Some days I should just stay out of the kitchen

today I

* made my favorite almond cookies, was hoping to shape them into hina-sama shapes. K and L helped cut out pig shapes, hearts and flowers and I made just two (prince and princess) Hina samas. So glad I didn't waste my time shaping them -- all the biscuits Mergd together to form one big flat mess on the trays in the oven ;( not sure what went wrong, as it was kinda my fail-safe recipe....not anymore,right??,

* made mini quiche (since had the oven going anyway making failed biscuits) with broccoli and tuna, in wanton wrappers for cases. shouldn't have strayed from my normal quiche fillings.....K didn't like it, as I expected;( And the quiches all stuck in the muffin tray and came out looking like a big mess.

So it was a kinda epic fail day in the kitchen.

In other random news:

**Cleaned the kids room, living room, kitchen only to have them messed up even more than when we started about 5 mins later:( sigh. But I guess that is a daily thing, right? )

**Got halfway through the mountain of clothes waiting to be folded and put away. was gonnna do the rest once the kids were asleep, but after an EPIC three hour nap from BOTH kids, bedtime was pushed back til close to 9pm... So I am now sitting under the kotatsu watching dead boring Japanese tv instead of folding.

**I've gone caffeine free! Decided last week to try it - was drinking cups of tea all day long, and the cookies that go with the drink of tea got out of hand, so that my clothes are now all too tight - a problem in winter, unless I can find some potato sacks;(
am actually feeling a bit better without the caffeine/all-day-long drinking, and enjoying my camomile, rosehip and decaf teas. I have drunk coke, and eaten chocolate though, so not fully de-caffeinated yet, but it is a process, right?!
actually, it IS a process, as I am hoping to go sugar-free -- starting March, I am gonna attempt my no junk food/chocolate diet, and try to cut out sugars from my diet. I think this will be challenging. But hoping that I can do it!

**and I haven't forgotten my 101 things....although I think I still have about, uh, 101 things to complete. (sigh) if only the kotatsu wasn't so cozy...........

Speedy Gonzales

Last night J had drinks after work, so K and I had leftover casserole from the other night.

Tonight is Taco Rice night. good way to use up the tomatoes, lettuce, mince in freezer and 3 for 120yen avocados I got that are in need of being turned into guacamole asap. Even though I think Taco Rice is actually an Okinawan concoction, I get all "Speedy Gonzales" and "Arriba, arriba, andale, andale" every time I make it, so am gonna get J to bring home some Corona to celebrate TGIF! Yee-ha!

Wed night's dinner

Clam chowder - used up the last of the fresh asari. I have only ever had clam chowder out once, at Costco haha! so not sure if I made the real McCoy or not, but it sort of tasted like a cream stew. nice though

Hokke marinated in miso. Had an argument with Dad over Skype whether Japanese "Hokke" is the same as NZ Hoki fish....wikipedia told me that they are not the same, dad tole me they are...who to believe???

pumpkin and cucumber salad - Joji's mum's recipe, I love this one:
1) Boil then mash pumpkin; cool.
2) Salt thinly sliced cucumber. Let sit for a while. Then squeeze juice out of cucumber.
3) mix 1 and 2 together with some s/p to taste, and mayonnaise
4) spoon into little crispy lettuce "cups"

side salad

brown rice

Right, K and I are gonna go sit in shower to cool off before we hit playgroup today - K is already drowning in her own sweat pool here. And we all know that little-kid's-sweaty-head-smell is SO not the new Chanel No5.

the big squeeze

Was all set to make a no-bake lemon slice this morning, and searched the cupboards high and low for the condensed milk I thought I had, only to find 3 cans of Evaporated milk!! So a bit of humming and haa-ing later (do I go buy condensed milk or change recipes?) I ended up making this lemon slice to take with me tonight.


The only thing I am not sure is if it needed to be cooked more....hmmm. looks/tastes like the lemon butter type tarts so I am guessing it is ok....
And I added some coconut to the base, which is yummy.

I always wonder when recipes say things like it only takes 15mins to prepare..... I must be really slow or something, because it always takes me 2-3 times the amount of time to prepare (took me nearly 15mins just to squeeze the lemons for this one, lol!) But I feel like I have had my exercise for the morning - my abs are pumping after hand-mixing the butter/sugar and squeezing 3 lemons.

Oh, and used up 3 eggs and 3 lemons for this recipe so am doing well on my consumption of things in the fridge too!yay

oi-shi-so shi-so

Tonight's dinner (photo not so good - gotta learn how to take good food photos)

grilled cod fillets

egg roll

tofu dressed with katsuo-bushi and kombu tsuyu

tomato, cucumber and shiso salad (following this recipe it was nice and summery, but think it might have been better with a bit more vinegar, maybe?)

　かぼちゃの角煮
and of course

rice

followed by Mister Donuts - a nice surprise from J!

After all my talk about western food, I ended up going "wa" tonight, but must say I def. preferred the grilled flake I did last week to the cod (of course, J preferred the cod, lol!) And the egg roll used up 4 eggs, and half serve of brownies used up 1 this morning, so only have 15 left now, yay (lol!)

And K was a trouper, eating up all her rice with fish with vege salsa. She is doing so good lately eating all her veges! Yay for her!

the end of the ants

(1) I have been reluctant to post about the ant situation, in case they came back, but we have been ant-free now for over 3 weeks. After our visitors left (during which time there were several ant sightings) J came home with some ant baits, apparently harmless to animals and kids, and we placed them around the areas the ants were marching. Within a few days, they were gone. A few random/left over ants remained for a while, but we haven't seen an ant for the whole month of July, so I am going to say that our ant problem is solved. Yay! So much for my eco attempts to get rid of them...should have brought in the hard core store bought stuff earlier.

(2) In other news....we are spending a lazy morning (see a pattern here??)here. Just got back from our walk-with-R-slash-mini-supermarket-run to buy milk and for some reason 5 lemons....what am I going to do with 5 lemons? I soooo get sucked in to the bargain fruit and vege bins out the front every time.

(3) Tonight's menu is going to be:

pumpkin soup (we got given a whole pumpkin the other day!)

vege salsa: tomato, zucchini, enriki mushrooms, and any other veges I can find in the depths of the fridge

corn on the cob

pork steaks

maybe mash potato, maybe just boiled potato - not sure how many potatoes we have left

(no room for lemons in that menu, lol!)

(4) And today K and I will be munching on peaches, pears and grapes in my attempt to be good ;)

(5) It is overcast and not as hot as it has been, which is nice. I still think the aircon will come on as soon as I start doing anything remotely house-work like - I am not a masochist..or is that sadist? Either way, AC will be involved.

(6) Over the long weekend we are going to catch up with some friend's of J from when he was in the US which will be fun. The have kids older than K so she can do her usual idolising trick....

(7) So now the only thing question that remains to be answered it what are we going to have for lunch?? I guess it would be wrong to waddle across to KFC, wouldn't it???? (Angel T says "MUST CONTROL URGES - refer back to No. 4 above!!" Devil T says - just do it, (evil laugh))

something fishy

For dinner, that is. I thought I would branch out and try to cook a fish other than salmon for a change. Walking to the supermarket, I decided that I would like to eat fish ムニエル(google report = "meunier", basically fish coated in flour and fried in butter)

Since I know nothing about fish, I thought I would just look for the cuts that had "cook meunier style" written on them, but there was none on the shelf, so I asked the lady stacking the fish shelf which fish I should use. She pointed out the salmon fillets, the shark fillets, the scallops, and something else. So tonight, shark fillets it is!! (although she did say that the shark doesnt have much fat on it, so it would be nice(r) done karaage style...oh well.) But I often eat flake for fish and chips at home, so figured we couldnt go too wrong. Also just found a nice looking recipe for flake with a vege sauce, but tonight I am sticking with my ムニエル style.

Was going to serve it with just a salad, but thought that might mean the break out of an international war (or at least the serving of divorce papers) so tonight's menu will be:

* Flake fillets meunier style
* side salad
* brown rice (may still see divorce papers, yet, hehe!!)
* wakame soup, K's favourite at the moment
* egg roll
* 冷奴
* ummmm, feel like there should be something else here. Will have to raid fridge/freezer and see what I can come up with.

I think it sounds a summery-enough-menu for the end of what promises to be a hot hot hot day all day.

And since carrots were on special at the shop, I think I am going to make a carrot cake now to satisfy my afternoon sweet cravings.

.....basically follwed this recipe, and the carrot muffins came out just delish! the way we are going, there will be none left for afternoon tea, K and I are chomping into them now!! I cut the sugar heaps tho, so now I am going to go buy some cream cheese to make a frosting for them.

last minute ingredients

just wasting a few minutes while Miitsuketa! is on and K is happy watching. Once it is finished I am going to drag her out to the shop 3mins up the road to grab some atsu-age for our Zucchini Champuru tonight. I am soooooo bad, always forgetting half the ingredients, so we are lucky that within 5 mins walk, there are 3 supermarkets that I can go to (ranging in size). I usually end up going to the closest one which is like a small conbini type. Pretty soon they will know me by name. The other day I had to use up all 3 supermarkets as I forgot stuff 2 times, and another time went back to get ice blocks after dinner!!

I took K out on a lunch date today, just the 2 of us!! We had to take the car down for a service in the morning, and it wasn't finished until 11:30am, so I thought it would be much easier just to swing past ye ol' family restaurant for lunch than go home and bother making anything. K was really good, we sat at opposite sides of the table - usually I sit beside her, so I think she felt really grown up (she made me sit on the other side of the table btw! lol)It has been ages since I have been to Saizeria, and I have to say this time may be the last for a while.. very average (although super cheap) but too greasy - I felt a bit blaaa afterwards.

Tonight's dinner is going to be "wa":
salmon
rice
wakame miso soup (K's favourite)
niku-jaga and
zucchini champuru.

Last night J had drinks after work, so K and I had a quiet easy dinner (mine was baked beans on toast! hers was vege soup with potatos) and monday night was left over quiche from when lunch (had friend over) so this is the first meal I am cooking all week, lol!

Right, tv is about to finish (sings at top of voice...."Ai no tamago!") so gotta get K in some pants (she is nappy only) and go for our mini walk.

toot-toot

That is the sound of my own horn. And I am a-tooting it!!

I think I have come forward, all be it a few small steps, in my efforts to become a "good housewife". When I set out dinner last night, I noticed that:
* all the plates were hot, freshly cooked (not half cold) which means I am getting my timing (and order) right in cooking things. since we only have 2 gas coils, it means a lot of juggling, but I am getting it!
* there was a huge selection of dishes!!! When J and I first started living together, I was SUCH a one-dish girl. Which is fine with home cooking, but Japanese style, a bowl of rice and ONE main dish just doesn't cut it really, haha. Last night I had a pork and vege stir fry, chinese veges in sweet and sour sauce, renkon kinpira, roasted chicken legs (from Costcos, granted) with fried rice and a side of mini beef udon noodles! Ok, it sounds like a bit of a mish-mash, but it all went together very well, and ALL tasted yummy.
* I am getting my portions right. I used to make MILES of food. Now I try to make enough, but not too much that we get left-overs that I have to eat for 4 days in a row or forget about and simply throw out.
* I am getting better with my flavourings. Everything I used to cook was "aji ga usui" according to J. Last night he even commented that my kinpira was perfect! nice!

Add to that, I am getting better at actually PUTTING AWAY the washing within a day of it being washed...most likely because it is all hanging in the living room (the only heated room) to dry, lol. I actually enjoy doing the washing - sorting it to put in the washing machine, taking it out of the washing machine and hanging it up - recently I don't even mind folding it (although K has taken to "folding" it too, making it 2 or 3 times the amount of work for me, haha) but putting it away has ALWAYS been my downfall. But baby steps, and we are getting there.

And I am keeping all sorts of places around the house spic and span and dust free - places that I wouldn't have even THOUGHT of cleaning a few months ago.

So I just thought I should toot my own horn once in a while too. I know it is all still in housekeeping 101 - "housekeeping for dummies", but to me it is a little achievement. Next, I need to tackle my cluster and hoarding problems. But they are the really big problems....maybe they might have to wait until 2010??

failure and 焼き立て success

A quick trip to Donkey Hote for some butter this morning (to re-make the cake) ended up in me somehow spending 5000yen....on "essentials" (a-hem) I came back with cooking oil, 2*konbu tsuyu, 3*butter, 1*margarine, 2kg of brown rice, AND a new pair of pjs, 5 pairs of socks and 2*onesies for K that we bought at the Nishimatsuya on the way home (since I was out in the car anyway, may as well make a day of it, right!?)

We got home about 11:30am, so I quickly threw some rice in the cooker to have a simple lunch of natto-gohan (K's absolute fav! she loves Natto; and Vegemite for that matter!). There was some rice in a plastic bag lying around that I think was the left over from the rice J took camping - he cooked it up at the campsite, so I didn't know, but when I opened the rice for lunch, I realised that it must have been 新米 because it was super soggy, as I had added the normal amount of water to cook it in. Ooops! Failure!!!

But the average lunch was well and trully made up for by the yummy banana cake that I did make this afternoon (supposedly during K's nap, but since we all got woken up before 6am when J left to go to Narita for his 2day trip to Hong Kong, and then K and I actually fell back asleep and didn't wake up until nearly 9am, with a phone call from J saying he was about to get on the plane! haha). Success (thanks to using butter that had been left out for a while before mixing)!! Although I did cut the amount of sugar I put in by half, and found it to be a bit plain tasting(K didn't seem to mind the less sweet cake), so I sprinkled the freshly baked banana cake with cinnamon sugar for me to make up for it. Went down lovely just now with an afternoon glass of cold milk for us both. Ooh, it would be nice with some vanilla ice-cream too, hehe. I can see me gaining another 3 kgs this weekend polishing off the cake now!!

success and failure

Saw this recipe (in Japanese only, sorry. If anyone wants an English version, I can put it up, but can't be bothered with it right now, lazy me!!) for "Chicken soboro on steamed pumpkin dumplings" on daytime tv the other day, and it looked so nice, I managed to scribble most of it down. I made it up last night and you know what? it turned out just delish!

I don't know if the photo does it justice or not. They steamed the pumpkin dumplings in the fry pan, after rolling the mix into balls and wrapping in glad-wrap. It was so cool!

I made the pumpkin dumplings without nuts for K and she just gobbled them up too!

Thought I was on a roll, until I attempted to use up the excess bananas we bought (got a bit carried away when we saw them on the shelves and bought 3 hands the other day...) in a banana cake using this recipe..... If you check out the first comment on this, it says what to do to avoid what happened to me, which meant that I had to chuck the butter/sugar/egg mix out because I didn't cream it and mix it properly. I would have started again, but we had no more butter. I used to be an ok cake maker too, and now I am stuffing that up, lol. Oh well. Might try again tomorrow.

Also bought some apples cheap so I want to make stewed apples tomorrow. Seems like I have got a busy day ahead of me.

apparently orange crayons taste good

so, how did it get to be Wednesday already?!?

Oh, I know:

We left home Friday night right after dinner and headed down to the PIL's summer house for the weekend. It was nice - J ran around doing all the cooking, and I even got a nap on the sofa while K had her nap. But I still had to do the morning calls. Ok, K is very easy, getting up at about 7:30 most days, so I know, I know, I have nothing to complain about. But it was still giving me the pips when J managed to sleep in until at least 9:30am while I was up, walking and pooping the dog, and entertaining K just like every other normal day. No such thing as a weekend for mummies.



So we were away all weekend anyway, and then Monday was a catch-up day. As in, we left the house in a rush on Friday night, so I still had stuff everywhere, including a pile of ironing that yes, I still do for J, what can I say - I am hopeless at housekeeping, so I feel that it is the least I can do. But before the catch up, I made a quick dash to Costco. A week before when we went there, we saw the 2008 model Maclaren stroller there. My very good japanese friend from when I was here on JET is 6months preggars, so I was going to get the stroller for her as a baby present. But it was all sold out, in like less than a week! argh. After walking around for about 20mins, all I had in my trolley was 3*1L of milk. You know when you go with a purpose, then you just don't want anything else!? Well, it was like that. But I figured I couldn't go to the checkout with only 400yen worth of stuff, so I threw a 2kg bag of chicken breasts and a 1kg of lamb into the trolley and felt better. I made the most DELISH lamb roast on Monday night, if I do say so myself.


And the gravy was FAB- secret ingredient.....well. you try to guess! J couldn't pick it.
Oh, and the most amazing thing - K did pee-pee in the potty!! It was just before shower time and J had her sitting on the ptty while he got a towel and she was like "pee-pee" and she DID it. Her first time!!

Tuesday was playgroup, our first meeting since the summer holidays, so it was great to see everyone again - and how fast all the kids grow, even in just a month! We had lunch with everyone, then caught the train home (after stopping off at the 100yen shop for 15 useless but "for some reason they seemed necessary at the time" items)

And then all of a sudden it is Wednesday already. Today we stayed at home, mainly because it is sooooo hot today! Even inside with the aircon on(set on eco at 28deg) we are hot! K is currently drawing with crayons - she seems to have really taken to this drawing business all of a sudden. Every time I turn around, she has climbed up on the chair at the table (see a pattern here?) and grabbed a pen to start drawing.

Dinner has been cooked - yummy Alfredo style chicken and mushroom pasta. But just got call from J that he will probably be having dinner out with boss and clients. Oh well, more for me!

OMG, K has just eaten half the orange crayon!!!!!!!! aaaaarrrggggh

go goya

"go goya, go goya, go goya" (to be sung a-la-Ricki Lake "go Ricki" style)

So I braved the goya again tonight. We visited to PILs on the weekend, as we hadn't seen them since the cherry picking trip. They have a grand little vege patch in the area that was where the granny flat that J and I lived in when I first moved up to Tokyo was (they pulled it down when we moved out when I was pregnant and decided I didn't want to bring up a baby with the rats, haha!) They have tomatoes, spinach, okra, eggplant, shishito (not sure what that is in English? are they just green capsicum??) red and yellow capscicums, and the mother of all goya vines running up the house to the 2nd floor balcony!! So we came home with a pile of fresh veges, including one very big goya. After my last failed attempt at goya champuru earlier in the summer, I was not too keen on trying again, but I took on the advise of Illahee and cut the goya really really thinly. Sooooooo thinly that I got cramps in my hands and up my arms from holding the knife for so long - one goya goes a long way when it is cut that thin, haha! Actually, after I scooped out all the seeds and flesh, I salted the goya then poured boiling water over it. I let it soak like that for a few minutes, and I must admit that this time, it wasn't too bad! (despite the fuzzy photo, it did look and taste yummy)

I think THIN THIN THIN was the key for this goya champuru success story. Whenever I thought I was cutting it thin, then I started to slice it even thinner just to be sure.

In other news, K has started telling me pee-pee when she has done a job in her nappy. Sometimes I catch her all quiet in the corner, and manage to get the nappy off and her butt on the potty just in time to catch the no 2 jobs. But she still hasn't done a No1 on the potty yet. But it is cool to see that she seems to understand a bit now about what it all means. We are reading "Hitori de unchi" which means "I can do poo all by myself". It is a flip-the-page book. It goes like this:

"Koro the dog is going 'aarrrrgggghhhhhh'"
(flip the page)
"Oh look, he did a big healthy poo!"

....................Seems to read nicer in Japanese, for some reason.

We both sit there grunting as we read it at bedtime, hehe. (yes, it is her bedtime book choice this month! I keep on trying to throw in a "Hop on Pop" or something, but she puts up a fuss, and knows that she wants the unchi book - let the kid have unchi!

I had hoped to have her toilet trained this summer, but that seems pretty impossible (I am pretty lazy about it all too, I admit). But hopefully we can get serious about it when we go home for Xmas, and come back to Japan with a (near)nappy-free K!

all martha-ed out

my two days of visits went well, and it was so nice to have people over. Anyone ever in the vacinity, please drop in!

K had lots of fun playing with friend's daughter R-chan(or is it L-chan? transliterists, what are your thoughts? Can i choose as i see fit? I go for L-chan on this one) on Tuesday, although since they got here at about 11:30am, K was having soooo much fun that she forgot to nap. So when they left about 4pm, it didn't take long for K to get grumpy. She ended up falling asleep in my arms as we were skyping my folks just before 5pm. Classic. I decided to let her sleep (like I really had any say in it) and took R for a walk, with K in the ergo, then put her on the bed for more napping. She woke up after about an hour, but was still obviously sleepy, so I thought a shower would freshen her up, and tide her over at least until normal bedtime, which it did. She was still a bit tired today though, so I put her down earlier than normal for a nap, at about noon, then she slept a good 2 and a half hours, waking up just before our friends came over for a cuppa this arvo.

Yesterday I made a quiche using this recipe for the pie crust, and this recipe for the Brocolli filling (although I did add mushrooms and bacon). The filling was very very yum-yum, but I failed miserably on the pie crust. My symptoms - crumbly crust, which apparently means I overworked the dough. I also think it may have something to do with the fact that I can't work out the US measurements (yes, I realise that you can change the units on Zaar Recipies but then you end up with something like 15.67ml of blah blah blah), so I might have added too much butter to start with, then ran out of flour when I realised I had added too much butter, so couldn't even tweak the dough. Oh well. I am having another attempt this saturday in my quest for the perfect quich pie crust. Did I really just write that - god my life is boring.

Today I made lasagna for dinner - I know, I must be going through a yo(洋)phase this time. I used a recipe off the internet very loosley, with mince, onions and mushrooms in a jar of pasta sauce, but made my own white sauce (the only thing made as per the recipe), and used red cheddar cheese and mozzarella cheese, as well as some parmasan for sprinkling on the top. (gaijin wife...I will still accept your lasagna recipe if you ever want to send it my way!) and I thought it tasted good, but J said it was lacking a bit. He *always* says that though (rolls eyes) , so I just told him that just because all Japanese food tastes like soy sauce, doesn't mean that western food needs to have an overbearing flavour to it, and he should learn to appreciate subtle flavours (or starve - his choice really, hehe).

tomorrow we are going out to play - have to be out of the house before 10am to catch a train. God help me. In this heat, I can barely even sleep at night, and that is WITH acey on in the next room (not in the room we sleep in).

and finally some great news - I got two fantastic packages in the post today. One was the book LOSING KEI which I won on Nay's blog, (yay, I finally got it...bit of a mix up at this end, oops, with not realising the postie has tried to deliver the book while I was out one day, as the message card they leave was tossed in amongst some pizza-la campaign fliers so I almost lost Losing Kei, but all is well now, and I am really looking forward to reading it - thanks Nay, and Nay's mum for sending it!) and a friend from home send over a care package of magazines! yay! So I can find out now that Brangelina are expecting a baby - ok, the mags might be a *bit* old, but hey, English lit. Gotta love it!

big few days

We went down to the (PILs's) summer house for the weekend, left Fri night after J got home from work. Decided to try the local roads instead of the highway, and got every single red light for about 40kms straight. J said we would stop at a supermarket along the way to get some supplies, but it was after 10pm before we got to our destination - we were so sure the supermarkets would be shut, but lucked out with one open. J bought up while I waited in car with sleeping K (and sleeping R). When he got back in the car, I said that he should go into the house first and lay out the futons so that I could just run in with K and not wake her up too much. He slapped the steering wheel and let out an expletive as he said "I forgot the keys". We had just driven nearly 2hours, and were 5 minutes away from the house. I did the only thing I could do - laugh! We tried the house just in case his parent's were there (they weren't) or there was a spare key hidden somewhere (there wasn't) then decided that we would head back to pick up the key and come back again - another 2-3hours of driving! Since K was asleep, it didn't really make much difference, except that everytime I was about the nod off in the car, he would turn around and ask a question or make a comment about the car in front or something. Oh well. Finally got to the house (with the key!) at about 1:40am. K woke up and took a while to settle again. Then I couldn't sleep anyway. I think I got about 4hours sleep before K woke up at the crack of dawn. Normally at home, I just let her run amok because really there is not much she can get into, But at the house, it is like one big amusement park (read = danger zone) for K, so I had to be up to supervise her too. We still get to relax a bit(J usually does all the cooking etc on the weekends)but it was a big weekend with lots of playing in the blow-up pool, running around the garden with R, walking down to the fishing port etc etc, so I was buggered by Sunday night.

Tomorrow, a friend is coming over with her daughter who is 3 months older than K to visit. I am usually the visitor - no one ever comes here. And when they do, I spend days before hand SLOWLY cleaning the place up (i.e. I tidy the area near the genkan, then procrastinate for an hour, then I might hit the kitchen, only to wipe the benches before I start thinking about something else and end up on the sofa watching the 2pm drama on tv (which is "鬼嫁日記" or "The Housewife from Hell Diaries" with Goro, comedian from Garage Sale in it. I quite enjoy it, even though I think I have seen the whole series twice already....)oops, double bracket here, see, I am pretty good at getting OFF track....)

so, the friend tomorrow, I met her while I was doing tea ceremony lessons - she was preggars when I joined, then I got preggars, and saw her at the same hospital I was going to, at the preggar's yoga classes. She got a shock to see me there, as I hadn't told my tea ceremony teacher or the others that I was "with child" yet. So we gave birth at the same hospital, and used to catch up with a few other mums from the same hospital for the first several months or so after all the kids were born, then we moved, and I haven't really seen her (or the others) for ages. So she is coming all the way down (nearly an hour by local trains) to see us tomorrow and we are excited!! yay!

Then have another friend coming over Wednesday afternoon with her kindy aged daughter. So with all these visitors (yes, only 2, but as I said, noone ever visits,so I am psyched!) I hit Costco today to get some goodies. Actually, J has been a member for years, and until now, we used to go every other month or so and get stuff, and it was fun going once in a while and buying up big! But we recently moved close to a costco - only 20mins drive away, so I started getting the urge to go there to just buy a few things....like the yummy cakes or muffins, or a frozen lasagna that I could simply pop in the oven tomorrow when friend comes. So I joined up for myself today! yay! But for some reason, everything I wanted, they didn't have it today. There was no frozen anything that could be used for lunch tomorrow, so I am going to have to make a quiche up I think instead (gonna start on the pie crust after I finish this) and I also wanted to buy K this bathing suit that had floaties in the top of it which I saw a few weeks ago when I went, but they were not there any more!!! I was also looking for some unagi (eel) if they had it, to try to beat this dull feeling both J and I have in this heat (夏ばて - why does it sound so stuid when you try to translate it into English?), but it was really expensive there, so I ended up getting it at local supermarket anyway. All in all, a bit dissapointed in becoming a fully-fledged member. Oh, and K cracked a willy-wonker as I was trying to get through the check-out, but that was more my fault for taking her out when it was nap time (I stooopidly thought she would sleep as we went around the store - I was gonna Ergo carry her on my back, but the excitement of Costco obviously got to her too, and she was wide awake, but TIRED!!!and getting grumpy)
We enjoyed the hot dog though.

Right, off to the kitchen with me I guess - pie sheet here I come.

Paprikosh (no I am not swearing at you)

An old family favourite...yum!!

For some reason, I always forget the recipe and end up having to ring mum every time! So I decided to put it up here for ME to check out everytime I get the urge to eat paprikosh, like I did tonight because:
a) J is off on a business trip out to the sticks, and only just got home
b) we have piles of potatoes after going out to Gunma 2 weekends ago for cherry picking (I keep on meaning to post about this too.....)

So, all about Paprikosh
Ingredients: 8-10 potatoes, 1 tomato (or can of tomato), 1 large onion, paprika, 1 stick of kabana

Actually, tonight for about 4 servings of paprikosh, I used 6 smallish potatoes, 2/3 tin tomato, 1 onion, 2 packets (which was only 10!!) of "morning sausages" those teeny-tiny frankfurt looking things.

What to do: cube potatoes into about 1-2cm square size; dice onion; dice tomato; slice kabana/frankfurts into about 1-2cm size slices.

Put all ingredients into a pot and simmer away on very low heat for about 40mins - 1hour, stirring constantly (or else it sticks on the bottom - you can start off with a bit of oil in the bottom of the pot so the onions etc don't stick at first.) After a while, the potatoes will start to loose their form, and get mushy. This is good! Keep stirring, and add as much paprika as you need - I usually add a fair bit. Once the potatoes are all cooked through and mushy, add the kabana and keep simmering on very low heat until kabana is heated through. Voila - paprikosh is served!!!

And that is it - how can I forget it everytime? I have no idea!!

Will have to take a photo of it next time I cook it too!!

Apparently it is a Hungarian recipe. No, my family is not Hungarian, but mum and dad knew a whole extended family of Hungarians many years ago, and that is how they got the recipe.

bitter sweet (only not sweet at all)

note to self - don't be fooled by the 100yen goya! There is a reason why it is cheap - goya is goya, and even following this recipe for Goya Chanpuru it was still as bitter as anything. Oh, and I realised after I put everything out on the table that I forgot to put the egg in the ゴーヤチャンプル, so I hastily added it afterwards. Which is good, cause I ate everything around the goya!!

I usually make this once a year, then I remember how bad it tastes. So until next year, not more bitter gourd, I guess.

Side dish of eggplant with soy sauce and ginger garnish, 春菊(shungiku chrysanthemum leaves - the left over from nabe the other day)with ponsu which was a surprisingly nice little dish and some tuna sashimi. Looks like we are still in our "wa" phase.

bits and pieces

I think that 五月病 finally hit me... talk about ギリギリ! If it had have hit me much later, I wouldn't be able to pull the 五月病 card. lol.

So just feeling "listless", add that that a bit headachy, and the fact that it has been HOT the last few days and you get the picture. J also felt sick last night - it hit him all of a sudden too. wonder what it is/was?

Am feeling a bit better now though - might be the 2 glasses of vino I had after lunch!? haha.

Guessing I should do a round-up of things, coz if I try to post everything in full, I will be here all day. Let's see if I actually can brief it (I am known to ramble...)

• chinese for dinner


This dates back to last Thursday night. I made my favourite "chicken and cashew nuts" FROM SCRATCH, and added some 麻婆豆腐(mabo dofu spicy tofu) from the packet, 青梗菜 (chin-gen-sai - which I think is what we call bok choi?) with oyster sauce and some steamed asparagus. It was all pretty darn good too.


• R is back

She spent last week at the PIL's. When she is here, I complian about her going spaz over the vacuum cleaner, and stuff, but I really miss her when she is gone. We took her out last night to play at the park with the soccer ball. She is an amazing soccer player, this dog. And it is soooooo funny to watch.I might try to get her on video doing it one time....


• Ikea

Went to Ikea a few weekends ago, and found this awesome tunnel for K to play in!! And since we are 親ばか we even bought the golden retreiver, who she LOVES.

It's name is "goldie" and when we say "where's goldie" she goes and gets him and gives it a big hug and kiss. too cute.


• Midori Sushi

no, the sushi was not green, but we ate at Midori Sushi on Sunday, the PIL's shouted us (yay! tastes even better when you don't have to pay, lol). If anyone is looking for a great sushi joint, then Midori Sushi is IT! We used to go all the time when we were "courting" (hehe, nice word for it) and BK (before K) but haven't had a chance to go recently. This time though, it was perfect timing as K fell asleep just as we sat down at the counter (I had her in the ergo) and slept through the entire meal. We were there for about 1.5hours.

I went all out this time and had:
1 海鮮サラダ　（seafood salad shared amongst all 4 of us)
1 plate of various clam saashimi 貝刺身 :　赤貝、ミル貝、あわび、つぶ貝
2貫　うに, sea-urchin one normal, one that had been preserved in salt water
2貫　はまち (they didn't have any ぶり so had to go for the はまち。 ぶり (yellow tail) is my ABSOLUTE favourite, but the hamachi was pretty good too.
2貫　平貝　(taira-gai) with lemon and salt YUM!
1貫 こぼれうに (sea urchin that is overflowing off the rice)
1貫　こぼれいくら (salmon roe that is overflowing off the rice)
and 2 beers!!

That is all I can remember, might have had more?! It was all DELISH though. And the best part - K slept the entire time we were at the counter, on my back in the Ergo.

I really recommmend Midori Sushi if anyone wants reasonable but yummy sushi in Tokyo. We always go to the original store, in 梅丘 (Umegaoka on the Odakyu line) about 15mins (?) from Shinjuku. FWIW, it cost about 14,000yen for all 4 of us, and me and FIL were drinking. And MIL only orders the most expensive Tuna and Uni. The sushi ネタ are all so big you get full quick, so we always take our time. and sitting at the counter is the best way to go.　But be warned - we have had to line up here for 1hour sometimes, especially for weekend lunch. On Sunday we went at about 1:45pm and got in straight away!


• Italian for dinner


Last night was Italian...in a bit of a strech of the word. We had タラコ spaghetti, margerita pizza, salad with smoked salmon. And a teeny-tiny bottle of lambrusco that I bought at the discount store for about 200yen!! I had half of it last night, and the last glass today with lunch!

Nothing exciting really, but that was the round up.

another "wa" dinner...

After a week of J away for work, I had almost forgotten that I was supposed to prepare dinner....it was already 1pm when I frantically pulled open the freezer to see if I could scrape together a meal out of frozen goods.... found the 紅しゃけ　(red salmon) we bought at Costco a few weeks ago. perfect. Add to that a great menu idea from gaijin wife - 豚のネギ塩焼き which I then found on the Orange Page website (how exciting - I didn't know they had a website!!! Means I no longer have to borrow last year's Orange Pages from the library for inspiration!) So there was dinner. Once again I got a "yum, looks good" comment from J. cool. Forgot to take a photo of it though, as J called up at 5:30 to say he finished work early and was on his way home, and to meet him down at the Softbank shop so we could get new phones...we had the old ones for about 1 and a half years, and they were starting to lose it - turning themselves off unexpectedly, answering machine function not working any more, etc etc. So after choosing our new phones, I ran home to slap together the meal, added in some steamed greens and a small salad and we chomped into it straight away, so no photo!!

still trying to make some space in the freezer(must. use. mince.)
, so tomorrow night is going to be spag bol. Works out well, coz tomorrow we are going to trapse across to our old playgroup (which is now about an hour away by train. it is a long way to go at 9am with a very genki 1 year old, but we wanna see everyone again, so I am psyched up to do it!! ) so dinner tomorrow night it going to have to be a slap-it-together dish, as I expect to be buggered by the time we get home tomorrow afternoon.

last post for the day, I promise

so this is what we had for dinner. I think I am going through a 和 phase!
★豚の生姜焼き
★ひじき煮 （ひじき、豚肉、人参、こんやく、油揚げ)
★大豆とキュウリの大根和え
★筍と豆腐の吸い物
★アスバラwithマヨネーズ
★ご飯
j looked at it said 美味しそう - he never says that、 so Iwas chuffed! Only problem was the 吸い物 was a bit lacking flavour. oh well. the hijiki was just right though!