Mini Katsudon

Mini Katsudon

Mini katsudon is the epitome of a quick weeknight meal that will fool everyone into thinking you slaved over your stove for at least an hour or two. I like to let my family think I’ve slaved over a beautiful Japanese meal once in awhile, even though I really haven’t. But they’re starting to catch on. I guess you could say I’ve been having a hard time finding time to blog, writing for work, consulting for a new client, and...

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2014 Happy Chinese New Year!

2014 Happy Chinese New Year!

Happy Lunar New Year! Kung Hei Fat Choi! For those of you who visited my blog recently and had difficulty with some of the links on my blog, I sincerely apologize! Most all of the links are fixed but I thank you for your patience while we work out all of the issues. Please don’t hesitate to browse the “Recipes” page for any dishes you might be interested in while we continue to work out the kinks. I had hoped to post this last...

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Sui Gyoza (Boiled Potstickers) Dipped in Ponzu Sauce

Sui Gyoza (Boiled Potstickers) Dipped in Ponzu Sauce

Of all the foods my Mom makes, the more I think about it, the more I’m certain that gyoza, or potstickers, are hands down my favorite dish. Sometimes my Mom would set aside a few gyoza for lunch the next day which she would simply boil in a hot pot of water. It only takes a few minutes for the sui-gyoza to cook, which are quickly drained and then served with a simple sauce of ponzu (citrus – soy dressing) and spiced with Japanese...

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Tonjiru (Traditional Japanese Pork Soup)

Tonjiru (Traditional Japanese Pork Soup)

  At times I get homesick for my Mom’s cooking. Despite our recent warmer weather, we had a slight cooling trend with a touch of June gloom which prompted a craving for tonjiru, or traditional Japanese pork soup. It’s a miso based soup and the ingredients might vary just slightly from one family to the next, but ours consistently includes carrots, onions, gobo (burdock root), konyaku (devil’s tongue root), and pork. Usually,...

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Green Eggs & Bacon

Green Eggs & Bacon

One day, when I’m much older and the kids are all grown up, I’ll look back at this time and remember how much I enjoyed making a big deal of holidays such as St. Patrick’s Day. I always try to find a few arts and crafts for Bebe to celebrate with, but for a family that loves to eat, celebrating with green food on St. Patrick’s Day is also a lot of fun. This morning I made two dishes. The first, green eggs and bacon, is a...

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My Moms Japanese Style Egg Rolls

My Moms Japanese Style Egg Rolls

As the title of this post implies, I made fried food! It was somewhat impulsive. I was cleaning out our freezer and I came across a pack of Nanka Seimen egg roll wrappers that I purchased quite a long time ago. To be honest, I'm not even sure when I bought these, but after defrosting them, they didn't have any noticeable freezer burn so I didn't want them to go to waste. I remembered a type of egg roll that my Mom used to make for us when...

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Wonton Soup

My husband makes three types of Chinese soup when any of us are sick. One of them is Chinese Winter Melon Soup or tung qwa soup, which I’ve shared in the past, the second is Moqua Soup or Fuzzy Melon Soup (post forthcoming), and the third, which is my absolute favorite, is Wonton Soup. While it seems seasonally inappropriate to share a hot soup recipe amidst our warmer and sunny Southern California weather, last week when I was feeling...

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Chinese Wontons

Chinese Wontons

There’s something about fried wontons that are addicting. Inherently, we all know fried foods aren’t necessarily the healthiest of foods, yet you can’t stop at just one wonton. You eat one, and then you want another, eat another, and then you want yet another, and another! Perhaps it’s the light, crunchy fried wonton skin. Or perhaps it’s that tasty wonton center of succulent ground pork mixed with subtle bursts of...

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