gapao

The other day, I made a batch of Ayun's Salad. Yup, watermelon is in the markets here...whoo!

Since I had some basil leftover, I bought some minced chicken and made some gapao, which I think is called "chicken and holy basil"...I like saying "gapao" though...

Here is what I did:

250 grams minced chicken
2 small bell peppers, sliced thin
handful of basil, julienned
1 clove garlic, grated
1 nub of ginger, grated
1/4 teaspoon tobanjan (chili paste)
1 teaspoon sugar
1.5 teaspoon nampla (fish sauce)
1.5 teaspoon oyster sauce
olive oil

Heat a pan with a little oil, the garlic, ginger & tobanjan
Add the meat and break it up with a wooden spoon
Add the bell peppers
When the meat starts to change color, add the rest of the condiments and cook well
Add the basil at the end
Serve over hot rice and a sunny side up egg

NOTES: this was good, I think I can up the chili paste up a little bit, but the flavors were nice.

I'm making this again.

ayun's salad

I just finished reading "Dirty Sugar Cookies" by Ayun Halliday and what a great book it was.

A food memoir, this book brought back similar food memories for me.

The author also includes several recipes at the end of each chapter.

One, was this watermelon, feta & basil salad.

The recipe is so simple and so delicious, especially with Japan's sweet watermelon.

(Now, while I wouldn't recommend visiting Japan during the summer because of the unbearable heat and humidity, I would recommend visiting Japan during the summer for the fruits! Peaches, watermelon, grapes, and melons all vine/tree ripened and delicious. You'll never be able to eat the fruit you find in your US supermarket, ever!)

Anyway, she recommends 4 parts watermelon, 1 part crumbled feta and some basil. I de-seeded the watermelon, and used the marinated feta that I had.

I must say that the marinated feta added a lot of flavor to this salad. This would be perfect for a picnic or barbeque.

I'm making this again....soon!

odds & ends

It is the end of the month, so let's clean out the photos that weren't posted about.

Baked some scones using a new recipe. These definitely have to be eaten with jam--not sweet at all, still delicious though.

New version of stuffed bell peppers, added some renkon (lotus root) to the beef and onions and left out the egg.

Made some 3-bean salad (only with 2 beans--canned garbanzo & cooked daizu(soy bean)). Added corn, bell pepper and onion.

Curry fried chicken. Added some curry powder, salt and pepper to panko (bread crumbs). Dipped the chicken pieces in egg then dredged it in the panko mixture. Ate it with some tonkatsu (pork cutlet) sauce--delicious.

New version of Meiji's almond--this one has salted caramel wrapped around the nut. Japan's latest fad is salty sweets. Delicious, but gets quite salty after awhile.

Used one pod of the Lifou vanilla to make strawberry jam.

Have been enjoying the jam on yogurt in the mornings.

Cut some basil tops so that it wouldn't flower, put them in water---hydroponics?? (maybe) Planted them in the soil, hopefully they will grow.

Found these cute bananas, called "monkey bananas" in Japan and are also called Senorita. Thought they would taste like apple bananas, these were really sweet, not tart like the bananas we get in Hawaii.

Tried the Green & Black's Organic Cocoa. Followed the instructions on the can. Not much flavor. Kind of disappointing.

Got this Japanese confection from one of the memorial services. It is called Hakata no hito (lady from Hakata). A tiny baum kuchen with a sweet bean paste filling--delicious.

Our neighborhood 7-eleven closed on Friday. Satoshi and I are particularly sad to see it go because it came into the neighborhood the same year we moved into the neighborhood.

Another store which closed on Friday is the bakery in our shopping arcade a.k.a. my almost everyday lunch pick-up place. Since I have to find somewhere new, looked into buying bento (boxed lunch) from a sozaiya (pre-made foods store)--420 yen (about US$4.20)--rice with crunchy ume (pickled plum), hijiki (edible brown seaweed), tsukemono (pickled veggies), iwashi hamburger (sardine patty), tamagoyaki (omlette), pumpkin & kusamochi (rice cake mixed with yomogi (mugwort)).

back from the dead & meme

And I thought my basil had died! Trust me, when we came home, it was shriveled up (Satoshi can vouch for me). But I gave it lots of water and presto...back from the dead! can't say the same for the ivy plant or some others that looked like the basil when we came home, those poor plants have definitely gone to plant heaven.

Remember my tomato plants?

This is what they look like now. If the weather gets cool too quickly, I may have to bring this into the house.

To commemorate my basil coming back to life, I wanted to try a new recipe for dinner. I found a great recipe for "quiche". Here's an adaptation of it:
Vegetable "quiche" adapted from "the Healthy Kitchen" by Dr. Andrew Weil & Rosie Daley
Serves 2
boiled water
3 sun dried tomatoes
5 asparagus, chopped
1/4 medium onion, chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 carrot, cut into small cubes
1/4 portion of maitake (hen of the woods) mushroom, run knife through
7 leaves basil, chopped
2 sprigs flat leaf parsley, chopped
pinch of chili flakes
dash of nutmeg
dash of salt
couple grinds of pepper
1 potato, peeled and sliced thin
10 swipes on the grater of gouda
2 tablespoons milk
2 eggs
1 medium tomato sliced and seeded
1 tablespoon freshly grated parmigiano reggiano

Put boiling water over sun dried tomatoes and let sit for 15 minutes. Coarsely chop after the 15 minutes.
Cut up onion, asparagus, carrot, mushroom and saute in 1 tablespoon olive oil until onions are transparent and other veggies coated with oil.
Add herbs and spices, stir a bit then remove from heat.
Line ramekins with potato, overlapping slightly.
Sprinkle chopped sun dried tomatoes in each ramekin.
Whisk gouda, eggs and milk and divide evenly between the two ramekins.
Top each quiche with sliced tomatoes and sprinkle parmigiano on top.
Bake for 1 hour, covering after 45 minutes if top is brown.
Completely baked, the quiche should be firm. Let stand 15 minutes before cutting.
I like cheese so I sprinkled a little more parmigiano on top. Leftovers (if any) can be kept for 3 days.

NOTES: this recipe was quite labor intensive, so I cut corners here and there. The full recipe served 8 and used 6 eggs, since there are only 2 of us and since we only buy 10 eggs at a time (not like the US where they have 12 in a carton), I didn't want to use most of it for this dish, so I cut it down so I only used 2. Be sure to grease the pan you put it in otherwise you'll need to soak them like me. I really liked the potato "crust", it went nicely with the veggies and egg mixture. I also like ketchup with eggs and on potato, so I ate it with some on top. This is perfect for brunch, but also was nice for dinner.

On another note, Planethalder tagged me for a meme called "what's in your fridge".

Well, you caught me at a time when my fridge was packed to the gills....so here goes....rice (brown and white)/multi-grains to add to rice/chocolates for Satoshi/Italian roast coffee/Kosui pears/chocolate covered macnuts/kim chee/nutella/Best Foods mayo/Coconut Vanilla Jam/assorted jams from France/chestnut spread/Spoonalicious chocolate/3 kinds of miso (red, white and brown)/lettuce/eggs/gouda cheese/grated carrots and cucumber/whole carrots/asparagus/takuan (pickled daikon)/umeboshi (pickled plum)/tomato/bulgogi/guava jelly/beer/mango juice/chocolate chips/butter (salted and unsalted)/sushi mix/ketchup/capers/kuromitsu (like molasses)/vinegar/oyster sauce/white wine vinegar/tonkatsu sauce/shoyu/hershey's chocolate syrup/dijon mustard/raspberry vinegar/mirin (sweet rice wine)/sake (rice wine)/tobanjan (chili paste)/la-yu (chili oil)/kochujang (korean spicy miso paste)/dashijoyu (shoyu with stock in it)/rose water hand cream/ rose water face spritzer/ karashi (japanese mustard)/ wasabi (japanese horseradish)/tabasco/ponzu (shoyu mixed with lime)/kim chee no moto (starter for kim chee)/ okonomiyaki sauce/ worchestershire sauce/balsamic vinegar/gohan desu yo (nori tsukudani)/chocolate/tenmenjan (chinese miso)/hoisin sauce (chinese bbq sauce)/dried shrimp/parmigiano reggiano cheese/tahini/green onion/pickled ginger/sun dried tomatoes/face mask/cream cheese/mom's bread and butter pickles/lilikoi (passion fruit) butter/anchovie paste/sweet dill pickles/natto (fermented soy beans)/stuffed olives

the drawer just below the area in the photo has beer glasses chilling/sake (5 kinds)/ beer/ rakkyo (pickled onions)/milk/mentsuyu (sauce for noodles)/ume dressing/ume shu (plum liquer)/soda water....whew! as you can see, I have lots of chocolate and don't only have food in there!

I think most bloggers have done this one, so I won't tag anyone, if you'd like to participate, enjoy!

This was fun, thanks Planethalder!

p.s. I was having trouble with Microsoft Explorer, so I changed. Since the new server doesn't accommodate Flash, I needed to change my layout--oh well, better than the computer shutting down while trying to open up a post.

We have a 3 day weekend here, hope you all have a nice weekend.

odds & ends

This photo is for Marianna--she wanted to see my basil. I think her basil looks way more healthy than the ones I have.





Have you ever seen grapes this big? They are called Kyoho (which literally mean top giant) and about 2 inches in diameter, the skins are quite bitter, so we either peel them or pop the whole thing in our mouths and spit out the skins after eating the insides. Some have seeds and some do not. If you want grapes that actually taste like grape, these are something to try, but be careful, these are really expensive. We received these from Satoshi's staff yesterday. (Thank you!)

My lace lavender has started to flower again. They first flowered in the winter and now have started again.





The other day, I found a shriveled up cherry tomato in our refrig, so I squeezed out some seeds and threw them into this pot. ( I hope it will be able to give us some tomatoes without something eating it first.)