Bat's TPLO surgery

Oh dear.
I have the more complete photo album on my facebook.

Home after the holidays

I got home from Michigan, and have been running ever since. Bat went in for TPLO surgery today, and is coming back tomorrow a bionic dog with a bone plate and several screws holding his knee together. 8 weeks of recovery... yikes.
Given the busy-ness, I've only been able to throw together two quick meals. Here's dinner last night, salmon I made and some sashimi my husband bought.



As well as miso, rice, and daikon pickles, I also served broccoli stir-fried with ochagara (leftover green tea leaves). It wasn't the best, but I actually think if I make the ochagara I've been eating in the morning, that would make a good stir-fry for broccoli or other green vegetables. I'm going to try it, maybe tomorrow?
Tonight I made a minced pork sauce that I put on top of simmered daikon. I topped it with chopped scallions and daikon sprouts. It was pretty good-my husband went back for seconds, which is always a good indication.
I liked it. I think I may make this again at some point.

I was planning to make abura-age (fried tofu) broiled with cheese, but when I got out our abura-age it was covered in a brilliant variety of molds. I'd already gotten everything else prepared, so I served the cheese with chopped scallions and stewed prunes. It was actually quite good. The cheese and onion combo went over very well, although my husband didn't care for the prunes. American prunes are kind of tough, on top of which I used very, very cheap red wine to simmer them.

In which I learn several important lessons

What a day!
I went downtown at around 11, and went to a few stores--didn't get anything, though. I then met my husband at 2:30--we did some things at his work, and then we went grocery shopping. We went to four different stores, and it started snowing again as we were running around. The end result was we were stuck in traffic for three hours and my dog was home alone without a potty break for almost nine hours. I felt horrible.
I'm quite tired right now, but I wanted to share last night's meal, as well as tonight.
Last night I attempted "Nanban chicken," which literally means "Southern Barbarian Chicken." "Southern Barbarian" is a no-longer-very-politically correct way to refer to Westerners, specifically the Dutch. This recipe, therefore, was an adaptation of Dutch cooking to suit Japanese tastes.
You'd think, being a Barbarian myself, I would be particularly good at making this dish. Not so. It was not quite so good as I expected--I knew it would be spicy, but I didn't realize it was so horribly spicy. Also, I had to improvise a bit, because I didn't read the recipe through to the end, so I missed the part that said "Marinate for 24 hours before cooking" until 15 minutes before I threw everything in the pan. A certain amount of compromise was involved in my Barbarian chicken, therefore, and I carry away from it lessons about reading more carefully and perhaps reducing the amount of spice if I suspect the recipe veers into the sadistic.
It looks nice, though, doesn't it?
The nanban chicken, the leftover kenchin-jiru and hakusai-ume pickles, the last of the leftover kuri-kinton, some hijiki salad, our rice, and some pickled gobo. Oh, and some tororo. Mmm, tororo never gets old.
The pickled gobo. We bought them, I didn't make them.
And the nanban chicken. It looks benign, doesn't it? Pretty, even. And yet, it nearly choked me.
Tonight, after our adventures in Chicago traffic, we had sushi and sashimi. We were home so late, I simply heated up the last of the leftover kenchin-jiru and put the hijiki on the table in its tupperware container.
The sushi. It was delicious.
And our sashimi! We were late getting to the store, but we still got a nice piece of yellowtail, some salmon, and some chutoro. It was heavenly, just what we needed after such a rough afternoon.

Apparently one of my friends actually reads my blog, because when she came over for tea this afternoon she came bearing macarons. I need more friends like this. These are also from Bonjour, our neighborhood French patisserie, and they were delicious again. Better than yesterday, even.



My husband went to work out while I was preparing dinner tonight. I'd gone for two hours this morning, so I didn't join him. As I was cutting up the gobo, I heard him come home, and a second later I heard him yelling for me from the door.
He's torn a muscle in his right calf. It's seriously grotesquely swollen, just looking at it. The poor guy is hobbling around our apartment on crutches, and I'm wondering how he's going to fare on his own when I go visit my parents next week.
He pointed out this means I'm the only healthy one in the house: he's torn his right calf muscle, and the dog has a torn left knee ligament. The dog has surgery scheduled for Dec. 29, just in time for New Year's. I hope my husband is better before then...
Anyway. After making him an ice packet and getting him to sit down, I went back and finished dinner. I had thought since we'd both been so good with working out lately we could afford to have a little bit of fried food. That was a mistake, since he won't be working out for awhile, but it was too late.
Tonight, therefore, we had fried renkon (lotus root) and gobo (burdock) with matcha salt, chicken with a matcha-mayonnaise sauce, a new batch of kenchin-jiru soup (the tofu fell apart today, ugh), and our usual rice and ume-hakusai pickles. Yes, tonight's theme was matcha. I'm on a tea kick lately, as you might have guessed from my ocha-gara consumption.
The mayonnaise recipe came from a new book I got today, that I think I'm going to use quite often. The author gave a recipe for the chicken, too, but I didn't quite want to do that. I followed a basic Japanese recipe for the "shita-aji," or base flavor, of chicken, and used the matcha-mayonnaise as a flavor on top of that. I think it worked reasonably well.
My basic shita-aji recipe for chicken is a liberal dash of sake, some peeled and sliced ginger, and some naganegi (leek). Just marinate it, or cook it up and add a sauce. It's worked for me fairly consistently.
Although I clearly need to work on my decorative drizzling of sauce.
The renkon and gobo chips. They were DELICIOUS--much better than potato chips--but I'd imagine equally bad for you. Also, the "paper-thin" cutting made me realize how much we truly need a mandoline in our kitchen.
Below, more renkon than gobo...
And more gobo than renkon. Oh, they were so good. But terrible for you, I'm sure.
I thought the gobo was so cool and pretty fried like this.

For breakfast this morning, more ochagara! I need to try a new recipe, but this one is so nice and so easy I've been sticking with it. Maybe tomorrow I'll try something new.
There's a wonderful French bakery near my house. I love everything they make. Lately, I've developed an intense interest in macarons, despite the fact I'd never eaten one. I'm talking about the real, French macarons. I saw a picture of them, and they're so beautiful. I think I have the same fascination with them that I have with jelly: the color and beauty of the food as well as its deliciousness. Anyway, I started reading up on macarons, and learned where to get the best macarons in the world: either Paris or Tokyo. So I've already made plans to visit the shop next time I'm in Japan.
But when I met my friend for coffee this afternoon, and I saw our local French bakery had macarons, I had to try them. They were quite tiny, maybe a bit bigger than a quarter, but they were delicious. I had vanilla, coffee, chocolate, and raspberry flavors. I liked the chocolate and the raspberry best. These were taken with my phone, but you get the idea.

We stayed so long I ended up getting two more: another raspberry and a lemon. Not bad. I can't wait to try them in Japan.
Dinner tonight--we had salmon. The preparation was such fun, and I'd not done it before, so I took a picture of our fish as I made it. The recipes for tonight came out of Elizabeth Andoh's book Washoku, which a friend gave me. I'm so glad he did, because I probably wouldn't have bought it myself, but I love it. It's gorgeous as well as full of great recipes.
Tonight I made miso-yaki (grilled) salmon. A lot of Japanese recipes call for wrapping fish or other things in cloth for a variety of different reasons--to clean the fish, or dip them, or, in this case, to marinate them. I felt like I was wasting paper towels, and paper towels didn't work when I needed to wrap the fish and dip them, so I made a few plain white cloth bags. They're stunningly handy. I explode ginnan or kuri in my microwave in them, I marinate or wash my fish in them, I dip my kaki or tomatoes to peel them. I use them often. Tonight, I put the salmon in the bag and painted them with my miso marinade.

And the finished product! Tonight we had the miso-yaki with kenchin-jiru topped with green onions (shiitake, lotus root, tofu and daikon soup). Also from Elizabeth Andoh's book. The flavor was a bit weak, but it was still delicious. And full of great veggies! I also served hijiki salad, ume-hakusai pickles, spicy gobo pickles, and rice.
I think this fish is so beautiful. Just a bit charred on the edges, and perfectly done inside. I felt like it might have been better with a slightly thicker cut of fish, but it was still delicious. And fun and easy!
My husband's piece of fish, just because I just love the way they look.
And the soup.
The gobo-hijiki-carrot salad. If I go too long without eating hijiki, I start craving not only it, but also red meat. Hijiki is high in both iron and calcium, and so it makes sense that without it I get cravings for red meat, which isn't healthy. I made a pretty large pot tonight, so we should be good with the hijiki for awhile!
The hakusai-ume pickles, just for good measure.
And one more.

Two meals today--dinner from two days ago and tonight. Last night we had some friends over for dinner, and we made chicken meatball nabe. It was great, but we had such fun I didn't even really think to take pictures. It was super, super delicious, though. I'm sure we'll have nabe again over the winter, and I'll take pictures then.
To return to the meals I do have pictures of: last night we had tori no tsukimi mushi again--steamed moon-viewing chicken. It was quick, and I think it was better this time than last--maybe I can do chawan mushi soon! I also made a lotus-root stir-fry, and a moyashi salad (bean sprout). We also had our usual ume-hakusai pickles, rice, and miso soup.

The lotus root stir-fry. It's got a bit of lemon in it, which I love but my husband dislikes. He suggested I maybe make it for lunch while he's at work in the future.
The moyashi salad. It isn't super-good; in fact, it's a bit soggy, but edible.
Tonight for dinner, we had aji-boshi, or a flat, slightly dried aji (mackarel). My husband grilled the fish, and the rest of our meal was leftovers. We spent the day out today, so we didn't have a lot of time to cook.
Leftover moyashi salad and kuri kinton (chestnut kinton). It's a chesnut and sweet potato dessert. I made it when my parents were here, but we have quite a bit of it leftover. It's sweet, but still pretty good for you, so I find it quite satisfying.
A coworker of my husband's also gave us some kaki (persimmons). They were getting too ripe so we had to eat them tonight as well. I peeled them by dipping them in boiling water the same way you do with tomatoes, but the peels still came off unevenly. Maybe because they were too ripe, or perhaps I dipped them too long. At any rate, I topped them with a lemon cream sauce. It was all right, but the persimmon and the lemon were a bit of a strange combination.


Chrysanthemum daikon again.

And our meal for tonight! Rice, miso with tofu, hakusai pickles, spicy gobo pickles, moyashi salad, kuri kinton, a persimmon, daikon radishes, and leftover lotus root stir-fry. Not bad at all.

茶殻 Chagara

I posted pictures from my parents' visit on my facebook, so I haven't posted here in a few days. We've also been eating leftovers, nothing very exciting to photograph.
I'm still on a kanten-kick. I'm going to be making a more conscious effort to get healthy. Seriously healthy. I am going to cut out white sugar and a good bit of fat--we'll see how this goes. I still like delicious food, so I don't think I can completely cut out fat, but we'll see.
Anyway, as part of my new quest for health, I decided to get creative and figure out how to use chagara--the leaves leftover after you make tea. I've heard of Japanese recipes for them, but I'd never eaten them or seen a recipe before. But I scoured the internet a bit today, and I got some great ideas. So I made lunch. I need to be more careful with breakfast and lunch; since my husband isn't usually home I tend to not prepare food and just eat whatever for those meals. Today, however, I made brown rice (not pictured), simmered ochagara (I used soy sauce, mirin, a blend of chili peppers, and sesame), and some salmon fragments left over from a larger fish I cut into pieces and froze. It was good, but I'm feeling just a tad tweaked from the ochagara. That might be a good thing. We'll see. If you're interested in using your own ochagara, I found this pretty fabulous site.


And a bonus for my parents: My dog loves the new rug they bought him. He's always had issues with linoleum (he's scared of it, and going across it), so my mother bought him a rug to make going from one room to another less terrifying. He's right at home on it now.

Dreams

My parents are coming to visit today, so I'm not sure I'll post pictures of food later this evening or not.
I did want to write this down for myself before I forgot it.
I mentioned yesterday I'm now on antibiotics. I'm also allergic to many, many antibiotics, and I always have to be prescribed some special, weird kind. On Monday, when my doctor was giving me the prescription, she told me these were a new kind of drug, and I shouldn't have a reaction.
"The main side effect is vivid dreams," she told me.
"What, do you mean nightmares?" I asked, slightly alarmed.
"No, no, just really vivid dreams. People have said it's really cool at first, but by the end of the week they're sick of it."
As long as they weren't nightmares, I figured they'd be fine, and I was slightly dismissive of the entire "vivid dreams related to my antibiotics" thing.
Today is Day 3 in a week of antibiotics. Last night I spent the entire night having an in-depth conversation with Tokugawa Ieyasu. Seriously.
I was on a trip with my husband, and he had to go do something, so my dog and I took a walk in the woods, when we saw Tokugawa Ieyasu hanging out at the side of the path. And so we stopped and talked to him all night long. He was very short. And he was dressed as a peasant, not in all his cool shogunal attire. But it was Tokugawa Ieyasu nonetheless.
I woke up with a start, literally gasping and sitting straight up in bed at 7 A.M., right after Tokugawa Ieyasu had vanished in my dream.
If I'm going to have vivid dreams, a Tokugawa shogun would be the last person I'd expect to show up. Can't I spend the night talking with George Harrison and John Lennon or something? Why do I dream about shoguns? What on earth does this mean?
Oh, and surprisingly, Tokugawa Ieyasu spoke modern-day, colloquial Japanese. That was nice of him, wasn't it? If he'd talked like a samurai I wouldn't have understood a word he said.
And no gym again today--parents are coming, so I had a marathon cleaning session instead. Everything is scrubbed and rubbed and shining--except for the bedroom. I've got to go do that now.

Ugh

Tonight I made curry for dinner. Curry is quite easy, you just chop up onions and carrots and chicken and throw them in a pot with the curry mix. I did not take pictures of the curry. I'm posting now pictures of dinner from last night.
I've got a sinus infection. Antibiotics take a lot out of me when I'm on them, so I let the thing go for weeks and weeks before I finally dragged myself to the doctor. Now I'm on antibiotics. For the first few days after I start them, I feel so much worse than I do even when I'm sick. But when I've spent a month waking up several times throughout the night simply because my sinuses are drowning me, there's a line that needs to be drawn.
Anyway, perhaps it's because I'm on medicine and feel sick and sensitive right now, or perhaps my husband is really is particularly critical today, but I feel like he's done nothing but complain at my cooking today. He says he can do it better. Yes, surely he could, if he did--but he DOESN'T. That's kind of key. I actually do it--if dinner was up to him, we would have udon or eggs every night. So I feel like I'm trying my best, but he's being overly critical right now. Tonight I've made watery curry, included onion skins (guilty, but I tried my best to get them all peeled off...), and wasted food because I didn't scrape the pan out very well. *sigh* I'm in a can't-do-anything-right kind of mood. It may just be the antibiotics and general lowness they cause are making me hyper-sensitive. I look forward to getting better and back in to the gym tomorrow--today vaccuuming left me lightheaded and ill.
/rant
Yesterday I made sanma (saury). I felt quite sick, and couldn't eat it, but it was fun to make. I served it with hakusai-ume pickles, spicy gobo pickles, egg drop soup, and a cucumber salad. I also ate the leftover papaya-kiwi-daikon salad, just to get rid of it.


I couldn't really eat the gobo pickles either. I made them mainly because we're having yaki-niku tomorrow when my parents come, and I think the spicy goes well with that.
I made egg drop soup because it's so nice when you're sick. And until I'm through the first three days on anti-biotics, I am "sick." It was easy and yummy, although maybe a titch too salty. I think I made it very well, however, for a first attempt.
And I also had some honey-garlic tea. I made garlic pickled in honey a week or so ago, and I'm waiting for it to finish. The honey the garlic is pickled in is ready to drink after a few days, however, and it is supposed to be excellent when you're ill. So I took a spoonful of garlic-honey and added it to hot water. It was nice, and it did make me feel a bit better. But I'm still going to bed early tonight.

Yaki-niku!!!

I had a coffee gelatin for breakfast, but I didn't photograph it. Before lunch (gyoza), I had a matcha jelly topped with kinako and ground black sesame seeds. Matcha is easily one of my favorite flavors in the world. I will eat anything matcha--ice cream, cookies, tea, salt, anything. I love it.
This was pretty good, but I actually used a bit too much matcha powder and the texture was a bit off.


Tonight for dinner? Yaki-niku. We eat beef about once a month, and we usually have either yaki-niku or nabe. Yaki-niku is kind of a production--we have tongue, rib meat, calbi, brisket, everything. We cover the kitchen with newspaper to avoid grease splatters. For the longest time, I would get down on my hands and knees and scrub everything after yaki-niku, but we realized it was easier just to spread newspaper everywhere.
Here we are getting ready to get started. My husband also bought some Korean nigori-zake to compliment the meal. It was sweet and delicious. My parents are visiting next Wednesday, so we have another bottle for their visit. We're having yaki-niku with them, as well, mainly because I figure it's a safe bet... I'm still working on getting them to appreciate sushi. I didn't really love Japanese food until I married, so I may be urging its deliciousness in vain.
The marbled meat is the calbi... mmm. More meat. No, we didn't eat it all. I'll be making niku-jaga or something similar later this week.
We started with cooking the gyutan (tongue). We ate it with salt and lemon juice, and it was very nice.
And cooking the calbi! Calbi's my favorite cut of meat we can get in America.
Turning the calbi.
Daikon and ponzu dipping sauce for the meat.
A second dipping sauce, garlic and ginger with a hint of red pepper. A favorite yaki-niku sauce. Also with daikon.
Short ribs!