to convert metric to imperial and vice versa. I guessed on the amount of meat needed (1 package) and the amount of daikon (1/4 of what I bought). I’ll have to memorize the weight conversion numbers. Maybe invest in a small food scale soon, too.

Daikon no Soboro-Ni

Ingredients
– 1/4 Daikon (~200g)
– 150g Ground Beef
– 1 cup Dashi (goes into sauce A)
– 3 tbs Sugar (goes into sauce A)
– 2 tbs Soy Sauce (goes into sauce A)
– Sansho pepper (powdered Japanese pepper)
– Sesame Oil
– Soy Sauce

Mix together ingredients from sauce A into one. Set aside.

1.) Peel and cut daikon into rectangular blocks about 7~8mm wide and 3~4cm long.
2.) In a frying pan, heat about 2 tbs of sesame oil and cook the ground beef. When the beef is throughly cooked, add 1 tbs of soy sauce and lower flame to about medium low.
3.) Add the daikon and cook. Add sauce A. On medium low heat, cook for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, lower heat and cook until the juices have boiled away.
4.) Once done, place into dishes and sprinkle sanshou.

About 190 kcal per serving.
Time 15 minutes. (Lies! )
Serves 4.

Mitsuwa was having an anniversary event this weekend. Yesterday, I ate eggplant and meat sauce spaghetti from Italian Tomato. I didn’t know there was okonomiyaki, mitarashii dango, and ramen until after I ordered. So I made a beeline for my pasta dream.

Today, I went for the okonomiyaki. I think I waited in that line for about 10 to 15 minutes. It was an OK okonomiyaki. Then I had some mitarashi dango.