Banana Bread Recipe with Choco Chips from Georgia
My daughter and I have been making this banana bread recipe with chocolate chips for what feels like years now. It’s a recipe that was shared by my sister-in-law’s stepmom who either baked the bread for us as a gift, or perhaps she brought it to a potluck, or maybe it was featured in her dessert bar at her annual Christmas dinner. Wherever we first tried it, it made such an impression that we’ve been using this recipe as our own family banana bread since then. I have to admit that I’ve tried at least a dozen...
read moreMy Moms Daikon Pickles
To this day, I do not like the smell of daikon radish in my fridge, or my home, but regardless of this tiny “problem”, I still enjoy eating it. Perhaps its because it happens to be one of the traditional Japanese vegetables that regularly appeared in my mom’s dinner repertoire, including oden, a favorite winter stew where the daikon is simmered over a long period of time. Or more commonly, daikon appeared in sunomono style vinegar based salads where the daikon was marinated raw. Either way, cooked or raw, daikon radish is...
read moreJapan 2016 Travel Journal, Part 3 Tokyo & Hiroshima & Food
It’s been a year since we travelled to Japan, and while I never got around to sharing the last of our family photos from our wonderful trip, the fact my mom just arrived in Osaka was motivation enough to publish a blog post. Both Bebe and I are definitely pining to be with my mom in Japan. Bebe loved Sanrio Puroland in Tokyo. It’s a teeny tiny Sanrio version of Disneyland but it was Japanese style cuteness overload, and we spent a few hours basking in cuteness until our hearts were content. Puroland, Tokyo...
read moreJapan 2016 Travel Journal, Part 2 Kyoto
Kyoto is one of my favorite sightseeing destinations in Japan. Throughout my life, I’ve had the privilege of visiting this beautiful city a few times, but because I’ve visited at such different stages in my life, it felt familiar, yet also new each time. (Sorry, some of the images are large and may load slowly; I forgot to compress them!) My younger experiences included visits when I was in early elementary school, followed by visits in middle school and my last visit was likely in college when I travelled with a handful of...
read moreI Am Back! Japan 2016 Travel Journal, Part 1 Arriving in Osaka
It’s been over a year since I last shared anything on my personal blog, and it’s also been a year since I was last in Japan. I thought I’d kickstart my blog by sharing a few pictures from our travels to Kyoto and Tokyo this spring. I also have several pictures from last year’s trip to Japan in spring 2015 that I’ve wanted to share for more than a year now, but somehow time just kept slipping away. Maybe I’ll get around to sharing those too. Stay tuned. * * * * * We like to fly into Kansai International...
read moreHappy Girls Day! Hinamatsuri Party Ideas 2015
Happy Japanese Girls’ Day! Today, March 3rd, is Hinamatsuri, also known as Girls’ Day or Doll Festival. Since Bebe was born, this Japanese holiday is one that we celebrate annually in my family, and is something my daughter looks forward to each year. Many years in my childhood, my Mom would host Hinamatsuri parties for me and a handful of my friends, and now I in turn have the pleasure of doing the same for my daughter. Because it is bad luck to leave the Hinamatsuri dolls’ displayed after March 3rd, I’ve...
read moreThe Magic of Kinako (Roasted Soy Bean Flour)
As a kid, one of my favorite Japanese foods was sweetened kinako, or roasted soy bean flour. Of course, back then, I had no clue as to what the dry, golden brown, powdery flour-like substance called kinako was, other than the fact that my mom said it was made from soy, but to me, it was magical. It was the most delicious food ever, especially when my mom dusted fresh warm mochi with sweetened kinako. The sugary sweetness of the kinako, combined with its natural toasty flavor was addictive, to say the least. I remember licking sweetened kinako...
read moreSlow Cooker Recipe for Kuromame (Sweet Black Soy Beans)
Last year, my mom taught me a new osechi ryori (traditional food for celebrating Japanese New Year) dish that she learned from a friend of hers: kuromame, or sweet black soy beans cooked in the slow cooker. [Photo Credit: Hideki Ueha] This slow cooker recipe is a life saver, given I’ve burned my share of kuromame batches by forgetting about the beans simmering on the stove. The beans need to simmer for a while in order to achieve the “tender on the outside – firm on the inside” texture that is characteristic of this...
read moreCrispy Sweet Red Bean Dumplings
It’s hard to believe 2014 is coming to a close and Christmas already came and went. I know it’s been awhile since I shared anything on my blog here, but believe it or not I had a post ready for Thanksgiving, and then again one for Christmas. The only problem is that I wasn’t able to find the photos I took of my food. So those posts have been saved until my archiving (and technology), backup, and memory (laptop’s not mine) issues can be resolved. I’ve been fairly busy blogging for About.com, in addition to my...
read moreCarmel Apples & Happy Halloween!
Caramel… oozing all over crisp sweet apples. That’s exactly how I like my caramel apples. Last year, Bebe and I made these caramel apples for a Halloween party and honestly, these were just as fun to make as they were to eat. Unfortunately, this year the “Halloween Crunch” (which can be likened to the Thanksgiving-Christmas-New Year holiday crunch) really snuck up on us. Instead of making these fun caramel apples again, we made cupcakes out of the box and decorated them… which in hindsight, might have taken just...
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