Japan

Shrines, Ghosts and Tanuki Oh My!

by

It’s been awhile since I last visited Ghostwire Tokyo. Tonight I cleansed a shrine, prayed at another, found a tanuki and completed a couple of quests.

Next time I play I’ll have to do away with the spirit of an asshole hoarder (A hoarder that’s an asshole, not someone that’s literally hoarding assholes… that would be even more fucked up).  To add to the immersion, I’ve also been drinking all kinds of green tea this evening. Started with a cherry blossom sencha when I got home, and now I’m having some matcha milk tea before bed. 🙂 Maybe I’ll have haunted dreams about drinking tea with ghosts.

Current Mood: Japan

by

Today I got to:

  • Eat Miso Soup for a light breakfast/work lunch
  • Shower in cherry blossoms
  • Drink sencha green tea with blueberry
  • Eat left over zesty noodles
  • Drink a white chocolate matcha with strawberry
  • Light a sacred cherry blossom soy candle for a peaceful rest

It’s finally nice to do some of the things 17 year old me always wanted to do. I remember a time when you couldn’t buy miso soup ingredients nearby, let alone have much in the way of pre-packaged miso. I remember reading about matcha, but not knowing where to get it without buying online. Now a days I can get a lot of this stuff locally and enjoy it to my hearts content! Plus, online options have also become more available and plentiful!

How things change.

The Food Blogging Continues

by

Once again, my RSS feed blessed my eyes with another intriguing foodable item exclusively out of my reach.

I’m already wondering how I would go about replicating that? Probably with a good white chocolate base and some blended grapes topped with a blend of yogurt? Either way I’m getting ideas.

Cherry Blossoms On The Brain

by

One of my fave blogs to read is SoraNews24 when I want to read about all things Japan. Lately, they’ve been filling my RSS feed with tantalizing images of cherry blossom inspired beverages and desserts, usually from their Starbucks. They are very inspirational to look at, especially during the gray winter. I even had to treat myself after work today to a homemade Sakura Latte! With whipped cream even! I also have some cherry blossom syrup for teas, and for sakura sake. I might consider making a cherry blossom themed food substance over the weekend.

I basically did oriental thanksgiving yesterday

by

I set a good chunk of time aside yesterday to make some of my favorite recipes, and even try a couple new ones.

I like to make a sweet soy sauce (top right) as well as a red pepper sauce (top left) but I also wanted to try another one with some extra scallions I had lying around. That on the bottom is a sweet scallion sauce, it turned out tasty for the most part… but I probably should have stirred it better when making it. I ended up with a sugary blob in the center of a bunch of vegetable oil. I managed to combine it better after taking out some of the oil, but that’s one I’ll have to practice again at a later date. On the very right I also have what remains of a salad dressing made of cider vinegar, sugar, a little bit of sesame oil and red pepper flakes for color and flavor. Most if it went into a cucumber and grape tomato salad that accompanied both my breakfast and dinner yesterday.

I made miso soup for breakfast yesterday. I like to eat it in the morning sometimes, it can be a nice change of pace from the traditional cereal or bacon and eggs. I threw in some udon noodles for something additional to chew on.

This was something new I tried. I mixed some of the pepper sauce with the sweet scallion sauce, plus some garlic soybean paste and mixed it with noodles, peppers and shrimp, sherry and a little bit of onion. It was really zesty.

Normally when I make a noodle dish I don’t follow it up with rice (or vice versa), but yesterday I basically declared it oriental Thanksgiving, and I wanted to also have the option of ham and egg fried rice… even if this isn’t fried. I boiled some jasmine rice, cooked an egg in another pan then mixed it into the rice, then added cooked vegetables and ham with a generous pinch of sea salt and some white pepper. Normally I would use just peas, but taking inventory in our deep freeze yesterday proved to me that 99% of the frozen vegetables we have on hand are in fact corn… So some peas are better than no peas at all.

This was a simple vegetable dish to make. All you do is steam some asparagus, and then take 1/4 cup of soy sauce and mix in some sesame oil. Add the asparagus to a platter and drench  the sauce over it, and let it sit for about 10 minutes and you have a tasty yet delicate accompaniment to dinner. Of course I have one person in the house that despises asparagus… which means I need to add MOAR vegetables.

I stir fried some sugar snap peas with some salt, pepper, sherry and just a few shavings of fresh ginger. I did cheat a little and pad the rest of the meal with some cream cheese wontons and chicken potstickers…

Then I awoke to find that a giant bowl of rice was not put away this morning… everything else was though, dafuq?

For my fellow tea drinkers

by

Everything from the color of the tea, to the teabag, and to the presentation are just all kinds of awesome. :meeseeks:

The tea is a natural blue due to use of the butterfly pea. Plus the tea has both peppermint and spearmint making it both look and taste refreshing. Someday I will have to order it, at the moment I’ll get by on my flowering green tea. :meeseeks:

Evening Open Thread: Food Edition!

by

Tried a different cooking technique this evening. I marinaded some chicken breasts in a sake marinade, then I cooked them in a Chinese bamboo steamer. Turned out extremely moist and I served rice and green beans on the side. I’ll need to use the steamer more often for other dishes, the breasts were done in about 15 minutes and I didn’t have any additional fats added to the meal. Just the marinade and the taste of the chicken itself.

I’m already plotting dinner for tomorrow night too. Last night I did Tom Yum Gai which is basically a Thai hot and sour soup, tonight was Japanese inspired even though the bamboo basket is Chinese. :trollface:  Then for tomorrow I’m thinking Hungarian steak and paprika potatoes.

Anyways, open thread!