Dinner on 27/05/10

Menu: Gyoza (pork dumplings), salad, miso soup, rice

I made gyoza today! Shame about the quality of this photo, but we all enjoyed our dinner. My daughter had 5 dumplings! Home-made pork dumplings taste so much nicer than the ones you get at restaurants here in England in my opinion. It's so easy to make as well.

Dinner on 24/05/10

Menu: Prawns with sweet chili sauce, rice

I made this dish again! I love this.

Lunch on 24/05/10

Menu: Goya champuru, hiya somen

It was a hot day, so I cooked goya champuru again!! I used up tofu, so I didn't use it. I had leftover somen with it. I thoroughly enjoyed my lunch!

Dinner on 23/05/10

Menu: Hiya somen (cold noodle with dipping sauce), moyashi salad with Chinese-style dressing, hiyayakko (cold tofu with soy sauce)



It was really hot throughout the day, and spent our afternoon in our local parks. When we came back, I wanted something light. So, I made summery dishes. Hiya somen is a perfect dish for summer. You dip somen (white thin noodle) in dipping sauce which is in a red bowl. You add grated ginger/wasabi, spring onions and nori as toppings. The tofu dish is easy to make. You just cut tofu, and put grated ginger, spring onions and a dash of soy sauce on top! We normally use katsuobushi (dried bonito) as well, but I don't buy it here because of the price. For salad, I used leftover moyashi from two days back, thinly sliced celery, carrots, ham, and I made a quick dressing using Ajipon dressing and a dot of sesame oil. I sprinkled sesame seeds as well.

Lunch on 23/05/10

Menu: Chicken rogan josh, basmati rice, salad, vegetable sticks & cheese dip, shloer

What a beautiful day we had that day! We had lunch in our garden. It was an easy lunch as the curry was leftover dinner from the day before. Not sure if that's just our thing, but Friday or Saturday is the curry night for us. I love Indian curries!

Dinner on 21/05/10

Menu: Sweet & sour pork, stir-fry moyashi, rice, soup

I was going to cook pork in a different way, but I changed my mind and made sweet & sour pork instead. This is one of my husband's favourites, by the way :) I experimented a bit, and used malt vinegar instead of rice vinegar. The outcome was......I think I would stick to rice vinegar. My husband didn't complain though. I just wanted to see if malt vinegar would be a good substitute. Oh well - never mind. I made the soup using pork bones, ginger, spring onions, dashi stock and a dash of soy sauce. I put in a dot of sesame oil to taste as well. It was alright.


This is the close-up version of the sweet & sour dish. I used too much carrot - oops. If my mum sees this, she would definitely make a comment on the carrot.

Lunch on 21/05/10

Menu: Goya champuru, rice

I meant to update my blog sooner, but it's not easy to find enough time to sit down and do so when an active 4-year-old is around.

Anyway, I made goya champuru for the first time this year. It was a hot day, and I picked up a couple of goya while in town the previous day. I used to eat goya champuru all the time while living in Okinawa. We have long hot summers over there, so it's a perfect dish for it. Goya (bitter melon) is a summer vegetable, by the way. It tastes bitter, so it's not so popular amongst kids. I've always loved it though. I still make goya champuru here in England, especially when we have hot days.

I wrote about goya a while ago, click here to see what I have written, if you are interested.

I'm off to pick up my daughter from school now.

Dinner on 17/05/10

Menu: Gyoza filling & vegetables on rice, miso soup

I was looking through the freezer and found a bag of leftover pork dumpling filling which I made a few months back. It already had some flavour, so I only added a dash of soy sauce, oyster sauce and sesame oil to taste. For vegetable stir-fry, I used onions, carrots, cabbage and aubergine. It was very simple, but really nice.

Dinner on 13/05/10

Menu: Thai-style stir fry on rice

While looking through the freezer, a pack of prawns caught my eyes. I love prawns, and fancied some that evening. Originally, I was thinking of making prawn fried rice along with vegetable stir-fry, but I changed my mind when I saw a bottle of sweet chili sauce in the fridge.

"Might be interesting to use sweet chili sauce in a stir-fry," I though.

I'm not that familiar with Thai dishes, to be honest. I know the basic ones like Thai curry, Pat Thai (my favourite Thai dish!), tom yum soup, but that's about it, I think. I'd had sweet chili sauce for dipping, but not for stir-fry dishes, and thought it would be interesting to experiment.

I fried garlic in a frying pan, added prawns, and then put in celery, lettuce, peas, and the sauce. Mixed all in together and Bob's your uncle! It was really easy, but extremely tasty. I sprinkled spring onions on top (not on my bowl though. I'm not too keen on fresh onions.) You could use coriander instead of spring onions (I'm not too keen on coriander either.)

Dinner on 10/05/10

Menu: Penne pasta with Bolognaise sauce

I bought aubergine and courgettes in our last shopping thinking I would be making ratatouille soon, but it didn't happen. We had a pack of mince beef in the freezer, which had to get used to make some space. I used a fair amount of vegetables, so it doesn't look like a proper bolognaise sauce - oh well, never mind. It tasted nice though.

Dinner on 9/05/10

Menu: Bread with balsamic vinegar & olive oil and Hazelnut vinaigrette, garlic bread, salad, pasta pesto

We were invited to my brother-in-law's for dinner. As a starter, we had really nice bread dipped in vinaigrette. I like dipping bread in olive oil, but never had hazelnut vinaigrette before. It was amazingly delicious!! I'm sure he said that he bought it from an oil shop in (or near) Bluewater. If it was the one in Bluewater, then it must be this one.

We couldn't stop eating the bread and hazelnut vinaigrette. I like simple food like this.

Lunch on 9/05/10

Menu: Welsh rarebit

My husband made Welsh rarebit for lunch that day. He put on cheese, chopped onions and tomatoes on toast and grilled it. WE sprinkled some Worcester sauce to taste. It was really nice.

By the way, how come it's called Welsh rarebit? What does rarebit mean anyway? Any ideas? Rarebit sounds like rabbit, but is it something to do with rabbit at all? It hasn't got rabbit meat on though.

Dinner on 8/05/10

Menu: Teriyaki chicken on rice, fried aubergine and onions with grated ginger, miso soup

We got home quite late after helping my brother-in-law that night. I had no idea what to have for dinner. While looking through the fridge, I found enough ingredients to make a lovely meal. The dish with aubergine is really easy to make. You just pan fry aubergine, and sprinkle some grated ginger & soy sauce on top. Onions are optional. My husband was really impressed with this dinner, and enjoyed it very much. Well, so did I.

Dinner on 4/05/10

Menu:Yakisoba

I wanted us to have lots of vegetables that day, and made yakisoba. Yakisoba means fried noodles. For the sauce, I used tonkatsu sauce and Wocester sauce. The green stuff on top is called aonori, green seaweed. It's a very popular dish in Japan, and we all enjoyed it.

Dinner on 14/05/10

I went to my husband's parents' with my daughter for dinner. She wanted to visit them the previous day, but they had another plan, so we visited them yesterday. I thought I would make something quick and easy for everybody, and made chicken curry using a jar of Rogan Josh sauce. I just fried some chopped onions, chicken and the sauce along with tins of tomatoes and cooked for more than half an hour. I made a quick salad with carrots and celery. As a starter, we had papadoms with mango chutney, and then we had curry with basmati rice, naan bread and salad. We all enjoyed our dinner :)

Time to go to bed

I wanted to update my blog more today, but I fell asleep in front of my laptop and thought I should go to bed now. I'll find time to come back tomorrow, so until then, bye!

Dinner on 1/05/10

Menu: Vegetable miso soup, oven cooked rainbow trout, rice, umeboshi puree




I didn't take a photo of all the food I cooked that evening, but here's the photo of miso soup. As you can see, I put in aubergine, carrots, onions, cabbage and konbu (kelp). I love miso soup with lots of vegetables!

Lunch on 01/05/10

It's been more than a month since I last updated this blog, and I was glad/surprised to know that I now have a follower!!! Thank you so much, Antonio! You are the first one! It's getting harder and harder for me to find time to update my three blogs regularly, but there are always things I want to write about. It's really nice to know somebody does stop by here and read my articles. I always appreciate it when I get comments :) Anyway, when I do update my blogs these days, it's always late at night, so excuse my mistakes. When I'm tired and sleepy, I tend to make mistakes, especially when writing in English, which is my second language.

Back to the subject, on the 1st of May, I went out for walk with my husband and our daughter. The weather was lovely, and we enjoyed our walk. On the way back home, I was telling my husband about my obsession to have a fry-up at a local cafe. I wasn't thinking about a fancy cafe - more like a down-to-earth sort of cafe. Normally, I can go anywhere by myself, but there are a few places I don't have the guts to go by myself. This sort of cafe is one of them. It might be because these cafes are too British. You don't normally see Asian people there from my experience. I feel that I stand out in an awkward way in that kind of environment. Anyway, my husband said,

"Let's have something to eat at our local cafe of your choice then."

So, I picked one and we went inside.

My husband was queuing and came back to the table. I thought "Oh, I was going to choose which fry-up I'm going to have," but he said "you have to be quick in this kind of place." Not sure if it's Japanese/Okinawan thing or just me, but it always takes me a while to decide what to have at restaurants. Knowing what I'm like, my husband ordered one of the fry-ups for me.

When my food turned up, I was disappointed.

"Where are my mushrooms? Hash browns?"

On the plate, there were two eggs, one sausage, salty bacon and beans. Of course, it came with a cuppa and toast.

I was struggling to finish towards the end and ended up leaving some.
I liked the atmosphere though. These kind of cafes remind me of Shokudo (食堂) back home. I will tell you what shokudo is when I get time.

I like having fry-ups every now and then, but I thought home-made was the best.

I don't have an obsession with fry-ups anymore - well, for a while.


*Again, sorry for any mistakes I might've made here. I'm getting sleepy.