pi-chee

Recently learned of this combo called pi-chee (peachy).

In Japanese, bell pepper is called piman (pee-mahn)...chee comes from cheese.

The bell peppers here are teeny.

Cut the bell pepper in half lengthwise and clean.

Fill with cheese then wrap with a thin slice of pork belly.

The way pork belly is sold, actually meat in general, is that everything is put into styrofoam trays so a lot of times you can't tell how long the piece of meat is, or how many pieces there are..which is why the pork belly I bought for this was too short...boo!

Salt and pepper to taste.

Cook for 4 minutes on low in a non-stick pan and flip over and cook for another 4 minutes.

Not really a recipe, yeah?!

NOTES: If possible, try to make sure there are no holes when wrapping the pork or your pi-cheese's cheese will leak out into the pan like mine did.

Also, when eating, be careful as everything inside the bell pepper is super hot!

I'm glad I tried this, it was easy and delicious.

I'll make this again.
 

re-vamp

Previously, I used to make my stuffed bell peppers like this.

Now, instead of using pre-made sauce, I make Ellie Krieger's "Easy Tomato Sauce" and top the stuffed bell peppers with them.

For the filling, instead of just putting onions and Italian seasoning. I now add some minced carrots and zucchini whenever I can (zucchini is not always in the markets).

Maybe a little healthier? Hopefully.

on the lanai

The other week I picked this bell pepper, it was still really small but it looked like it may have been diseased (I could be wrong), so I threw it out.

Then the other day, I picked this one, it was a bit bigger but it also had a spot.

I kept it and chopped it up to put into our breakfast burritos that morning.

Then the weather got really cold one day and Satoshi said, "you should pick the goya, I don't think they will get any bigger".

So I did, they were about 4 or 5 inches long.

The bigger of the 3 surprised us because we had been keeping our eye on the two smaller ones and hadn't noticed the bigger one until it was really huge.

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Kazumi had let me taste her goya tsukudani.

So, thinking this would be a new way to prepare goya I asked her for her recipe.

I'll note it at the end of this post, but this was good, not as sweet as her version but just enough to help overcome some bitterness from the goya.

This was our dinner on Sunday: goya tsukudani, miso soup with daikon, carrot and sweet potato, genmai (brown rice), egg & lettuce, and yuzu pickles.

The yuzu pickles are delicious, I love the crunch and the bright flavor from the citron.

Finally, Rowena had asked me in one of her comments, as to how I use the chirimen jakko (dried small anchovies).

The most simple way we eat them is to mix some with grated daikon and top with some shoyu or ponzu (citrus soy sauce).

I also place the mixture on tamagoyaki (rolled omlette).

You can also find chirimen jakko in tsukudani, like the one we had from Shinonome.

Chirimen jakko was also part of the recipe that Kazumi gave to me for the goya tsukudani.

Here is the recipe if you'd like to try this.

Goya Tsukudani adapted from Kazumi : yields about 1/4 cup
150 grams goya, cleaned and sliced into half cm slices.
37.5 mililiters shoyu (2.5 tablespoons)
25 mililiters vinegar (1.6 tablespoons)
50 grams sugar
1.5 teaspoons roasted sesame seeds
1 gram hana-katsuo (bonito shavings)
5 grams chirimen jakko (dried small anchovies)

After cleaning the "cotton" and slicing the bittermelon, put into boiling water to blanch.
Put liquid condiments into a pot and heat on medium.
Add goya, stirring once in awhile.
Just before all the liquid evaporates, add the sesame seeds, katsuo & jakko.

NOTES: She didn't have measurements for the sesame seeds, katsuo or jakko, so the measurements are what I used.

I weighed the goya after I cleaned it.

Since the jakko is dried, I added it while I still had quite a bit of liquid.

All in all, it took about 30 minutes for all the liquid to evaporate.

The bittermelon still keeps its bitter bite but is made a little softer with the addition of sugar.

I think this would be nice in musubi.

Whew, this post was long, but I wanted to wrap everything into one post so that I could share with you the happenings from our lanai.

from the lanai #2

The weather has turned really cold, all of a sudden, and then there were the worms, and things that looked like aphids.

I washed the leaves of the bell pepper plant and chili pepper plant with a soapy solution.

I figured that the peppers wouldn't get any bigger because the temperature has dropped, so I picked the two biggest and left the others, secretly hoping they will get bigger.

The chili pepper plant on the other hand, I pruned. I hope when Spring rolls around it will have leaves and not get attacked by the moths or whatever.

Luckily I had half of a red bell pepper in the refrige, to add to the two peppers.

I mixed 150 grams of ground beef with some chopped onion.

Added some Italian seasoning and mixed.

Two dollops of prepared pasta sauce on each dish.

Then I cut up a mozzarella ball into 6 slices and put 3 slices on each dish.

I then baked it in the oven for 20 minutes...200C (400F)

Too bad the bell peppers weren't bigger, though they tasted great.

There is a typhoon approaching, hopefully it will only bring us rain and some wind.

It is Friday here, hope you have a nice weekend.

piman : update

Well, the bell pepper I planted ended up not getting much bigger. While I went to Hawaii in October/November, the weather turned a little cold and Satoshi had been caring for the plants, he tends to over water them, which unfortunately kills most of them.

After I came back, I tried to nurse it back, but it was too late. It turned a little orange and was kinda soft. All the leaves fell off the plant.

Not sure if it had a disease, it had some black flecks on the plant and fruit, so I figured we couldn't eat it. I ended up taking the seeds and will try again after winter.

piman

After showing you the bell pepper plant on my lanai, nothing happened.

The other day, I was reading up on the care for bell peppers and found that they like heat and sun but not too high temps.

Back in August, the leaves were curling and falling off, a sign that it was just too darn hot.

So, now, the weather is getting cooler, we still have some sun during the day time and guess what...

(insert happy dance)

Will update when I harvest...

p.s. I just got a warning that my labels have reached the max of 2000 on blogger(which I didn't know there was a max, nor that I had that many labels (tags)), so I've started to edit some of my posts, taking out labels of restaurant names and product names, I hope I am not overflowing your rss readers by doing this, if I am, gomennasai (sorry!). Hopefully this doesn't affect searching for specific topics on my blog either....

piman

So, after killing the piman and goya before going to Hawaii, I also replanted the piman (bell pepper)...noticed some flowers the other day.

I wonder how long it takes for them to fruit? Summer is flying by, hopefully I'll be able to tell you about them.

It is Friday here, the humidity is thick...hope you have a great weekend!

on the lanai

The weather during this time of year has its good days and bad, but for the most part they are good.

The temps are great, though you need a light jacket or sweater on those windy days. I love being able to take my naps and sleeping at night with the windows open, not having to worry about humidity. (oops I said the "h" word...)

Recently on my lanai, I noticed my green onion had a flower getting ready to bloom. Before it could do so, it was so top heavy, it creased itself literally to the point of hanging on by a thread.

I cut it off and put the flower into some water. It started to bloom.

I also noticed this rather large strawberry in my planter and hope no birds do before I can pick it. Most of the strawberries that I have been picking are so tiny but this one is actually quite large. I should pick it soon...

Awhile back after seeding a raw red bell pepper, I threw the seeds into a pot outside. I think it is beginning to take (crossing my fingers that it is and not something totally different). It will be so cool to grow my own peppers since I am addicted to them as of late.

I noticed that the clover I planted started to bloom also. Satoshi had received these packets of clover seed, so I sprinkled them in two pots and just kept watering them every so often.

There are 3 plants I have inside the house. (If you look at the last photo) During the winter the one with the big leaf and the one hiding under it were actually brown because I had them outside, I think they like more "tropical" surroundings.

So, I pruned them and brought them indoors...they are looking good, though the one hiding under the leaf needs a bit more time. The one in the glass container is a coffee plant, I am crossing my fingers when I re-plant it that it takes. My first coffee plant died with the cold of winter.

I missed Earth Day the other day, so this post is kind of a make-up for it, hope you celebrated the Earth on Earth Day!

Today is the start of Golden Week here, some people will have 16 days off! (some taking vacation, while other have to take mandatory leave due to the economy) though we aren't planning to go anywhere as Satoshi has to work during the middle of it. Just as well though, most places will be packed with people that are out and about. (We are planning a short visit to Kyoto to spend some time with my MIL on some of the days that Satoshi is off though.)

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)).

friday

The weather has been quite rainy and cold the past couple of days. Where is Spring?

Last Friday's breakfast was a re-run of Wednesday's...omlette with pizza sauce, cranberry-lavender bread with cream cheese, an orange and coffee.

Since I had to be at home to wait for a delivery in the morning (between 9:00-12:00), I picked up this curry hot dog (hot dog in a bun topped with some curry) and a soy bean salad for lunch, the day before.

Then in the afternoon, I had another delivery coming between 14:00-16:00, so I ran out after my morning delivery arrived to pick up ingredients for dinner.

Dinner was stuffed bell peppers.

Cut bell peppers in half, mix 100g of beef with some onions, italian seasoning and 1 egg. Fill each pepper with some of the meat filling. Bake at 180C(350F) for 30 minutes. Top with pre-made pasta sauce and bake for another 10 minutes. (The bell peppers in Japan are REALLY tiny, this is why I don't use a lot of beef.)

Salad was wilted spinach and grated carrots topped with lemon-oregano vinaigrette.

Hope you have a great weekend!