kuruma-fu

Have you ever seen these at the market? Kuruma-fu.

They are wheat gluten rings.

Apparently they were created for Buddhist monks to replace the meat in their diets.

It reminded me of bread.

When I looked online, there were people using it as bread too.

To reconstitute them, you need to put them into water for about 10 minutes.

Then using your palms, gently press out the water from the kuruma-fu.

I made this into french toast.

It was watery, so I need to press out more water.

And these rings were getting larger and larger as I was cooking them, soaking up whatever liquid it could get.

2 rings per person was very filling, so I am thinking that the next time I make this, I will use only 1 ring per person and soak it overnight in the milk-egg mixture.

Will let you know how my experimenting goes...

"pain to ippiki"

I first heard about this book from Dennis' post.

"Pain (the french word for bread) to Ippiki (the Japanese word for "one animal")" is a lovely book filled with photos and some narration about each photo.

At first I thought the cover was an illustration, but it is an actual photo.

Most of the photos are of the author, Kuwabara Natsuko's breakfasts and her dog, Kipple.

There are also some recipes at the back of the book for some of the foods that appear in this book.

I recently tried the one for french toast. Instead of using baguette, I used two slices of sesame bread.

Another recipe I tried was the one for black sesame pancakes.

Black Sesame Pancakes adapted from "Pain to Ippiki" : makes 9 small pancakes
100 grams flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 egg
10 grams ground black sesame
60 mililiters plain yogurt
50 mililiters milk
20 grams sugar

Mix everything together.
On medium-low heat, pour a serving spoon size of batter into a non-stick pan.
Cook about 1 minute 30 seconds on each side.
Serve with butter and maple syrup.

NOTES: The original recipe called for black sesame paste, but I used ground sesame instead. It also called for cream but I used plain yogurt instead. The recipe also called for salt and some oil but I left those ingredients out.

I also made my pancakes smaller so I came out with 9 whereas the original recipe only makes 5. I really liked this sesame version.

I hope to try more of the recipes.

Thanks again Dennis for telling me about this book.

hawaii remembers

What kinds of things did you have for breakfast growing up?

We were lucky because on weekends Mom used to make all sorts of things for my brother and I.

One dish in particular was her peanut butter french toast.

Make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. (Jelly preferably guava.)

Dip into milk and egg mixture as you normally would french toast and cook with butter.

The version we had recently was different from "small kid times" (childhood) because my mom doesn't buy Love's white bread anymore, only whole wheat bread.

Another nostalgic breakfast is portuguese sausage, eggs and rice.

The spiciness and texture of portuguese sausage is something that cannot be found in Japan, though some chorizo can come quite close.

The egg has to be sunny side up or over easy...anything that will ooze over the plate, picking up some of the "juices" from the sausage, and soaking into the rice.

(Don't forget some ketchup on the eggs.)

Nowadays though, mom "fries" the sausage in the oven without having to stand by the stove (gets out a lot of oil too).

Looking back on the foods we eat nowadays, they have changed considerably from when we were growing up, but the tastes and memories have not.

more recipes from ellie

I tried these recipes last month....the "Peach French Toast Bake"...I should have soaked the french bread overnight like the recipe said, but I didn't want to bake it in the morning (not much time on a weekday morning).

So, the french toast was on the hard side (the egg mixture hadn't soaked all the way through), but was still tasty. I garnished with fresh strawberries instead of baking with the frozen peaches as the recipe calls for. Serving size is only one slice, so I also added a thin slice of ham.

I also tried the "Spaghetti with Turkey Meatballs in Spicy Tomato Sauce", but instead of the spicy tomato sauce, I used her "Easy Tomato Sauce" recipe.

My market doesn't have ground turkey, so I used ground chicken. I didn't have whole wheat bread to make bread crumbs, so I added a teaspoon of ground flax seed. I also made the meatballs really tiny and put them under the broiler for 20 minutes, instead of the 10 minutes that the recipes suggests...the meatballs were very flavorful and the sauce was tasty and easy to put together.

With 2 leftover meatballs and some sauce, I cut each meatball in half, toasted them on an English muffin with a cheese slice.

More great meals and recipes.

nuchi gusui part 2

After coming back from our vacation, I was kind of eager to get back into the kitchen to use the produce we got from Mirai Ginoza. Mirai Ginoza is a roadside farmer's market (there are actually a lot of these roadside markets here and there, each showcasing fruits and veggies from their area). Farmers from the area bring their veggies and fruits to sell. The prices were so reasonable, I wished I could shop here everyday!

Dragonfruit was going for about 200 yen each (about US$2), mangoes depended on the size, one was 900 yen (about US$9..okay that wasn't too reasonable...but the aroma was so sweet)!

Okra were longer than my fingers and were 100 yen a package (about US$1). The okra we get on mainland Japan are stubby and cost a little more, plus there are only 10 in a package, the one in Okinawa looked to have more.

Kabocha pumpkins were going for 300 yen a piece (about US$3), I've never seen a whole pumpkin in our markets.

Togan (winter melon) for about 300 yen a piece (about US$3)...for the whole thing! you'll never see this price in the markets on mainland Japan, especially for togan this big and fresh.

After oohing and aahing at everything that they had to sell, I bought some beni-imo (purple sweet potato), 2 for 200 yen (about US$2...not as reasonable as the roadside for 300 yen, but carryable on the flight home) and a pack with 22 shiquasa (I counted), a lime found in Okinawa, for 157 yen (about US$1.57)

With 10 shiquasa, I was able to squeeze 1/4 cup of juice and diluted that with water and added some blueberry honey to make a shiquasa drink for breakfast. (did this two times for two breakfasts, very refreshing.)

Also with some shiquasa (2 to be exact), I used it to make some fig jam (post on that a little later).

With the beni-imo (purple sweet potato), I steamed it. We ate part of it as is and it was really sweet. With the rest, I made a creamy dill dressing and we had beni-imo salad. 1 tablespoon mayo (Best Foods if possible), 2 tablespoons plain yogurt, several dashes of dill...delicious.

With the rest of the King's sweetbread that we got from Nate, I made some french toast for a breakfast and a bread pudding for another breakfast...delicious (thanks again, Nate!)

Did you know that Ginoza has a sister city in Italy? Thought that was pretty cool.

This little guy said it all "watashi wa shiawase" (I'm happy).