I like to try and have dinner ready when my husband gets home. He works and attends class full-time (I do not know how he does it), so the least I can do is have things ready to eat when he gets home. Tonight, he called to tell me his classes had ended early--about an hour and a half early! I had just started making dinner, but given the fact I suddenly only had a half-hour to cook my plans abruptly changed. I decided to make niku-jaga (literally, meat and potatoes). It's a quick, easy, hearty meal. I've had several people describe it to me as "home-style" Japanese cooking, the one recipe everyone has. It is really yummy. Tonight I made it very simply; I didn't even add shirataki, but only potatoes and onions. It is such comfort food--both for me and my husband. Delicious.
I cooked up some shungiku (chrysanthemum greens) and topped them with ponzu. We also had our garlic, miso soup, rice (white tonight) and garlic pickled in miso. We had a different kind of hakusai pickles I made tonight, very plain but delicious pickles with konbu (a kind of seaweed) and chilis. We also had daikon pickled in sweet vinegar. I cut the daikon up into chrysanthemum flowers before I pickled them, and my husband didn't believe I'd actually cut them myself. I thought I'd cut them pretty sloppily, but after he said that, I was happy.
The niku-jaga!

The daikon chrysanthemums I made. My camera was temporarily broken tonight, so I borrowed my husband's. The close-ups aren't quite like I usually take them. But you get the idea.

One more, slightly blurry shot. But we've got more, so maybe I'll get a better picture later.