No Orie's menu untill Friday

I am away now. I am out of town. I am at the place called Japan Intercultural Academy of Municipalities. Having on-job-training to become a cordinator.. I will explain later. ^^

I am near Kyoto. I am planning to visit Kyoto with my class mates tomorrow evening for dinner, so I might update some pictures to my other blog. Or if I could take a good picture of food, I will update here...

so, no cooking this week... haha

^^

Lasagna

I told my friend that I make delicious lasagna. So, here I am… I made one. I can not bring this dish to my friend’s house to prove it, but at least, my friend would believe my story… but my friend can not prove the taste, huh? Its good. ^-^ People love it. It is crispy and cheesy... It is good to make one when we have family gathering or little party with friends.

Maybe this is a Japanese style lasagna. I have not eat the REAL one. I wish I could have one sometime.

Anyway,
hehee, have a good day.

OH, I need to tell you about yesterday's event. Yes, Jiaozi making.. It was fun and it was goooooooooood ^-^

Later!

My 'goody' for my cooking

I will introduce you my dishes and other fun stuff. ^^ Enjoy!

Big dishes. These are really good for home party. Put standing dish, fancy dish, rich dish… any kind of dish would be great on these plates.

Serving plate and small individual plates. These are fancy ones. I don’t use these dishes at dinner all the time. These dishes for SPECIAL use. And these are really expensive. (Worth about $100 each!!) These dishes are from really famous pottery called ‘Imaizumi-Imaemon 今右衛門’ Imaizumi-Imaemon is one of the representative pottery of Japan.

←Rice bowls. They have nice picture paint on the out side of the bowl.

Teacups for Japanese tea and Chinese tea. →

←Coffee and Teacups.

Ramen and Udon noodle bowl. (→）

←Teapots!!

Something to make your mealtime fun! →

←What are these?? Can you guess??

Chopstick stands, and chopsticks holders. Cute, aren’t they?? →

All this stuff makes me cook more fun and make me want to improve my cooking skill. Now… haha, I am not living with whole bunch of people. Only 2 people are living in a small apartment, but I just love correcting dishes for my cooking. Every time, I visit places, I buy dishes, cups, small dishes; others stuff for my dish correction. Dishes are makes cooking fun. I really get excited and make me really fun to imagine how my cooking looks like on these dishes. Dishes make food really good, fancy and delicious.

Easy Dinner

I just had leftovers tonight.
I put Vegetable stir-friesm, Fried pork cutlet and Kimuchi (Korean Hot pickle) on top of rice. Had original oriental topping on rice bowl. ^-^ It was good. It good with the raw egg on the top of the kimuchi. I had hot korean miso (fermented soybean paste) from my friend who back from Korea. I put top of it too.

It was gooooooood ♪

As I was eating by myself. I had dinner in my computer room. ^^ I am sorry for behave badly. I should have eat dinner at my dinner table. But hey! I wanted to do something fun on internet. hehe...

Hey, its fryday night! Party?! I used to go out for party when I was single. I still can go out, but as you read my other blog, 'In the shade of a tree ' my friends are not live close to me anymore. Well, they are not live close to me at the first place.. but...When I was in college, I used to open a party for my college mate. They love to come to my room and just have fun, and stay over night... You know how girls are get together.. they just love to talk, eat, and drink... ^^ that was fun moment of my college life... I kind of miss that.. ^^ Sometime, they call me up and they tells me how much they miss my food, that is a great compliment that I ever could receive.

Well, its fryday night... Let's make some good worm tender tea. So I can sleep good tonight... I wish i could share with someone. with some sweet talks.

Good night

Taste as good as it looks

Today’s menu

☆ Steam yam with minced pork （ミンチ豚入り山芋蒸し）
☆ Vegetable stir-fries with spicy sweet oyster sauce　（野菜の甘辛オイスターソース炒め）
☆ Rice (new crop) （新米）
☆ Fried pork cutlet : Tonkatsu　（トンカツ）
☆ Green tea


Steam yam with minced pork （ミンチ豚入り山芋蒸し）
If you are hired, or you had to work late, but need to eat something good, Steam yam with minced pork is really good for you. Its really easy, and healthy. You can put minced chicken instead of minced pork.
Ingredients:
A
Minced meat: 1/2 cup
1 tbs of soy sauce
1tbs of sesame oil (if you don’t like it, you don’t need to)
Pinch of salt
Pinch of pepper
○ Add everything together!
B
1 1/2 cups of mince yam Add yam to A. Put it into a serving ball dish. Put about 2 inch of water into a deep pot. Steam it about 10~15 minutes. Put little bit of soy sauce. If you like, you can put hot sesame oil too.
Meshiagare召し上がれ。 (←means ‘Please eat up’ and ‘Bon appetit’ in Japanese)

Vegetable stir-fries with spicy sweet oyster sauce　
（野菜の甘辛オイスターソース炒め）
Ingredients:
A
All kinds of vegetables (in the picture, you can see, green pepper, onion, carrot, pak-choi, egg plant, lotus root, and sliced pork) : you can use chicken or beef instead of pork. Vegetables: You can use left over vegetables in your refrigerator.
B : Sauce
☆1/2 of chicken stock
☆1 tbs of soy sauce
☆1/2 tsp of sugar
☆2 tbs of oyster sauce
◇1 tbs of sesame oil
△2 tbs of starch with water
Mix ☆ together.
1. Continue stir-frying until Vegetables becomes wilted. Put ☆ into the pan. When the sauce become ticker, put △, and put ◇ .






Fried pork cutlet : Tonkatsu　（トンカツ）
Use fillet or chuck part of pork. Sprinkle salt on the pork, leave it about 10 minutes. Dip it into flour with beaten egg, and rolled the pork in breadcrumbs. Fry it to a crisp!! Moreover, if you could not eat up all, you can make sandwiches out of this for your lunch.


Rice in this season is great. Oct is the season for newly harvested rice in Japan. Look how shiny they are!!! Taste sooo goooood !!! You wash rice tenderly but quick as you can within about 5 minutes until the rice water be cleared. Like a picture.

Sashimi / さしみ / 刺身

Sashimi is one of the famous Japanese foods. Sashimi is easily explained as a raw fish. We eat most of stuff raw. Eat fish raw, eat raw eggs, eat horse meat raw…Raw brawn, chicken meat, veal, and of course all kinds of fish food. Not that we are lazy to cook or anything. We like to eat it fresh. I was watching a movie. Tow guys were talking about the big business with Japanese. And one guy asked his boss to wait for a couple of days, because he has promises with his children. But his boss told him NO. Why not?? He said ‘Hey, they are Japanese, they can’t wait fish to cook’. I thought it was pretty funny. (picture disctiption: Had this sashimi at Japanese expensive restaurant in May)

← I had Sashimi tonight. You can buy sashimi at any super market in Japan. They are all fresh and nice. This is amberjack. Amberjack is also known as yellowtail. People call this fish as auspicious fish. Because this fish called by different names at different stages of its growth. As the reality, your position name will change as you promote, right? The fish name changes as they grow, so we wish for good luck. Therefore we eat this on special occasion, and happy table. But of course you can eat anytime you want. But this fish is bit expensive than other fish. The fish meat of amberjack caught in autumn is especially juicy It have plenty of fat. Yuck? NONO. Taste really good. Stewed Japanese radish and yellowtail with soy sauce based soup is REALLY GOOD. I have to put it on a web someday. This is the of winter Japanese seasonal dish

I will just share with you one more picture. Out prefecture has place where it’s really famous for cuttlefish. We went to the restaurant where only serve cuttlefish dish. And we have ordered cuttlefish sashimi. You cannot tell just looking at this picture, but this cuttlefish was still moving. （and look how beautiful this is!!)
And it’s really funny when you put moving cuttlefish tail. (I do not know what do you call it. The part of cuttlefish legs) the sucker-bearing arms was still stuck in my mouse, and it was fun to eat. I know… its unmitigated cruelty. But it’s fresh and good. Please try it when you come to Japan. It’s expensive. It cost me about $20. But it’s worth it. ^^

Please enjoy the picture…

餃子/Gyoza/Jiao-zi/Chinese Dumpling

Jiaozi (Chinese Dumpling) is a traditional Chinese Food, and it becomes one of the most widely loved foods in China and the world. Jiao zi is a wonderful food. You can make a variety of Jiao zi just using different and various ingredients mixed together by you. (I still think there is Original way to make Jiao ji) Jiao zi is also fun to make. Making Jiao-zi is a team work. Good to make Jiao zi is the occasion such as family gathering, party with you friend, and make it with you children is so much fun too.

I made 66 Gyoza last night. I think, some of you will find funny about the way I make Jiao-zi… but this is how we make it!! I wish I could learn ‘the real’ jiao-zi sometime! One time, we had international flea market in my city. We are the organizer, and there are many resident foreigners. One Chinese couple was thanking us for organizing the market, and they offer us to make jiao-zi for our lunch. (Jiao-zi which you immerse it in boiling water and eat with soy sauce and 黒酢:kind of vinegar)It was really good.

Ingredients:
A
For the filling♪
2 cups of ground pork
1 Tbsp. sesame oil
Pinch of sugar
1/2 of salt
1/2 tsp. ground white pepper
4 cloves of ground garlic (if you like. Depends of when you make it)
1 tsp. freshly grated ginger

B
1/4 of Chinese cabbage (about 4 cups) (finely chopped)
1 white stem of green onion (about 3/4 cup) (finely chopped)
1 batch of green chive (about 1 cup) (finely chopped)

1. mixed all the ingredients A in a one ball. Stir quick and well until the meat surface become smooth. 2. Add ingredients B in to A, and stir quick and well.

For the dough
(I used prepared dough from store, but its taste really good if you make dough. It’s really easy to make, so please try)
3 cups of hard [strong] wheat flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 ~ 1 1/2 cups of worm water
1 tsp of oil

①Mix the flour and salt. ②Add the water and stir with chopsticks, or fork. ③Add oil and stir well until the dough become a one smooth peace of ball. Then, let it rest on a bowl for about 15 to 20 minutes.
To make dumpling skins:
Break off a piece of the dough the size of your hand fist, and break off a piece of the size of 1 teaspoon. (Also, you can easily roll up dough to shape of a stick. And cut it for about 1 inch long. ) Roll the dough into a ball and then roll out into a 3-inch circle. (This is the difficult part, but you will enjoy it) You may need extra flour to do this work!!
(I will update some picture of this.)

Construction:
Place 3-ince circled dumpling skin in the palm of your hand. Scoop Jiao zi filling with spoon (heaped spoonful) and put it into a middle of a dumpling skin. Seal all edges of dumpling like a picture! (Sorry, it’s hard to explain in English ^^;) This is the where you really enjoy making Jiao zi, because you will see all kinds of shapes and people just need to laugh and smile about it.

You can immerse Jiao-zi in boiling water for 5 to 8 minutes, or you can cook with your frying pan. If you like to cook with your frying pan, there is a construction::: put a frying pan on a fire, and make sure it’s well heated. Put about 2~3 table spoons of oil and when the oil gets hot enough, line up the Jiao-zi into a pan. Leave it for about 3 minutes, put a cup of water into a pan, and put a lid and cook with steam. When the steam water has dry off (water evaporates) it ready to eat. It will take you about 10 minutes. This is how you place it. Put baked side up like the picture.

Eat with soy sauce＋vinegar, if you have black vinegar, its taste really good with Jiao-zi. If you like spicy taste, you can put hot sesame oil. ^^

This is just an aside: The Gyoza (jiao-zi: Chinese Dumpling) Festival is taking place in Utsunomiya City, Tochigi Prefecture in Japan. In 1999, the Gyoza Festival was established as part of the city's publicity campaign. Utsunomiya City boasts the largest gyoza consumption in the country. About 800,000 tourists now visit the city annually to enjoy the specialty. Amazing, huh?? We have interesting places… ^^ Anyway…

First Try

I made marron glace. Marron is the French word for 'chestnut'. Marrons glacés are chestnuts that have been preserved in a sweet syrup (brandy and sugar). They can be found in jars or cans in the gourmet section of most supermarkets and are quite expensive. They're eaten as a confection, chopped and used to top desserts such as ice cream and mixed fruit or used to make desserts such as the rich Mont blanc. (A classic dessert of sweetened, pureed chestnuts subtly flavored with vanilla.)

I did not make any cake out of marron glace, but I just enjoy eating this with my favorate tea and strong coffee. It become bit sweeter than I thought it would be, but it was good. Chestnut is one of delicacies food of the season. In Japan, autumn is rich in seasonal foods. We say harvest season, or autumn eating. Representative autumn food is all kinds of mushroom, Pacific saury (in Chinese character, we write 秋刀魚 . means 秋autumn 刀 sword 魚fish), sweet potatos, and autumn is the season for newly harvested rice in Japan. (and its sooooo good♪) People tend to eat too much rice and other great food in this season. And this delicious food will put you on some weight. ^^

I like, and i think spring season is the best season for delicacies food. We have another harvest season in spring, but we have good and fresh nature food everywhere. I always go up in the mountain and pick up some wild plants, wild herbs and grasses for lunch and dinner. Sounds strange??? you will see what I am talking about in spring... Wait till spring comes. ^^

Well, see you nex time.

HI! Nice to meet you ♪

"The kitchen is the “heart” of most homes. It’s where meals are prepared and served, where people gather, and a place where stories, information, and ideas are shared."

I am not a chef. ( I hope I am...^^) But I looooove cooking. I hope I could share a fun time and my cooking with you... and if it's a mouth-watering sight, it is my great pleasure. I wish I could share my cooking with you. Hey, let's pray for a wish to come true.

I was born in 1976. Japanese 29 years old woman. You might see some Japanese, but please don't worry...^-^　I am writing the same paragraphs as I wrote in English. As you can see, English is my second language. You may see some mistakes of grammar, vocabulary use and the way of expression. Please take it as a part of my winsome.^^

I love tea. I love to try all kinds of tea. Chinese tea, Japanese tea, English tea...etc.. So, if you have some information about TEA, please let me know. If you know a good tea cafe or shop, please share with me. I do not care if its not in Japan. I might visit there oneday in my future. And if you know the interesting way of drink tea, or your way of enjoying your tea(different, odd, strange, unsusal way is welcome) , please shear with me.

Well, too much writing on a first day. Please keep in touch. You will find more about me♪

Thank you for visiting.