J-Food Day 2

Day 2 of the Japanese Food project was better!
Again, I'm usually making things I've made before but trying new recipes or tweaking them a little bit to experiment with new things and go out of my usual comfort zone. I'm also making everything from scratch instead of using mixes or taking the easy way out!

Dish 3. Okonomiyaki aka Japanese savory pancakes- The ones I made today had a base made of nagaimo, eggs, flour, chicken stock, and dashi. Then I mixed in cabbage, shiitake mushrooms, ginger, green onions and chives. It's always an interesting experiment to try to convert from metric units and to increase serving sizes so I may have put too much nagaimo. It was very moist, but it may have been a little too thin/runny and not as "flour-y" and thick. I usually put some sort of meat or seafood, but not this time! I'm finding out that Jeremy doesn't really like shiitake mushrooms so I may have to go easier on those too. Overall though, I was happy with the flavor and we ate it up!

I actually even made my own "tonkatsu" sauce. The recipe I used was good but the sugar it called for made it a little too sweet, in my opinion, so I might cut back on that next time. Besides, ketchup already has sugar in it!

Dish 4. Pickled cucumbers- This is my Mom's recipe that I've never made on my own, but hers is awesome so hopefully mine will turn out well. If it doesn't, it means I didn't take good enough notes of my Mom's "a little bit of this, a little bit of that". Learning from an awesome "feeling" cook is hard... It's still marinating and I can't try it until tomorrow, but I will definitely have to provide an update in the days to come!

This day was very encouraging since the food turned out better even though I'm still experimenting. Even though it's hard work making dishes and figuring out when to fit it in to my schedule, I love doing it! I heart food- especially Japanese food!

J-Food Day 1

Japanese Food Project Day 1 is off to a start!

I switched up what to make and started with gyoza and tofu patties. Let me preface with this- I don't make these very often from scratch so it wasn't a picture perfect turnout... neither Jeremy nor I were huge fans of either dish but we didn't dislike it either.

Dish 1. Gyoza- The inside consisted of ground turkey, chives, green onions, shiitake mushrooms, cabbage, ginger, and sessonings It was quite green since I put in a lot of greens in comparison to meat, to which Jeremy asked "Are the insides supposed to be that green? Our Costco ones aren't that green are they?" Definitely not. I will agree that I overdid the greens a little bit because the taste was a bit "green-ier" than even I would have liked... definitely less chives next time. However, that wasn't the only thing that went wrong. At least I took a before picture when they looked pretty.

When I assembled and lined them up on the cookie sheet, and the pan, they were absolutely gorgeous, but come time to cook them in the pan, they stuck to each other AND the pan. I'm not sure if the skin is thinner than what my parents and restaurants use, but after the water disappeared from the pan, most of the pot stickers were stuck to the bottom. Apparently I will need to use a lot more oil at the beginning than I actually did this time. As you can imagine, when I flipped them out of the pan, instead of beautifully browned gyozas, they were pot STICKERS with green insides exposed and homeless. I had to do a careful reassembly project to make them presentable!

Dish 2. Tofu Patties- Japanese people call it "tofu-burg" like a burger, but I see it more as a patty (I guess they're the same thing). I included tofu, egg, chives, shiitake mushrooms, carrots, and green onions. My first mistake was putting too many veggies in there for the amount of tofu and egg to bind it together, which means it wasn't going to hold together. I was obviously willing to hope and take the risk though!

Now for the things that went wrong. First off, it fell apart so it didn't turn golden brown like I would have liked on both sides. I might as well have scrambed it all together. Two, I tried to steam it for a while while I was housing the homeless gyoza innards and well the bottoms burned. At least I was able to scoop up the tops without the burn-y flavor and they somewhat stayed together in patty-ish pieces. The flavor itself wasn't bad at all even though it did lean a little bit on the bland side in my opinion. The book mentioned eating it with grated daikon so maybe that would have made a difference, but I should have flavored it a little more from the beginning. Overall though, not bad but not something Jeremy nor I will crave.

To add to the disastrous morning, I was cooking rice and chose the "brown rice" setting as I normally do, instead of the white rice setting I meant to do this time. So it took FOREVER to cook...

For anybody that saw the movie Julie & Julia, this was definitely a Julie going crazy in the kitchen moment for me. I've never been a failure in the kitchen but I sure felt like one today! I thought to myself "On the first day? REALLY? Maybe this is why I don't venture out of my normal favorite dishes!" BUT, I will press on because it can only get better from here! Heck, these are learning experiences so I may make these again with these improvements I've noted!

Getting Ready for Japanese Cooking Galore Month

The time to execute my Japanese Cooking Galore Month is approaching! 30 dishes in 30 days... After much thought about all the events in September, such as being gone for Labor Day weekend, friend's birthdays, and both Jeremy and my birthdays, I have a feeling that there will be quite a lot of days where I can't cook dinner at home... so I'm starting this weekend to swap with Labor Day weekend!

I went shopping today at the Asian market for pretty much the first week's worth. My list for the first week is as follows (in order for now but that may change):
Chicken Teriyaki
Pickled vegetables
Okonomiyaki
Gyoza
Miso-flavored Stir Fry
Nikujaga
Sushi rolls
Miso Soup
Takikomi rice
Tofu Burger

It seems like a lot for the first week but some are side dishes and some are less labor intensive so two items can be made in one day. Besides, I think now is going to be less event filled than later in the month. Next week is going to be close week, but hopefully I have picked things that aren't too difficult, even if I get home a little later than usual. Hopefully nothing blows up at work and off we go!

Stay tuned for day by day picture updates :)
Comments are obviously always welcome!

A Gifted Janie Lunchbox

I just wanted to blog about how nice my co-worker Janie was today. I had planned to go out to lunch with a different co-worker today, but she ended up working from home due to being sick. Thus, I was left without a lunch (I usually bring a lunch for those that don't know me very well) and was a bit sad that I would have to go somewhere for food I didn't REALLY want. Janie who is also a consistent lunch bringer, offered me one of her lunch boxes. She cooks a lot over the weekend, freezes tons of lunches, and brings different ones to keep in the freezer.

I accepted her generous offer, and chose the fried udon she had made. It was kind of like the idea of yakisoba, but with udon noodles instead. The flavor was also different from yakisoba, because it was more soy saucy, but it was delicious. She had added udon nooodles, fish cakes, chicken, carrots, cabbage, green beans, and I think that's it. I thought it was quite funny that it was purple from the purple cabbage she added, but I loved it. She warned me it might be salty- the chicken was MAYBE a little salty, but other than that I thought it was great! My lunches usually tend to be on the smaller side, so I actually ended up eating more than usual but it was so good I just kept eating... besides I had already heated it up!!

Thank you Janie for your kindness and I definitely either owe her a lunch or samples from my September month of Japanese cooking. Too bad she is rotating out of our group in a few weeks already!

Japanese Food Cooking Commitment

After talking to my friend Jimmy, as well as watching Julie & Julia, I am now inspired to do a committed time of cooking Japanese food. This is my commitment to experiment and see what I may want to do someday for my own business. I know food is my passion and that I'd love to share delicious and healthy food with everyone else... but that's about it. I have a few ideas floating in my head, but we'll see what solidifies in me and what floats away!

I haven't decided quite what this commitment is going to be either- a month, 30 days, or some other time frame. Whatever the time frame, I'm going to choose different Japanese dishes to cook and experiment with, so I can truly make them my own! Or on the flip side, it may help me decide what I'm not good at or what a lot of people might not like. Right now I'm leaning toward 30 dishes in 30 days. That sets a limit on time, and allows me to make multiple dishes in one night since cooking every day really isn't reasonable in my mind.

If someone is reading and has a suggestion, I'm always listening!

Homma's Brown Rice Sushi

I met up with Brenda for dinner at Homma's Brown Rice Sushi. I had heard good things about the place, plus I love brown rice and I love sushi so I figured it will be great! I read Yelp reviews that said the wait is long, etc, but I didn't see crowds of people so not worried, I walked around the streets and shops of Palo Alto while I waited for Brenda to drive down from SF.

When Brenda arrived, we walked into Homma's where again, there was a group of 2 sitting inside. In my head I laughed about the line comment... but a little too soon. The boy came over after discussing with Homma the chef, that there were orders backfilled over the phone so it would be 45 minutes to an hour before we got our food. I said WHAT?? There is nobody here and you're telling me you can't make a few nigiri for us because you're prioritizing phone orders? After my initial disgust, I asked the chef himself by busting out my Japanese, if it is really going to be 45 min for anything we order, to which he said yes. Brenda didn't seem to mind and we both had time, so we said what the heck, we're here to hang out and chat so let's just chat until they bring us our food. We also ordered miso soup so I thought at least that would come quick, but they didn't even bring that until maybe 40 minutes in. I didn't mind so much because I got to catch up with Brenda and time passed by :)

When the food finally came out, I will say it was quite good and the priecs are good for sushi. We ordered a plate of nigiri and rolls to share- maguro, hamachi, saba, unagi, and salmon nigiri, a veggie roll and a hamachi avocado roll. All were good. The unagi was actually surprisingly different and good in the sense that it was warm and crispy from being toasted, but yet soft and sweet at the same time. That was quite different for me. The maguro, hamachi, and salmon were also very good but nothing that was greatly different from other places. The hamachi and salmon were on the fattier or oilier side (but not too much) which I like! I didn't know what to expect from the saba because my family and I don't order it too much when we go out because it is vinegarized, but we ordered it and I was pleasantly surprised. There wasn't anything particularly special about it, but it was a nice amount of vinegar combined with some pickled ginger and a little wasabi that hit the spot.

As for the rolls, those were good too. The hamachi avocado roll is what it states and was good. I could have used more avocado in a few of my pieces, but that's ok. The highlight of the rolls was actually the veggie roll for me. I think it had asparagus, cucumber, avocado and burdock root? I think it had 5 things in it, of which the first 3 I listed I'm sure about. The asparagus was a really nice touch in the roll with the slight bite yet soft texture, and all the flavors worked well together. The rolls were small, so they were good bite size pieces, but I could have eaten more. However, maybe it's a good start to having self control... especially when eating out or eating socially...

Overall, I liked the food and price a lot but there's not much atmosphere and I'm not a big fan of their attitude/service. They were really nice about informing us of the time and thanked us for waiting but I am still a bit turned off by the prioritization. I guess that's what happens in a one-man show! Next time I would probably just get it to go and eat it somewhere else so I know I don't have to wait that long for my food! This time though the important thing was I hung out with Brenda!