I've been watching too much Top Chef and Top Chef Masters. Even though it's just a hobby done in such a limited amount of time each day, my blog seems so much sadder now.
Tonight's meal: Thai green curry. I don't know quite how successful I was with the spices. It was OK, though, and cheaper than a restaurant, I suppose. I'm lucky it's OK; I have enough for dinner every night this week. *sigh*

A quick dinner last night! A summer vegetable gratin, moyashi topped with the ume sauce I've made before, eggplant pickled in vinegar, and a dish made from okara. It's kind of a strange twist on a typical Japanese recipe, but I like it very much. I also had okahijiki with naga-imo again. This time I served it with a vinegar sauce, and added a secret ingredient: a touch of plum vinegar. It was very nice.

The naga-imo and okahijiki. The moyashi and ume sauce.

And the okara!
Breakfast yesterday morning: okara, vinegar-pickled eggplant, and a mix of spicy pickled cauliflower, carrots, and cucumber.


A close-up of the spicy pickles. They're quite nice. Dinner a few days ago: chawan-mushi. Since it's just me, I buy the ingredients to make a dish once and end up having to make it several times to use up everything I've purchased.

Simple, quick dinner tonight. An eggplant simmered with shiso and myoga, served with a grilled piece of buri (yellowtail).

The eggplant was very, very good. I'll be making this again soon!

Just a quick and easy meal tonight. I had rice, nuka-zuke (asparagus, broccoli, and okra tonight, but it's pretty pathetic-looking so I didn't take a picture). The two dishes I made fresh were oka-hijiki and a cucumber, corn and tuna salad. The oka-hijiki I simply topped with ponzu again--delicious!

The cucumber, corn and tuna salad was quite easy to make, since two of the three main ingredients are canned, but it's very nice. It's got a vinegar-ginger sauce on it, which makes it very refreshing after a day of 90+ degrees. And Japanese canned tuna is SO GOOD. I'll definitely be making it again.

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Tonight I had a friend over for dinner--again, these are her photographic skills on display, not mine (although she did use my camera, does that count?)
I liked oka-hijiki so much when I made it the other day that when I finally saw it in the grocery store again I bought a few packs. It's only available as fresh local produce, so I get the feeling I've only got a few weeks of it left until next year. So I better get my fill while I can! I served it blanched tonight with raw naga-imo (but I soaked it in vinegar water to get the bitterness out), topped with a soy-vinegar dressing. It was quite yummy.



After the oka-hijiki and the naga-imo were mixed up:
The main dish tonight was chawan-mushi. I know it's an autumn dish, but I make it sometimes with vegetables in the summer. I had just bought a steamer and chawan-mushi cups so I had to try them out. It worked well, and I was so happy. The first chawan-mushi I served my friend was a bit underdone, but the rest were fine.
My chawan-mushi had shimeji, carrots, zucchini, and chicken in them, topped off with a few leaves of mitsuba. I think it's the mitsuba that really makes the chawan-mushi. The zucchini was a bit weird, but overall I think it was quite good and rather summery. I'll make it again in the fall with ginnan (ginko nuts)--I can't wait!

And the chawan-mushi served up! The mitsuba was a little bit out of control--I need to chop it up more next time. This dish was the most questionable of the evening. I had some cauliflower and some cream I needed to use, so I tried to make the mousse I have posted earlier in this blog. It's quite delicious when it's made right... but I didn't have a blender. So I tried to smoosh up the cauliflower using my large-size suribachi (yes, I have three sizes, and I love them all and use them constantly). It was not quite the success I hoped it would be. It wasn't bad... but it wasn't to die for, either. I can think of better things to do with cauliflower next time I get some.

Last weekend I had 2 friends over for dinner. One of them works for Olympus, and is therefore actually good at photography. The pictures in this post are hers--the difference is obvious.
The highlight of the meal for me was oka-hijiki (literally hill seaweed). It's delicious--a subtle yet wonderful flavor, and so easy to cook. Just blanch it and serve it with light soy sauce or ponzu. Delicious, and apparently very nutritious.

I also served moyashi with an ume-boshi and honey sauce. I made the sauce up based on a recipe I glanced at while browsing in a bookstore and didn't remember perfectly. Basically, I used ume-boshi, some honey, and some sesame seed oil. It was a very nice sauce.
The main dish was zucchini with renkon (lotus root) and white-fleshed fish (I used kajiki, or spearfish). This dish also had a bit of honey in it and some vinegar, so I was worried about how it would compliment the moyashi, but the two worked very well together. I think my friends liked them both.
I also made komatsuna, which seems like a cross between spinach and bok choy. I did a quick stir fry with garlic and red chili peppers. Finally, I also made some simmered pumpkin, which you can see in the background here. Overall, I think the meal was a success and everyone went home full.
That's ume-shu (plum wine) in the front of this shot, by the way.

Haven't had much to post over the last few days as I've had mostly ochazuke and gratin as I tried to use up the ingredients I had in my fridge before they went bad. A few new pictures though.
Today the grocery store had white tuna sashimi on sale, so I picked up a small piece of that. To go with it, I served hiyayako with white soy sauce:


I've wanted to try white soy sauce for some time, and I think it really works well with hiyayako--it's a delicate flavor and I think the color balance is nice.
The rest of my evening meal:
Brown rice, okura nukazuke, hiyayako, eringi mushrooms with ponzu dressing, a mizuna salad with sesame dressing, and the white tuna sashimi. I'm going to have to buy a fish knife, or something, because I'm absolutely mangling the poor fish when I cut it. Maybe I just need more practice?

Breakfast this morning: cucumber and myoga ochazuke topped with ground sesame seeds. Both the cucumber and the myoga were fresh from my friend's parents' garden. Delicious!
I ate some goma-dofu (sesame tofu) with the ochazuke.
Dinner last night: banbanji, or a cucumber and tomato salad topped with chicken and a sesame seed dressing. I really love this dish, and it's so simple to make. I imagine it's good for you until you add the dressing... oh well.

Another version of neba-neba don: this time with nameko mushrooms, tororo, maguro, and okura. So colorful and so filling!
Served with hiyayako. A good breakfast that's not too time-consuming.

Lunch today! A summer vegetable gratin. I was at home waiting for the post man because I had a registered letter coming, so I thought I may as well make something nice.
This has kabocha, broccoli, shimeji mushrooms, and tomato in it. It was very filling and very easy to make.

Breakfast!

I've been eating ochazuke for breakfast pretty much every day. I had katsuo tataki ochazuke for a few days, but this morning did something different: myoga and cucumber ochazuke. It was delicious! I served it with shiso pickled garlic, kimchee, nukazuke cucumber, and neba neba maguro (I bought such a huge tray of maguro for 200 yen, it was all the oddly shaped bits and scraps. My freezer is full of maguro now)!


I was a bit worried about this, mostly because it's a cold ochazuke with miso and odd flavors added in, but it was heavenly. I have 2 more myoga left, so I'll be having this again tomorrow. Delicious.





Right before I came to Japan, I got a new camera. It's pretty clear I'm still working on learning how to use it. Sorry for the blurry pictures!

Well, it's been quite some time since I updated! As I'm on my own doing research in Tokyo, I thought I would finally get around to posting again. Here's dinner tonight:



I had made my own nuka from scratch in America, but yesterday my friend gave me some of her mother's nuka base. I think it's delicious.
For tonight, I made nukazuke cucumber. As another side dish, I made togan, which would literally translate to "winter squash." It's like a giant cucumber squash, a little bit bitter. I simmered it, and it turned out better than I thought it would.
The main dish is my version of "neba-neba don," or slightly sticky/slimy foods served over rice. It might not sound very good, but it's delicious. A friend told me there's some kind of enzyme in slimy foods that make them particularly good in the summer heat. I don't know if that is true, but they certainly do taste good. My neba-neba don is topped with natto, neba maguro (raw tuna), and tororo (grated naga imo, a kind of potato). I topped it off with seaweed, sesame seeds, and soy sauce. Yum!