torakris

panko!

arrived home Tuesday afternoon after a trip to food hell (an entirely different thread) with about $2 in my pocket and probably less in our bank account! so dinner was thrown together with what was left in the house. It was also my husbands birthday! but since we are having a big BBQ party on Sunday for him I wasn't too concerned about this nights dinner: fugu no mirin-boshi (puffer fish that has been coated with mirin and sesame seeds and then dried outside) -- picked this and a couple other fish up on our trip, this area is very famous for its himono or dried fish) dashi maki tamago (Japanese style sweetened egg omelette) cabbage and ginger pickles miso soup with satsumaimo (Japanese sweet potato) and scallions Japanese rice

It is quite sad but judging from the popularity of these types of processed foods, this seems to be a common way of eating and I am sure it is playing a huge role in the sudden increase of obesity in this country.

I would much rather be the guest! I offered to cook one of the meals but the mother would go shopping while we were at the pool and I was really at a loss with what to do with what was in the house. Did I mention the coffee was instant and so was the creamer, it actually was turning yellow because it was so old!

grapefruit juice longing for some iced coffee..................

I LOVED this bit. Where is that thread on how bad we AMERICANS eat - like everyone else is munching on glorious freshly-prepared food while we neanderthals only eat processed crap. she must of gotten this out of some magazine and it was probably touted as some great American dish. She really made a big fanfare over this one and I didn't have the heart to tell her I had never eaten a dish made with cream of anything soup before. At least to my knowledge, who knows what was in soem of those dishes at church potlucks

I actually thought about taking pictures but decided not to waste my memory since we can only store 24 pictures, time to upgrade to a bigger memory card!

the fish was really the best part! but I just kept thinking of all of these things they could do with it, unfortunately I was quite limited by the fact that they had nothing in that house (that they spend a couple months a year in!) All I could find was salt, soy sauce, ketchup and a fat spread that they kept referring to as butter. And how could I have forgotten the pasta! The latest in retort technology! pasta sauce in packets that is just sqeezed onto the hot (or cold) pasta, no additional cooking required. We had our choice of tarako (cod roe) and cheese or umeboshi and shiso (this was for cold pasta). I felt like such a bad mom encouraging my kids to eat this stuff that I didn't even want to put in my mouth!

One of my favorite things to serve with gazpacho is a nice potato frittata (potato, onion and eggs are staples in my house) at room temp or a little cooler.

forgot to mention the hard boiled eggs and the hard boiled corn on the cob and I mean really hard boiled for a very long time!

I just came back from a 5 day trip to the resort town of Usami on the Izu penninsula. I took my 3 kids (husband was working) and my friend had her 2 and we went to her parents vacation home with her parents (everyone is Japanese). I know my friend hates to cook and is also one of the pickiest adult eaters I know but I had hopes for her parents. Breakfast every morning was toast and tea or coffee with yogurt and fruit. This is hard to mess up and was decent though variety would have been nice. I brought along some apricot preserves which I and the mother enjoyed but my friend won't eat anything except strawberry or this whipped chocolate spread that even my kids wouldn't touch. Lunch (except for one day that we ate soba but with no scallions or wasabi because my friend and her mother don't eat them) was either onigiri or curry rice. The salmon onigiri were quite good because the salmon was good, the curry rice was from a retort packet. On the first day when they said they were going to have curry rice for lunch I offered to start it because the friend and mother wanted to lie down for a while. I went into the kitchen and couldn't find any meat or vegetables anywhere so I asked what they wanted to put into their curry and then they said they weren't actually going to make it, just warm up the retort packs. Dinners were mostly retort packs as well (teriyaki meatballs, simmered gobo and konnyaku, more curry, etc), one night we had a lot of fish that had been picked up at the market, Japanese style heavily salted salmon that is grilled, some squid sashimi, and shirasu (baby anchovies) nothing was done to these they were just dipped in soy sauce or eaten plain. One night we had a miso soup with tofu, just tofu. There was always some kind of purchased pickle on the table and of course no meal (both lunch and dinner) could be complete with out sausages. There were sausages on the table every time we sat down, and these are not good sausages, think bad, bad cocktail sausages. I was shocked at how few vegetables they eat, even when we went out to eat it was only ramen or soba. The mother seemed to be saving her favorite dish for the last day, this was the only thing that was actually cooked. She sauteed some chicken thighs (no salt or pepper), tossed in some boiled bean sprouts and then poured a can of cream of mushroom soup! voila! dinner! oh and there were some scrambled eggs on the table too (no salt or pepper either) and some tasteless tomato wedges straight from the refrigerator. We did have some peaches and grapes that were pretty good. The kids also ate more snacks in these 5 days then they normally eat in a month, I couldn't believe the junk that was on the table all day long. "Ok kids beofore we head off to the pool lets get your energy up with a big bag of potato chips!" Nice to be home! Did get a pretty decent tan though!

word for 8/6: 芽キャベツ mekyabetsu (may-kyah-beh-tsu) This the Japanese word for brussel sprouts, though not native to this country they have gained popularity in recent years and can be found in a lot of stores. they are used more as a garnish then as a main feature of the meal.

I menu plan out of necessity, so as not to waste money. Where I live most of the supermarket flyers come out on Thursday, so I plan my meals with the sales. If the cabbage is really cheap that week then I try to plan 1 to 3 meals in which I can use up the whole head. Earlier in the week I go through magazines/books and get ideas of what I want to cook and then choose according to what is on sale. Not including rice (which is a given at almost every meal) I try to plan a main and at least 2 sides. I try to leave a couple sides open in case I run across a good deal that I can't pass up during the aboput 3 times a week I go shopping. Most of my meats are frozen so if I run a cross a good meat/fish deal then I just don't defrost it. We rarely go out to eat because are finances don't allow it, so it really isn't an option for us and menu planning helps me avoid that 5:00 pm panic when I realize I have 3 hungry kids and a husband on the way home!

the recipe that surprised me the most was also from Bittman (his book How to Cook Everything) it is a simple fresh tomato sauce with butter, it is the only way I make it now!

yuke and raw oysters a close second

I am not sure of the pickles you are referring to are they cut in slices, chunked or whole? I too have been very disappointed with most of my attempts at pickling and since the purchased ones can be so good I rarely bother............ oh and welcome to egullet!

This one had a pretty good review from Cook's Illustrated: http://www.amazon.co.jp/exec/obidos/ASIN/0...5705936-9188250

back from a wonderful trip to the ocean resort town of Usami where I spent 5 days enjoying some of the worst food of my life! (this is a whole different thread) back to the daily nihongo word for 8/5: キャベツ kyabetsu (kyah-beh-tsu) cabbage This is just the plain old green cabbage eaten mostly in Japan as a side dish to deep fired foods usually in a shredded form. There is also what they call "haru kyabetsu" which means spring cabbage and this is the cabbage you find in early spring that is actually quite sweet and has very "loose" leaves, there is actually space between the layers.

I love chirashi zushi but I don't think I have ever ordered it at a restaurant or even take out. It is one of those dishes that I prefer te "homestyle" taste. Most of the ones yous ee in restaurants in Japan are just fish and maybe some egg, I like mine with a lot more vegetables. Especially renkon (lotus root), nanohana (broccoli rabe), shiitake, etc my favorite mix of fish is scallop, salmon and ikura. Like smallworld I guess I am picky about my chirashi, once you have had it really good it is hard to eat it anyway else.

Thursday dinner (now down to an empty fridge!): calamari all'inferno (squid in a very spicy tomato-romesary sauce) served over orzo pan grilled peppers with basalmic vinegar potato salad (made by Mia with a recipe from a kid's cook book) dessert: ice cream

The daily nihongo will be on a short hiatus until August 5 while I am on vacation with no computer access. I will be thinking about all of you while I am hanging out by the pool or splashing in the ocean! word for 8/1: つるむらさき tsurumurasaki (tsu-roo-moo-rah-sah-key) This is known as basella or malabar spinach in other parts of the world. Though not native to Japan it has found a home here and is loved for its sliminess. It is often blanched anthen used in salads or hitashi style dishes or it is tossed into stirfries. There are two varieties a green stemmed and a red stemmed but they are both referred to by the same name even though the murasaki of tsurumurasaki means purple. picture: http://www.maruka-ishikawa.co.jp/images/ve...ure/tsurum2.jpg

Back in the kitchen, we have been eating out a lot this week. Weds dinner: trying to clean out the kitchen before out 5 day trip to the beach on Friday maguro tataki (finely chopped raw tuna) mixed with lots of negi (Japanese scallion) and soy sauce miso soup with cabbage, satsumaimo (Japanese sweet potato), tofu, onions, and aburage topped with a dollop of yuzu-koshou (citron-chile mixture) simmered kabocha grilled aburage (tofu pockets) topped with grated daikon and soy sauce Japanese rice Dessert: ice cream

Jin I tend to turn to Japanese food when I am feeling uncreative. a bowl of rice, a bowl of miso soup, and some pickles and if I have some type of himono (dried fish) in the freezer I will grill that .

word for 7/31: 野沢菜 nozawana (noh-zah-wah-nah) These are a type of turnip green from a city called Nozawa in Nagano prefecture. The leaves which are grown to be about 2 feet long are almost exclusively pickled and are the favorite leaf pickle of my children. picture of nozawana before and after pickling (and pictures of the pickling process as well): http://www.koide.gr.jp/inakaryouri/kyoudor...ri/nozawana.htm

What the Japanese call a petty knife is basically the same as what we would call a paring knife, though usually longer then the ones I am used to. The fruit knife (actually called furutsu naifu or fruit knife in katakana) is also essentially the same thing but they are cheaper (usually the $5 to $10 range) and are almost always sold with a cover so they are quite portable. These are really all purpose knives and are great (I use them for camping) but I doubt you will find them at any of the speciality knife makers, they tend to be the kind of thing you pick up in a supermarket or drugstore. picture: click on the picture to see it better http://dws.warp.co.jp/cgi-bin/db2www.cgi/y...ode=N27&STRTR=1