100 posts!

This post is a terrible, terrible, terrible 100th post, but I'm going to do it anyway.
I was so tired and in such a bad mood today I didn't feel like cooking at all. So... dinner was super quick and simple. I sliced some eggplant thin, and then threw them in the oven with a little olive oil. Then I cooked some brussells sprouts and simmered some tomatoes. I lined the bottom of a gratin dish with the thinly sliced eggplants and topped them with the brussels sprouts and the tomatoes, then put cheese on top of the whole thing before toasting it. Simple, but not the most delicious thing I've ever made. Healthy, though. And easy.

The finished Kusatsu beans: plump, mlet-in-your-mouth tender, and just a little bit sweet.



Tonight we had mainly leftovers, the chicken and whatnot, just cleaning out. But I did make some greens we had quickly so we'd have a bit more vegetable.
My go-to recipe for greens is very simple and super-delicious. I use it on the tops of everything: radishes, turnips, greens, spinach, anything dark and leafy.
Basically, I heat some sesame oil in a pan, and heat the greens in the oil. When they're a bit wilted, I add a dash of sake and a dash of soy sauce, maybe 1 or 2 tablespoons each, depending on how many greens I have. Then I add some chili pepper and cook the greens until they're completely wilted and have absorbed the flavors. Put in a dish, sprinkle some sesame seeds on top, and serve. Super-easy, and super delicious.

Sweets

My entire life, I have struggled because I have a sweet tooth. I try to be healthy, and somehow the sweet tooth always wins out. The sweet tooth won today.

A few days ago, I started making these beans. They're from Kusatsu, and they're slightly sweet but because they're cooked with a bit of soy they're also a little salty. They're similar to, but not the same as amanatto or the sweet black beans eaten at New Year's. I loved them, and was given a large bag of the beans right before I left Japan. I was so thrilled, and finally made them for myself here.



These actually are partway done; after I took this photo I returned them to the pot for a bit more simmering.
But I still wanted something sweet and not horribly unhealthy. What could I make? I thought about tai-yaki, and then I realized: waffles! Quick, easy, sweet, and delicious. And maybe, not too horribly unhealthy?



This was the first time I'd tried my new waffle iron--one that you use on the stove top. As my husband and I don't know where we'll end up in the next few years, I've started buying appliances that can be easily moved and used everywhere. Hence the stove top waffle iron, and the stove top tai-yaki maker.



As it was the first time I'd used it, getting the temperature just right to get the golden brown you want in a waffle was a bit challenging, but this wasn't too bad. I'm sure I'll have more opportunities to practice in the future.

Tonight: chicken simmered in vinegar, a recipe I learned from my friend's mother while I was in Japan. Quick, easy and delicious.


I served it with hijiki salad, and a kabocha (pumpkin) soup. The kabocha we got was really yellow rather than orange. I miss the vegetables in Japan so much, but this soup was pretty good, all things considered.

Two meals, very quick:

First, the daikon and avocado salad I will never be tired of making or eating. Today's hard avocado, daikon, corn, cucumber, and tomato in it. Delicious.


Second, I made shogayaki pork, or pork cooked in a ginger marinade. Quick, easy, and delicious. This was a bit too salty, though, I added too much soy sauce.


Finally, some okayu style rice we made in our nabe. The other day I made some satsuma-imo (sweet potato) soup--I didn't take a picture of it, but it was good. We mixed the leftover soup in the nabe to make rice.


Yesterday and today, we've had keema curry for dinner. Quick and delicious, I love keema curry so much. It's just beef, carrots, onions, green pepper, and spices. It's very nice. We ate it with moyashi (bean sprouts), which I didn't photograph.

Tsukune nabe!

After a few warm, spring-like days, Chicago has become bitter and cold again. What better way to try and warm back up than nabe? Tonight, we had tsukune (chicken meatball) nabe. We made chicken-tofu meatballs, cooked in a soy broth with nappa cabbage, carrots, and konnyaku. It was delicious and filling.

Chicken soup and biscuits

I usually cook nothing but Japanese food at home. Lately, I don't know if it's the weather, or the fact I have a cold that will not go away, or the fact I couldn't eat these things in Japan, but I have been making nothing but American comfort food.
Tonight, we had some drumsticks to use, so I made chicken soup, and then whipped up some biscuits to go with it.
The soup is just a basic, basic, easy chicken soup with tons of vegetables, and the biscuits are equally simple. Filling, delicious, and rich... probably not very healthy though...

I don't often crave pasta, but when I do, I want spaghetti and meatballs. So tonight I went all-out with comfort food: spaghetti, meatballs, garlic bread, and broccoli. I forget how filling pasta is; I couldn't finish this dish and we have a lot leftover for dinner tomorrow.


For dessert, I made pineapple-coconut muffins I've been longing to try. The original recipe called for coconut liqueur, so I made some substitutions and changed the recipe around a bit. But still... really excellent muffins with a ton of pineapple and coconut flavor. I'll definitely be making these again.

Tonight I made a chicken breast marinated in my delicious (and fallback) miso marinade, thinking I would eat it with my husband when he got home from school. But today, I haven't been feeling very well all day, so I decided to eat early by myself. I made a grapefruit and avocado salad, and I cooked some daikon (radish) greens. Then, because I wanted to save the chicken for my husband, I made a grilled cheese sandwich.
It was all really, really good. I'd forgotten how nice grilled cheese sandwiches are.



I was quite pleased with the daikon greens. They're so delicious, and with sesame oil, sesame seeds, soy sauce, and mirin, they are so good. I also added a bit of togarashi. I could have eaten them all by myself! Delicious and healthy.

Oxtail soup!

So, with the leftover oxtails I had, tonight I made a soup. It's very good. My husband loved it, too.
It's kind of a strange mix of American and Japanese/Korean influence. I started with mirepoix, then added dashi, soy sauce, Korean red pepper threads, garlic, ginger, and mirin for the base. We simmered it for hours, and the oxtail made such a rich and beautiful broth. I added daikon to cut the salt and the fat, and finished it with a bit of cracker bread. The cracker bread wasn't as good as the focaccia I made before, so now I'm making a new batch of focaccia to eat with the soup tomorrow.

牛テール鍋！ (Oxtail hotpot!)

In the winter, there is nothing, nothing, nothing I love more than o-nabe (hotpots), dishes cooked in a clay pot in the middle of the table.
I've wanted to try this recipe for awhile. It's an oxtail o-nabe, and it sounded delicious.
It was pretty good. I used a few sections of oxtail, then some daikon radish sliced into ribbons. I seasoned it with Korean pepper, among other things. Ko and I were both a little disappointed; we thought the radish would cut the fat from the tail, but it didn't really. Also, it didn't photograph very well.



I have plans to make a soup from the leftover stock and bones tomorrow, and I think that will be really good.

Thinking it might be hard to make the trek to the grocery store for the next few days, I decided what better way to deal with a blizzard than a spicy, hearty winter vegetable stew?
I went a bit overboard dicing the habaneros, and ended up with pretty good capsaicin burns on both my hands, but the soup is all right. The spicy kick at the end warms us up when we eat it, and the veggies and beans make it quite hearty and filling.
Finally, what's a good stew without bread or crackers? Again, rather than make the arduous trek through the snow for a shopping trip, I made a little whole-wheat focaccia. Flavorful, quick, and easy, my husband loved it. The first batch is already gone, so I'm going to make some more now...