We're all mad

I wanted to know why if we call 狂牛病　(BSE) "Mad Cow's Disease", then we don't we call 狂犬病 (Rabies) "Mad Dog's Disease"?
But apparently the urban dictionary does have it as mad dog's disease. So there we go.

In any case, we took R down for her rabies vaccination shot today. She was supposed to get it in May - oops. And she was supposed to get her 9種混合 (not sure what 9 types of diseases we are vaccinating against) vaccination shot this month, but since we forgot about rabies, we got that done first, and will take her back at the end of the month for 9種混合.

I tried a re-match of the 30-a-day:

Dinner ささみ　シソ梅肉巻き
1)chicken (sasami)
2)perilla leaf (shiso 紫蘇 - a new kanji for me!)
3)salted plum (梅肉）

salad
4) lettuce
5) tomato
6) daikon radish
7) cucumber
8) celery
9) red capsicum
10) yellow capsicum

pasta
11) spaghetti
12) clams in alfredo sauce
13) with sliced onions

Lunch Pizza Toast
14) bread
15) cheese
16) salami

Snack
17) grapes (shared with K)

Breakfast
18) cookies (I know, I know) with my cuppa

*sigh* still less than 20. I know breakfast and lunch are my downfalls, but what can I say, I am lazy through the day and don't feel like full meals.

30 A DAY

oops, had the caps lock on there.

So they say that you are supposed to eat 30 different foods a day (well, MIL says it at least.) I aways thought this was near impossible, but I think today we may have done it. Let me list it up and see:

Dinner
1) Zucchini (s/p and grilled in olive oil)
2) Snow peas (steamed, and served with butter)
3) Chicken wings teriyaki style
4) Tomatoes, drizzled with olive oil and sea salt
5) Sunny lettuce
6) tofu (with the lettuce and a 和風onion dressing to make a tofu salad)
7) grilled fish (太刀魚)
8) soy beans 枝豆

Supper
9) smoked salmon
10) camembert cheese
11) salami
12) crackers
for a little after dinner platter with chuhai treat!

Lunch
13) egg
14) bread (egg sandwhiches)
15) grapes

Breakfast
16) costco biscuits (yummy!) with my morning cuppa tea.

So ok, that is no where near 30 now that I counted it up.
Hmmmm, it really isn't easy! I don't know if I can count condiments (like olive oil, mayo) but I guess that still doesn't even make it to 20 items.

Might have to try harder to get to 30.

Oh, just remembered J had the leftovers of the thai curry, so....
17) eggplant
18) potato
19) ししとう
20) onion
21) rice.....

getting closer! (but also most likely about to burst from so much food, aarrrggghhh)

green curry

Made a Thai Green curry last night using this packet mix

but I have to say that it was pretty average. It really had no taste, and I was quite dissapointed in it. I did manage to use up the last of my eggplant, and some sweet peppers（ししとう） that MIL gave us from her vege garden though.

Next time, however, I will be using this mix instead to make my thai curry (bought at costco last night in a mad 7pm "Let's go to costco" moment. We came back with this, a pad thai set, a bunch of bananas, a bottle of white wine, some salami and a mighty big box of those yummy soft biscuits.)

I have used the pad thai and tom yum kun(sp?) soup before and they turned out nice (well, except for the tom yum kun soup which was far too hot for me to handle, wuss that I am) so I am hoping the curry is nice too.
Don't know why the sudden urge to make Thai curry... Must be the heat?

the dinner that was

really not that exciting so don't know why I am bothering blogging (& from my mobile at that)but here goes:

* 焼きナス
* togan with scallop chinese style soup sauce (same recipe as wed night)* goya and sprouts ナムル
* sashimi (j picked it up on the way home)
and rice.

I totally forgot abt the snow peas and yamaimo, oops.K ate all the natto (so you wouldn't have got a look in anyway lulu;) and also 2pieces of sashimi- she asked to eat it!

GW- I figured ur phone had karcked it this morning. Well, either that or you were abducted by vestlings.

We are at pil's now for the weekend. Arrived about 1030pm. Hoping to have a splash in K's blow up kiddy pool tomorrow. I will be keeping a shirt on tho- my back is just starting to peel after last weekend's ouchy-ouchy sunburn.

It's my prerogative

Dinner last night was "love love lasagna". I still call it this, as I had to ask GW for her recipe when I first attempted a lasagna, and she sent me her ラブラブラサニア recipe. The name sticks.

Anyway, last night I added some grated carrot and pumpkin to the mix. And I have to say that it was just divine! The pumpkin made the lasagna really "creamy". J had 2 refills! .

Playgroup yesterday was good. One of the kids that K always mentions came back from his summer holidays, and I think she was happy to see him. Before bed last night I asked her if S was her boyfriend, and she put on this loopy grin. Too cute.

This morning we went for a quick walk to the river, to let R frolic in the grass. Came home to have a shower(man it is hot!)and polish off the lasagna left overs for lunch. Am about to watch some Veronica Mars (nice suggestion, Illahee!) as I sit in air conditioned luxury, folding up washing while K naps. My days are just TOO exciting!

I suggested to J that for dinner tonight, we go to the new Tonkotsu (yay!) ramen joint that opened down the road this week. But a look in the fridge revealed lots of bits and pieces so I changed my mind, as it is a woman's prerogative* to do so, and we are going frugal friday with a hodge-podge of whatever we can dish up. Still half of that togan too, so will have to find another recipe to use that one up.
So the ingredients in the fridge are:

eggplant

togan

snow peas

goya

eggs

natto

yamaimo (J bought this, I don't touch the stuff)
What can I turn all that into? hmmmmm.

Also tossing up what to do this weekend - mountains or ocean? With R, it makes it harder to head to the ocean, as we can't leave her in the car while we eat or anything in this heat. At least the mountains are a bit cooler. Am sure we will work something out.

* my google for the day is the word Prerogative
Not only is it my favourite Boby Brown song
but I just worked out the correct spelling for it today. ha! how about that silent "r" in there!

Togan(冬瓜） to go

Finally got around to doing something with (well, at least half of )the togan. I now know why it is called Wax Gourd - it had a really waxy feeling skin to it.

Anyway, on tonight's menu:

chinese style togan with crab (冬瓜のカニあんかけ)

青梗菜(Shanghai Pak Choi*) in oyster sauce

egg roll

salmon cutlets

rice

asari clam miso soup

K ate a bowl of the crab ankake over rice, then 2 bowls of clam miso soup!! She is eating so much at the moment, must be a growth spurt??

After dinner, we went for a quick family walk to the supermarket/department store. I was actually looking for a long sleeve rash guard in case we go to the beach again this weekend, but couldn't find anything suitable. Came home with 3 singlets, tho....one I bought to give to my friend back home. It has "Born to be a stripper" on it. I wanted to get the "porn star" one, but they only had S size (which probably would have fit, but as she is a bit taller than me, it may have been riding up around her ribs! lol). I love taking back wierd Japlish t-shirts for her. Talking of which, I saw a girl today with this written on her shirt:

"Give peace the chance"

I know it is not as bad as some of the stuff out there, but it did make me giggle.
It would be like a shirt written in Japanese with the は and が mixed up I guess. Oh, and was half listening to some show on TV today, where they were talking about how kanji is really popular o/s, but how sometimes you see people with tatoos on their arms that say things like "baka" ... They were all laughing about it, and how they should get someone to check what it says! I really wanted to ring up the show and mention how many times A DAY we see freaky Japlish stuff everywhere but they wouldn't get it I am sure.

* gee I really love wiki. A search for chingensai on my online dictionary came up with "pak choi" but wiki comes through with the goods: Chingensai is not just any pak choi, it is a Shanghai pak choi! Learning something new every day!

It's Business Time

"You know when I am down to my socks, it's business time, that's why they call them "business socks!"



Thanks for reminding me about this great song, Sarah@mommyinjapan.

Oh, and tonight is Wednesday night!
wink, wink, nudge, nudge!

Flight of the Conchords

Tuesday, but no playroup since we are on summer holidays. I thought that would mean an extra day for us to be pro-active around the house, but it basically meant:

a morning of some paper pushing at the city hall

a walk with R, with K also walking. Actually, this is a big thing, as usually I strap K into the ergo for our walks. I was being brave/stupid to try walking them both. K holds on to R's leash handle, but I actually hold on to R with the proper leash. The walking part was fine until we got around the corner to the park - K wanted to play. Sure, a few trips on the slide, and swing, I am happy to go with that, but trying to get K to come home, mini tantrum time ensures. *sigh*

quick trip to closest supermarket to buy milk. Which results in major tantrum when K refuses to hold my hand to cross the 4-lane main road. I carry her football hold over the shoulder, with her screaming all the way. Finally screams herself into an apology "I'm sorry mummy" before passing out for nap

attempt to make a milo slice, finding out only after I melted the butter that I have no milo left....quick about face to make a batch of anzac biccies and an anzac slice (since I had already greased the pan too, lol)

quick trip to next closest supermarket (this time with K on back as it doubled as an afternoon walk for R) to buy onions for dinner

yummy dinner of hot pasta salad with s/p chicken wings, and french stick

evening walk to park again, this time with K in pram

Actually, the highlight of my day happened while I was folding the washing....I use it as my special time to watch English programs online. Since I have totally worn out all seasons of Private Practice, GA, and Samantha Who?, I was searching for a new show - hard when the tv show titles all mean nothing to me as I am so out of the loop! But I did come across a show that a friend of mine introduced to me a year or so ago......and the episode from Season 2 I watched today was just (WARNING: possible accent mocking about to occur) "ixcellint" for two reasons:
1) because I now know why men stand AROUND the dance floor rather than on it at clubs and
2) because I realised how lucky I am to have NZ friends who are not ashamed to be friends with a little aussie girl like me. (and no, I don't have your purse)

Flight of the Conchords: (about a NZ duo trying to make it in NY)
I think these guys are soooo funny, rotflmao stuff. I am putting a disclaimer on tho, that it is a bit rude (like the "too many dicks on the dancefloor" song that explains (1) above), so watch at your own risk, and it is a bit wierd at first, what with them breaking into song all the time (I guess it could be called a musical sitcom?), but I still think it is just ace.

Monday 3rd Aug - Dinner

almost 自給自足...　we got the clams ourselves, this morning (K and I went with PIL) and the goya is from PIL's garden.The menu seems really summery to me. And I must admit "different" (exotic??) - can only image what my parents would say when they see it "I can't believe K eats all those wierd things", lol!

clams before :


and after:

Clams, done in garlic, sake and butter (same as last week's pasta)

Goya Champuru

Okra with Natto

chuhai sneaked into the corner of the shot...shared, between J and me.


I was so full afterwards, I suggested a family walk to the park (R included) to help burn it off. Don't know if it helped or not, tho...

Weekend (and Monday) Shenanigans

Saturday : 6am left house and took the "Aqua line" (now reduced to 800yen, rather than 2300yen each way) out to Chiba Boso Peninsular for a bit of surfing. Well, J did the surfing. K and I dug up sand, made mud pies, buried ourselves in sand.....basically got sand in every orephous possible. I made the mistake of taking off my t-shirt and going to paddle in togs for about 30mins. I thought I had put sunscreen all over my back, but turns out I just put it at the top...so the middle of my back is RED RAW. Ouchy ouchy. And the front of my legs too, where I also forgot to sunscreen. Silly mummy. Lucky K was dolled up in her full uv-protection togs with matching hat.

We were going to try to find a last minute dot com type accommodation, but nothing too exciting came up Fri night so we decided to make a day trip out of it. So after a morning of beach fun, we ate lunch at a local Hawaiian restaurant, then headed back via a 道の駅 where we picked up 5 eggplant for 110yen and about a dozen potatoes for 150yen, as well as some huge 冬瓜togan (winter melon or wax gourd) for 100yen each.

I have no idea what to do with the togan, but a cookpad search should help that out. They are sort of like squash, I think, so shouldn't be too difficult to cook up.

We got home about 4pm, crazy to think we had been to Chiba and back by that time!! We were home for 2 seconds, when J suggested we head to Sushi-Ro for an early dinner, trying to beat the crowds (that place is CRAZY by about 5pm!) So we jumped back in the car and were super surprised to see the place empty, like literally one lane was not even in use. We then realised that people were probably out at the fireworks instead. so we had a leisurely dinner (rather than trying to avoid eye contact with all the people waiting in line for seat, boring holes into our backs!!)Came home and watched Red Carpet for the first time in ages, definately the first time since it switched to 7pm on Sat night. Then we all hit the sack pretty early as we were all buggered from our day out at the beach.

Sunday : quiet day at home, it rained all morning. We walked down the street (50m down the street) to local joint for 定食 lunch, stock standard stuff. Got some supplies from supermarket and came home for a nap. After K woke up, we went to Nishimatsuya to buy her some real girl pants, since she had spent the whole weekend dry in her nappy and training pants, even doing No2s in the toilet!! yay! Of course as soon as we put her in regular pants, she wets them (sigh) but we are going to stay away from nappies now - no ponit in going back, right?! J made dinner last night - pork chops in mushroom sauce, with roast potato and pumpkin. It was his choice. Did a quick run around last night as PIL were to be arriving at 9am this morning to bring back R (and their 9 am usually ends up being 8:15am! aaarrggh) then crashed.

Monday : ok, no longer weekend, but since I am on a roll I may as well post about this too. PILs arrived at 9am on the dot - I reckon this time they were hiding around the corner, as I have caught them when they arrive early before sitting downstairs in the car!! We all piled in to go out to a small beach near here where you can collect asari (like we did last weekend). PIL and K spent about an hour on the beach collecting clams while R and I rested in shade. Then FIL's back started to hurt so I went down to the beach to grab some clams too. Looks like we will be having another week of clam-related food!! We all had conbini noodles for lunch then came home, and K crashed after another big day by the sea. Is nice to have R back after her week away, but it also now means we have to take her for her walk in the summer heat. If I was more organised, I would do it before K woke up, but, bugger that. We will just ALL suffer lol!

Not sure what we are gonna have for dinner tonight, but rest assured there will be clams involved.