Blueberry cheesecake cups were my favorite childhood dessert.  It seems like my mom made this regularly for us, and when I asked her about this, she said it was because she made this often for parties, as well as refreshments for a number of activities: basketball, church, poker night, Japanese school, boy scouts, girl scouts, her flower arrangement group, chorus, so on and so forth! Am I ever glad my mom had all these activities to make...

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Oyakodon is a common donburi dish often found at Japanese restaurants or the deli section of Japanese supermarkets.  It’s chicken, delicately cooked egg, and thin slices of onion all resting over a bed of rice, and covered with a delicate sweet and savory sauce. Long ago, my Mom taught me why oyakodon is called “oyakodon” and tanindon (beef and egg donburi) is called “tanindon”.  Oyako in Japanese means...

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  In my Dr. Sears’ “The Baby Book”, avocado is listed as a favorite first food, but it was my friend and RN (nurse G) that I recall telling me, “avocados are a superfood”.  We had lunch over a year ago when she brought out half an avocado and started scooping out the flesh of a ripe avocado into a little bowl for mashing – baby guacamole! I almost forgot about baby guacamole until I saw it in “The...

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  A quick meal made with leftovers is kakiage donburi or kakiagedon.  Mixed tempura rests over a bed of brown rice and is served in a donburi.  When possible, I like to use leftovers in a new dish because it’s usually easy to prepare and keeps the dinner menu exciting. Earlier this week I made kakiage tempura and wrapped each leftover kakiage individually in plastic wrap and then placed them all in a ziplock bag.  I like storing them...

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Donburi sauce is the foundation of my Mom’s “-don” dishes, such as oyakodon (follow link for recipe), a chicken and egg donburi; tendon, a tempura donburi; and kakiagedon (follow link for recipe), a mixed vegetable and shrimp tempura donburi; and tanindon, a beef and egg donburi. Because of the many uses of donburi sauce, I felt this savory and sweet sauce deserved a post all to itself.  Eventually, I’ll get to each...

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  We all know fried food is bad for us, but how can you resist crispy, crunchy, tasty tempura?  Forget about your cholesterol level, forget about those jeans you’ve been wanting to get back into, forget about your New Year’s resolution to eat healthier. Throw all of that out the door and simply, LOVE tempura with me, just for a little while.  :) I don’t eat tempura often (only when dining at a good Japanese restaurant), but...

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  Sauteed Chinese baby bok choy is another quick and easy veggie that I make regularly for dinner.  It goes really well with the ready-made char siu that I buy at the 99 Ranch Market deli, and makes for a REALLY quick dinner on days when there’s too much going on and I don’t have a lot of time. Until I met bebe dada, I only bought baby bok choy when I made chow mein (a recipe for a future post).  He taught me how to prepare this...

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Karashi Mentaiko is one of those foods that I refused to eat as a child.  Why?  You guessed it – It’s because of the way it looks.  It’s not pretty. It wasn’t until some time post-college when my Auntie Tree Village (our closest family friends) went back to her hometown in Kyushu, Japan and brought back fresh frozen mentaiko for our family. After some encouragement from my mom, I tried a bite, and it was so...

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