eG Foodblog: torakris/snowangel - When Pocky meets pad thai....

[prasantrin]

For breakfast we had waffles and bacon

I love my stovetop waffle maker.  The big can on the stove is my bacon grease can.  Please ignore the rest of the mess on the counter!

Wow, that looks good! Thanks to you I had to go out and buy some bacon today! Unfortunately, I had to give back the waffle maker I was using, so I guess I'll have to make do with pancakes!

What do you do with your bacon grease? I sometimes use mine to make hash browns (of the shredded variety) but I think I should try doing something else with it.

The kids really like their waffles topped with yogurt.  I mixed some plain yogurt with some raspberries from the freezer.  They get really juicy when they are thawed, so it colors the yogurt a light pinking purple.  Peter also likes syrup on this mess (no accounting for taste) and loves dipping his bacon into syrup.

I'm going to have to try the yogurt thing tomorrow, too. I've never had waffles with yogurt...and since I no longer have a waffle maker, I'll be trying it with pancakes, instead!

I also bought some sour cream today. I wonder if that would be good, too...

[prasantrin]

They sell it with 5 smallish bags inside one large one, it is quite cheap too.

I haven't seen that jasmine rice at Costco for over a year now, I bought it a couple months ago at Carrefour. I am almost out again though....

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Went to Costco today, and no Cheetos. But I did find the American breakfast sausages I like--I thought they had disappeared but they had just moved them.

[srhcb]

The kids really like their waffles topped with yogurt.  I mixed some plain yogurt with some raspberries from the freezer.  They get really juicy when they are thawed, so it colors the yogurt a light pinking purple.  Peter also likes syrup on this mess (no accounting for taste) and loves dipping his bacon into syrup.

Time to get those counters cleaned up, floor mopped and vacuuming done.  Guests in just over 5 hours!

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My husband eats his waffles the same way as your son. He's a Minnesota native, maybe it's a regional Minnesota thing? I have been enjoying this blog so much, and I'm looking forward to hearing about the party. Good luck with the preparations!

As for Kris's part of the blog, I'm drooling over the spring rolls and the other amazing foods...

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My Grandfather, here in MN, always ate his first serving of waffles, (or pancakes), with maple syrup and his second with sugar and heavy cream. Sort of the same thing, but a little tougher on the arteries?

SB

[snowangel]

What do you do with your bacon grease?  I sometimes use mine to make hash browns (of the shredded variety) but I think I should try doing something else with it. 

Hash browns, fried chicken (mixed with another oil), fried eggs. Popcorn is also really good if you use bacon grease...

[snowangel]

Omelettes for breakfast. The pictures are embarrassinly bad. But, the omelettes were very good.

[snowangel]

Whew. I'm ready for a short break! After breakfast, it was off to church, and then I taught Sunday school.

Then, to the local Asian market. It is about 10 minutes from my house, and is quite large. It is in a short newer strip mall, and the mall also houses a real estate agency that caters to Hmong, Thai and Vietnamese, and a Thai/Vietnamese restaurant, which is pretty good. One of the nice things about the restaurant is that they also sell whole roast ducks.

The first thing you see when you enter the market is

Contrary to the big sign above, this is not the fresh produce area. The bottom of the refrigerator case is almost all noodles of all varieties. Above that is dried fish, packaged refrigeratred bean sprouts, etc. The table in front contains baked goods. Breads, moon cakes, all sorts of stuff. Immediately to the right of it is a long, floor to ceiling fridge case stocked with vegetables of all kinds. For some reason, I did't take a picture of it. Behind the noodle case is an area that L's off that must be 30 x 30 piled high with bags of rice.

They also have a meat counter

Two very old, very little ladies cut up the sides of meat. Many people were going up to the counter and asking for things which weren't in the counter.

Seafood and fish

Turnover here is great so things are very fresh. Red snapper was $3.99/lb (they are whole, but they will clean them for you). Salmon heads. Shrimp (21-25 count) were $4.99/lb. They also had catfish, tilapia and a couple of other kinds. They also have an "aquarium" style water thing that usually has crabs and stuff like that, but they were already sold out by 1:00 pm today.

I can't believe how many different brands of bamboo shoots there are

The two middle shelves contain nothing but bamboo shoots. The top shelf nothing but different kinds of canned mushrooms. The bottom has dried stuff in bags.

Talk about ramen noodles!

The top of every shelf unit looks like this -- tons of ramen noodles.

They also have two of these long freezer cases

filled with frozen seafood, dumplings, dumpling skins, etc.

I didn't take a picture of the long aisle of "treats," nor the aisle of coconut milk, nor the one with curry paste, nor the several aisles of jarred and packaged condiments.

And, they have a small deli

They always have banh mi (white paper, on top), different packaged gelatiny desserts, pickled greens, larb, some more baked goods, deep and crispy fried whole fish (pomfret?), and usually have the Vietnamese spring rolls but they were sold out today.

My rewards

This place does one of my favorite bahn mi's in the Cities. $2.00. Nice crispy (but not chewy), soft interior, loaded, right amount of tang, and when she sees me coming, she makes one up fresh and adds a bit more of the marinated carrots and cucumbers and a couple of extra slices of jalapeno.

Time to get back to pounding my curry paste!

[Pan]

Looks like a good store, Susan!

I'm impressed that you pound your own curry paste. Mortar and pestle?

[Susan in FL]

Nice Asian market! Thanks for the pictures.

[torakris]

I am finally back! Sorry to be away for so long... I am still having a cookie problem and not the kind you eat but I am currently able to log on trough a different browser.

Susan that dinner looks fantastic, I am going to try those baked beans as well. I really love baked beans and that recipe looks great. Chipolte tabasco was one of the things I brought back that summer.

I am really jealous of your Asian market, I wish I had something like that in Cleveland.

[mizducky]

I can't believe how many different brands of bamboo shoots there are

The two middle shelves contain nothing but bamboo shoots.  The top shelf nothing but different kinds of canned mushrooms.  The bottom has dried stuff in bags.

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Heh. I am frequently bemused, when shopping at our local Asian markets, by the bazillions of different brands under which various items are available. Of course, I'm certain lots of immigrants to the US feel similarly confused in American supermarkets. Susan (and Kris, feel free to chime in too)--are there specific brands of various Asian food items that you prefer? I've picked up a little bit of knowledge just through sheer osmosis, but would love to know more.

[snowangel]

I don't often make my own curry paste. And, today, I remember why. Although it is a superior product, it does take a lot of time. A lot of time. It's a great upper body workout, and Peter got into the action, too.

And, yes, I use a mortar and pestle.

The other really cool gadget I have is this smasher (which was a gift from a dear friend)

It smashes garlic, and sure made mincing and pounding that lemongrass, galangal, etc. a lot easier!

It can also work as a grinder thing in a bowl.

Best of all, it is stainless steel, so if you use it to wash your hands, it gets rid of nasty odors.

So, the soup is made, and my mise is all in place. I love custard cups. I use the custard cups I got from my grandmother's house when she died. Some are smaller, some are larger, but they sure make it easy to keep track of things.

Oh! Better go and pick some lime leaves!

[torakris]

Welcome to dreary day #7!

I don't think I have ever seen it rain for this many days straight before...and it is supposed to rain tomorrow as well.

I am going to start with breakfast today and then work my way back to yesterday.

A couple days ago I tried eating a coconut bagel but found it bland so I froze it until I could buy some jam, well I have jam now so the kids and I had coconut bagels with jam. My Toddy coffee was gone (my husband drank the last bit ) so I made up some "instant" cappuccino.

all put together (with raspberry jam)

the bite in the bagel is from when I tasted it earlier this week... :

[torakris]

Yesterday (Sunday) we spent the day at my friend's house, we arrived at 11am and came home at 10pm...

There were three families, with a total of 8 kids--we tried to keep them upstairs as much as possible.

For the lunch I made roasted chickpeas, chips with 4 salsas (2 tomato salsas, one with cilantro and one without, guacamole and a kidney bean-smoked chipolte dip) and for dessert I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies.

the kid's table

in additon to my contributions there are onigiri (rice balls) and roasted spare ribs

the men's table

more spareribs and lots of beer

the women's table

we kept the eye on the hotplates with the vegetables and meats

the men then decided to be closer to the food so they moved to our table and we addded more food, salad and some of the grilled chicken

[torakris]

some of the nice Japanese meat we grilled (we went through 4 packs of this)

the beef was sprinkled with Maldon sea salt before eating

the "bar"

I enjoyed two small glasses of lychee liquer with a lot of soda water

[torakris]

As the men's talk turned to sports we suggested they go outside since it had stopped raining.

They stayed out there for 4 hours and went through 3 bottles of wine...

meanwhile inside the children scarfed through about 40 cookies in 5 minutes while the women enjoyed cappuccinos and a nice selection of desserts

[torakris]

My friend's mother makes fake foods that look good enough to eat, these are two examples

[torakris]

the kids had great time and pretty much snacked all day long, around 7:00 they were hungry for a little more so we made up some more onigiri and they finished of the grapes and mikan (mandarin oranges).

At 8:00 the men finally came back in announcing they were hungry so my friend threw together some omuraisu.

For those unfamiliar with the Japanese dish of omuraisu, it is short of omelet rice and consists of rice (normally with some kind of meat and vegetables) sauteed with ketchup then wrapped into a thin omelet and served with more ketchup on top.

[helenjp]

Ladies drinking followed by coffee and desserts...this must be an "only in Japan" pattern - the women at my J university used to do the same thing.

Looks like a lovely relaxed way to spend a dismal day - I agree, it's time to stamp this weather "return to sender" and boot it out!

[torakris]

anyone interested in learning more about omuraisu can browse the omuraisu thread.

[monavano]

Thanks for all those pics of your get together. You and your friends really know how to put on a good time

[torakris]

What are product liability laws and enforcement like in Japan? Do people sue companies for dangerous products and food poisoning and so forth? That's really too bad, what happened to Hide; I'm sure he'll remember it for a long time.

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The Japanese don't sue a whole lot, except for some very serious cases you rarely hear about it.

I was going to mention what happened to te preschool so they don't make the mistake of buying this same jump rope again. The give a jump rope every year as a gift (my daughters received them as well) but they use different ones every year.

As for hide, he has a very short memory..

[handmc]

Yummy looking meals. Glad you wereable to get hide's finger free. Something like that happens with the girls (usually at least once a week) I always say "that will cost me years of counseling.....

[edsel]

As for hide, he has a very short memory.. ←

Don't count on it!

When I was his age I had the clever idea of seeing if I could fit a peanut up my nose. We were on the beach in Bali. My parents and sister were most alarmed when I started wailing and thrashing about. They thought I'd been stung by something. We eventually managed to retrieve the "experiment" without a trip to the doctor. I think my sister still hasn't forgiven me for that little episode.

Rest assured, I haven't tried to poke a peanut up my nose in the intervening years, but I can recall vividly the panic that ensued all those many years ago...

p.s. to both Kris and Susan: this blog just keeps getting better. Can't wait to see the pasta showdown!

[torakris]

I am reminding myself that the only stupid question is the one not asked... 

Kris, what does bento actually mean?  And bento boxes?  Clearly it's a lunch box/packed lunch, but does it have more meaning than that?  In my favorite sushi restaurant in this area, there are two entrees that are called bento dinners or something like that, and I've never been sure if they are primarily for take-out, or if it's proper for eating in the restaurant.

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The (short) history of the bento from wikipedia

I have to admit I never gave much thought to its origins or meaning....

There are many kind of bentos, most consist of many small dishes with rice. you might see very fancy lacquered box bentos in restaurants, ones in styrofoam boxes from the supermarket or convenience store, and plastic ones like in my picture for use by the family.

It was quite hard to get used to making bentos after coming from the US where most lunches consisted of as andwiche that has been smashed in the middle by some kind of fruit.

This past one that I made was probably the fastest one I made to date and I was actually quite embarassed to post it as it was quite lacking in variety...

After making bentos for 10 years now I have gotten quite used to the little tricks that make it look good like lettuce leaves used as cups, lemon slices for color, mini tomatoes also work nicely for color but the stores always jack up the prices the weekend of sports day (about $2.50 for 10) so I no longer buy them.

[torakris]

The wonderful bento thread from the Japan forum with lots of pictures to look at.