As I was preparing to make chirashi for our Hinamatsuri (Japanese Girl’s Day is March 3rd) party over the weekend, I remembered that I liked the amazu renkon, or sweet pickled lotus root, as a topping for chirashi, but I couldn’t find it in my recipe index. Of course, it was logically embedded in last year’s 2011 Hinamatsuri chirashi post, but I decided amazu renkon needed a recipe post all on it’s own, and I...
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明けましておめでとう！ Akemashite Omedetou! Translation: Happy New Year! A few years ago, I vowed to learn how to make osechi ryori, or traditional Japanese New Year’s food. For as long as I can remember, every year, my Mom would make several different types of osechi ryori for our family to eat on New Year’s Day. Today, this is still true, to a certain extent, but recently I’ve been trying to help her by making...
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Cream corn is a family favorite that I only make for Thanksgiving and again for Christmas. Occasionally, it may also make a surprise appearance at Easter. This home made cream corn is simple to make and not as time-consuming as some of our other holiday favorites. It’s a great side dish when you’re also responsible for cooking six or more dishes. It’s one of those side dishes that you can make ahead of time, reheat, and...
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This year, our Halloween celebration was a bit impromptu, resulting in a quick lunch at Wahoo’s for Aya-chan, Bebe E and I and trick-or-treating on-the-fly at a few retailers at the mall before nap-time. It wasn’t the typical Halloween celebration I enjoyed as a child, but Bebe E had a blast and it was fun to watch her enjoy herself so much. Our plans to trick-or-treat in the neighborhood at dusk were foiled by an exhausted and...
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Agedashi tofu is one of my favorite Japanese appetizers. We order this regularly if we happen to be dining at a Japanese restaurant, but interestingly, it’s not something my Mom made for us when we were growing up. I think this is because the tofu is fried. On a good note, it’s only fried for 3 to 4 minutes. (Does that really make a difference? Probably not, if it’s fried, it’s fried, right!) Big Onechan also loves...
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Great news! Bebe E graduated from “Tadpole” to “Guppy” at her swim school! (In other words, from beginner to intermediate.) Hurray for Bebe E! OK… I admit that I am an overly proud parent who is using this blog to boast about her child’s accomplishment, but seriously, can you blame this first-time parent?!? Rather than continue to gloat about Bebe E’s achievement, I will share with you the school...
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One of the easiest appetizers I enjoy serving (and eating) is bruschetta. And let’s be clear that the Italian pronunciation for bruschetta is: brus’ket.ta. Note, the “ch” is pronounced with a HARD “k”, not a “sh”. It drives me up the wall when I ask for brus’ket.ta at a restaurant, only to be incorrectly corrected by a server with a response that goes something like, “you mean, you...
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I decided to neglect the MOUNTAIN of laundry that needs to be folded and quickly draft a post. Do I dare publish this on my blog within *GASP* a week of my last post?!? However, if you don’t want anything to do with our laundry, I recommend you stop reading and quickly jump ahead to the stir-fry recipe below. :) Yes, this post is about boring laundry because I write about whatever is on my mind, and unfortunately THAT is what’s on...
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