Friday, February 18, 2011

v-day

How was your V-day? Ours was good. The day started out with me giving Satoshi chocolates and a card.

In Japan, the guys get all the attention on V-day, if you want to read up on it, I've written something about it here.

As I was returning from the market it began to drizzle and the drizzles turned in to snow!

It ended up snowing the whole afternoon. I loved how the snow fell, it reminded me of white feathers, beautiful!

While it continued to snow, I heard commotion going on outside and decided to check it out, I'm kinda nosy like that.

It turned out something needed fixing, and this poor guy was outside with a plastic sheet overhead.

For dinner, I tried a new recipe.

It was a spicy pork wrapped with cabbage. Of course, I didn't read the recipe properly and ended up detouring a little from the original.

Spicy Pork Wrapped with Cabbage :adapted from ESSE March 2011 issue : serves about 3
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup sake (rice wine)
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 tablespoon shoyu (soy sauce)
1.5 tablespoons miso (soy bean paste)
1 teaspoon tobanjan (chili paste)
150 grams pork, thinly sliced
1.5 tablespoons ground white sesame seeds
3 leaves of cabbage, washed

In a pan, put the first 6 ingredients in and add the pork.
Turn the heat up to high and while mixing, let liquid evaporate.
After the liquid evaporates, add the ground sesame seeds, mix well.

With your leaves of cabbage, heat in a microwave (600W) for 90 seconds. Be careful of the steam and remove the hard stem. Then wrap 50 grams of pork.

Cut in half and serve with rice.

NOTES: The original recipe says to put about 50 grams into 1 leaf for a serving, but my leaves of cabbage weren't too big, so I made about 4 or 5 little rolls as 1 serving and served with lots of rice.

The original recipe also calls for the cabbage to be boiled but since I didn't read it properly, I nuked it.

For dessert we had dark chocolate dipped strawberries. I used Rowena's idea and placed some heart sprinkles that I had.

The day after, the sun came out and started to melt the snow.

p.s. yesterday, we visited MIL and she is happy to be at home. She can't sit on the tatami like she used to nor can she go upstairs to sleep, so she is living on the 1st floor of her house for now.

BIL & SIL take turns daily to check on her and bring her food, and once a week her doctor and a nurse make house call visits to help change bandages and such. It was nice visiting with her though we worry about her getting around her house.

Hope your V-day was a nice one, boy the week went by quickly, hope you have a nice weekend!

10 comments:

Rowena said...

Our Vday was quiet, dinner in (maki sushi for apps and spaghetti with uni for dinner!) and tv later. Strawberries all gone so we just ate fresh fruit salad for dessert. I am worse than you on being nosy....I look out the window or spy through the door peephole. The dogs just run out and bark.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for your note on my blog. I'm so glad you left it, because I love yours!
It brings back so many memories of when I lived there -- though I lived in the Tohoku region (Iwate), which is like a totally different country (it was really hard to understand people!).
Sounds like a cozy Valentine's Day. We spent ours with my son's grandparents. :) Very snowy there too!

Deb in Hawaii said...

I am so glad you MIL is home. Your cabbage wraps look delicious and I love those strawberries--so cute with the sprinkles. ;-)

Krissy said...

what a cute idea with the heart sprinkles. i'm glad you had a great valentine's day.

K and S said...

I look through the door peephole too Rowena, esp when there is someone standing near our door!

ooh yeah Tohoku dialect is pretty hard to understand, Hungryartist :)

we're glad she is home too Deb in Hawaii :)

Thanks Krissy, hope your V-day was a nice one too :)

Take care everyone.
Kat

jalna said...

So cute your card. I am majorly nosy too, and if I can get a shot of the action, better yet.

K and S said...

you so funny Jalna :)

Take care.
Kat

KirkK said...

Hi Kat - I'm glad your MIL finally made it home. She must feel relieved! BTW, I kinda like that V-Day concept! ;o)

Japan Australia said...

Chocolate dipped strawberries are the bomb!! We just got some fresh farmer`s market strawberries and dipped them in Lindt dark chocolate and they were sooo good.

K and S said...

only thing is you gotta give back on 3/14 Kirk ;)

ooh those sound yum, J-A

Take care you two.
Kat