Purple Potato Cream Buns

Sweet purple poop-chan again!

This time, put them into the buns shaped like a disc.

Even it's midnight, seeing the just baked buns, I cannot stop tasting.

Beautiful indeed.....

59days left to the end of my child-care leave.

How many meals am I gonna cooking???

Deep fried stuffed lotus

This is one of my quick and easiest recipe.

Just sliced lotus and stuffed pork minch and deep fried.

Serve with soy sauce and Japanese mustard called Karashi.

There're two point to make it.

One is to use organic lotus so that you don't need to peel the skin and can taste as itself.

The second point is that to use delicious soy sauce.

For Taro, I made deep fried fluffy meat ball.

Jun was pleased with it rather than Taro.

Taro' rate:★★

He likes fish better.

French Toast with home-made strawberry jam

I like to make french toast using a baguette. Put the sliced baguette into the egg & milk mixture and soak them over a night. ( I didn't add any sugar)

Then I don't need to be in a hurry when I prepare the meal. :-)

When heating breads, I generously use lots of butter. Serve with a plenty of maple syrup and home-made strawberry jam.

The golden brown colour of the toasts drive us crazy to devour!!!

Taro's rate; ★★★★★ !!!!

Pork Steaks with Ginger Sauce

When I make "pork ginger", I always serve with potato salad. Somehow potatoes go with ginger sauce. Probably I might be influenced on a cookbook by Harumi Kurihara who is the famous housewife in Japan.

In the sauce, I used my basic seasoning for Japanese, Sake, Mirin, Soy sauce and Beet sugar plus lots of grated ginger and garlic.

Stirred spring onion, mushroom(Enoki-dake), and green pepper with the sauce.

In regard to potatoes salad, I made fresh mayonnaise. Home made mayonnaise is the best ever. :-)

Taro's rate: no-mark.

He didn't eat anything. Had breastfeeding instead.

Apple Butter Cake

Baked "Apple Butter Cake." One and half big FUJI apple in it. See this photo on the left.This is the cake for apple lovers!!

Apple Butter Cake Recipe~20cm square casserole~

Ingredients

2 eggs

70g brown sugar

90g melted non-added salt butter

150g all purpose flour

50g whole wheat flour

2 teaspoon baking powder

→Shift all powders in advance

~filling~

One and half FUJI apples→peeled, quartered, cored, each quarter cut into 6-8 pieces.

2 tablespoons Dried Raison

1 tablespoons Brown Sugar

2 tablespoons Rum Liqeur

powder cinnamon as much as you like

→　Mix together

Method

0 Preheat oven to 200℃

1 Whisk Eggs, add sugar until incorporated

2 Add melted butter and mix together

3 Add all powders and mix using a spatula.

4 Fold the filling in the batter.

5 Place the batter into the casserole.

6 Bake for 30 minutes

Serves 9

It would be better to keep them for a day so that the cake will get more soft and yummy.

Custard Cream Bread

Baked custard cream breads which is very common bread in Japan.

Lots of custard cream in it.

Finally his appetite was coming back!! Yeah!

Taro's rate:★★★★★

Sauerkraut & Sausages

Butter+White Wine+Champagne Vinegar+Caraway seed= Miracle Sauerkraut!

An acquaintance, who is my friend's sister, gave us various sausages which are made by her friend whose shop are located in Hachiouji, Tokyo.

Made "Sauerkraut" .

Just braised shled a whole cabbage, add salted pork, and simmer with white wine for 1 hour. The before 10 minutes I serve, add sausages, salt&pepper, and champagne vinegar.

The sausages they made are free from any artificial additives as much as possible so that I don't have any worries when I feed them to my son. But today he didn't eat anything except a bread.

:-(

By the way, figured out why my son got grouchy recently. That's because his middle-ear got inflammation! Poor Taro-chan. I had him take antibiotics medicine. Hope it would help him and get better soon.....

BUTA-JIRU~ Pork and Vegetables Miso-soup

These vegetables + sliced pork + soybean curd(tofu) = Our Buta-jiru

Steaming!

Stay warm!!

A Birthday Cake for Emily

Made strawberry swiss roll for Taro's friend who just turned 1 last week!

I am not good at writing letters using a choco-pencil.

It was supposed to be more sophisticated though....

Little bit weird writing.... :-(

Taro was smiling but he didn't eat anything except strawberries.

Still he has no appetite. Or he might refuse any oily stuff in self-defense?!

Taro-chan~~~~!!!! Hope he will feel better soon.....

Strawberry Trifle

Am practising baking a swiss roll this week.

Made strawberry trifle for breakfast! For breakfast!? How come!?

Because we need to rise blood sugar level for having a good day!!!! Don't you think so?

Fresh cream, custard cream, slices of banana and strawberry and sponge cake with fresh strawberry sauce. Reduced sugar as much as I can for our health.

Yummm.

As for the custard cream, I made it by microwave oven and used 1 egg as I don't want to waste egg white.

Taro's rate:★

He ate only strawberries. Still his tummy is something wrong. I have to breastfeed him a lot than usual. Hope he will get better soon......

Pork Beans

Taro got a stomach flu. He has been suffering from diarrhea since last weekend. Then he gave us flu too!

We really had terrible weekend.

Now we're getting better, but there still is something wrong with our tummy.

Although Taro and I don't feel like eating at all, Jun gets hungry and wants to eat something as we usually have.

Made pork beans for him. This is Jun's favourite. Using various kinds of beans ( chick peas, read beans, white kidney beans and kidney beans.) is the yummy point.

Plus, I would like to use fresh tyme in it so that the flavour gets much beautiful.

I haven't tasted it yet since I felt bad when smell it.

As for Jun, it was delicious indeed.

It goes with "A la campagne" or this sort of bread.

Kinkan(kumquat) Compote

When winter has come, I always make "Kinkan "compote. In Japan, to prevent from getting a cold, we often eat Kinkan. Probably it is good for sore throat.

1 Cut the Kinkan half and take the seeds out

2 Place them in the pan and add water

3 After boiling, drain off the hot water

4 Change new water, Boil them again and drain off again

5 Add 200g sugar for Kinkan 500g and 1 cup of white wine

6 Simmer with low heat until the kinkan get gloss.

Can be stored around 1 month in the fridge.

Taro loves it too.

Ricotta Cheese Hot Cake

Referred to Bill's recipe. This new year's holiday, we went to Sydney and had Bill's hot cake again, however, it was terrible and totally different from the one I used to have 4 years ago.

Was so disappointed that I tried to make it at home.

This is what I wanted to eat!! Thanks, Bill! We don't need to go to your cafe any more.

Serve with some slices of kiwi fruit and kumquat compote instead.

Later on, I will post about kumquat compote!

Our Soul Food

We are Japanese anyway

Soy Sauce + Genuine Mirin + Japanese Sake = Japanese taste

To adjust them to our taste, add some more beet sugar.

Sweet soy sauce taste is our family favour.

.Braised Hijiki with boiled vegetables and deep fried soy bean curd

Braised Chicken thigh and Konnyaku

Sliced ginger diminishes the smell of Konnyaku and Chicken.

Mizuna, Lotus and Jako(boiled and dried baby sardines) Salad

Just mix them with extra virgine olive oil, soy sauce, lemon juice and freshly ground pepper

Taro's rate: ★★★★★

He is totally JAPANESE!!

Cutie Purple Potatos Poop

My friends visited my place today. For tea time, baked sabre and decorated purple potato cream. Dressed up!

I associated the decoration with cutie poop :-P

Thus I named them "Cutie Purple Potato Poop" called Cutie 3P in short!

Taro's rate:★★

He ate only sabre. He seems to be disgusted the purple colour and refused to taste. Purple is a noble colour in Japan though.

Purple potato cream: baked potato+ sugar+ fresh cream →food processor

Sabre: almond powder, butter, one egg yolk, all purpose flour

Both of them are able to keep into the freezer in case whenever you want to eat.

If you would like to know the recipe, please leave a comment or email me!

Good Night!

Hua Juan（Steamed Buns)

Seeing the basket steamer, my heart gets warm.

When winter has come, I miss the steamed stuff. Made Hua Juan（花巻）from scratch.

For tonight, I had prepared for Char siu since3 days ago and had some Chinese dinner!

Chinese Cuisine Menu

-Steamed Buns

-Stir-Fried Gizzard and ”Zha cai” with spring onion

-Char Siu

-Stir-Fried egg and garlic chives

-Moyashi, Spinach and Steamed Chicken Namul（it's Korean food though. Never mind. Close to chinese!)

-Lotus roots sour soup

In regard to "Char Siu", It should be roasted and sweet. I dare say that Japanese ones are not Char Siu at all. That was braised pork. This Char siu I made was very similar to Hong Kong style except the colour. I didn't use any red colur ingredients.

Soybean sauce and lots of Honey are the key point.

Taro's rate:★★

He loved Char siu but it was a little bit solid that he couldn't chew well.

Jun's rate:★★★★★

He devoured steamed buns. He had half of them.

Banana Bread

Taro loves bananas very much. Actually his first word was banana. When he sounds out "BABA", that means "bananas"!

Last week, I've got a bunch of banana since it was super cheap indeed. It was in a flash we consumed all bananas.

Half of them were in Taro's tummy.

The latter one third were for banana shakes.

And the rest of two third were for banana bread!

When I bake banana bread, I use the bananas which get enough ripe. Otherwise, it would not be tasty.

Have to be patient until the skin gets black!

Taro's rate:★★★★★

No need to mention it. :-)

Banana Bread Recipe~20cm square casserole~

ingredients

3 bananas well matured(1 for decoration)

130g all-purpose flour

70g whole-wheat flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

130g brown sugar

3 eggs

4 tablespoon milk

40g warm melted butter (non-added salt)

Method

1 Sift flours and baking powder.

2 Put 2 bananas and Crash in the bowl using a hand mixer or whisk.

3 Add brown sugar and beat until incorporated

4 Add eggs, milk and mix together

5 Add dry ingredients and mix until the batter together.

6 Add warm melted butter and mix.

7 Pre-heat the oven to 170℃

8 Grease the square pan and spread the batter in pan

9 spread sliced bananas over top of batter

10 Bake 30 minutes (test with a long tooth pick to make sure the centre of the bread are done!)

Serves 9

Tip:

Reheat them when you serve.

Baking using baking powder always serves as hot!

Midnight cookies

Baked egg white cookies again. This time I used brown sugar instead of beet sugar.

This is more soft and moist!

I love this one better rather than white sugar. Eating sweets in the midnight? Never mind!

Supreme Bliss!!

Finally cooking saved me tonight. I am a super housewife. Yeah!

Hijiki Pasta！

Pasta is really helpful menu when I don't have enough time to prepare for the meal.

Hijiki, which is one kind of sea weed, goes with olive oil very much. It also matches with a bitter vegetable such as rocket and endive.

Here is the procedure. I don't know why this photo's quality went bad. Tomorrow morning, I'm gonna ask Jun to re-upload it.

Taro's rate:★★

I intended him to eat hijiki. Because it has a high iron content. It's healthy indeed. plus the shape is like spaghetti. So I thought he would eat it with pasta. However, my effort was in vain. He only ates spaghetti. He perfectly got rid of hijiki and other stuff.

Chciken and Gobo Salad Sandwich

Shred burdock(boiled) +Shred chicken breast+raisins

This is the best combination!!

Yesterday, everything I tried to do went wrong. Didn't post anything. didn't want to do anything. At 10 o'clock,went to sleep earlier than usual.

However, during my sleeping, I figured out cooking and blogging are the only way to cheer myself up.....

For this salad, I used Champagne Vineger and maple syrup: these two are the key to beautiful taste.

Taro's rate: ★

He preferred a piece of bread with sliced cheese.

Spinach Quiche

If only you have pie sheets in the freezer, you can bake it whenever you want to eat!

I don't dare to mention about how much the ingredients I use since it depends on your favour,your oven and casserole and your appetite. Anything you like would be fine. Eggs have a power to harmony with anything,

※ Before making the egg sauce, bake pie sheet only in advance.(200℃ 20minutes.) When the dough gets swelled, stick the dough with folk so as to deflate.

This quiche, heat to 200℃ and bake around 15 minutes.I used 2 eggs for 18cm size tart plate.

Taro's rate:★★★★

He loves spinach.

Stir-Fried Noodles

When I make stir-fried noodles, I usually use "Maru-chan Yaki-soba" that you can see at any supermarkets. I add nothing to season except the attached one. This should be junk food. No need to decorate them, nor pursuing the executive taste.

However, as a mother, I need to feed my son more vegetables. See the photos below! You may confuse it with stir-fried vegetables! Loads of various vegetables help the chemical taste more mild and soft. The noodles are totally different from the one you are familiar with at a summer festival.

This is my style. :-)

Taro's rate:★★★★

He likes it but ate a little since he had some cookies before lunch.

p.s.

Of course, I would make it with my original seasoning for a change. :-) Maybe next time...

A Strawberry Hunter

The moment I shall take photos.....

Someone stretched out his hand towards the strawberry...

and it's Gone....

That was him....!!!!

Egg White Cookies

While my son was taking a nap, baked egg white cookies. Egg whites always cause me some trouble. Whenever I make pasta and mousse, they always got left. Egg White Pasta is one of the answer to consume them but the process is quite annoying me.

Whereas this cookie is quite easy to make if only you have a hand mixer.

~Egg White Cookies~

Ingredients

100g butter

100g sugar

2 Egg Whites

100g all-purposes flour

vanilla essence if you like

Method

Preheat the oven to 170℃.

Beating butter and sugar until fluffy.

Add egg one bye one until incorporated

Add flour and mix until smoothed.

Drop in dollops onto baking sheet.

bake for 13~15 minutes.