this and that

Love seeing all the different produce at the fruit stands...like this huge lemon!

Grown in Wakayama it was only 100 yen (plus tax)!

I recently have been seeing beets, so I tried pickling it raw...yummy!

This particular variety was called Detroit Dark Red.

This other variety I found was called Golgo in Japanese, (Gorgo, not sure of the spelling) also known as Barbabietola.

Love the pink rings!

We ate it raw, pickled...

and roasted.

Saw this Rittersport on Rowena's flickr page and kept my eye out for it.

The stores haven't really been bringing in new flavors, but I'm glad I found it and got to try it...salted honey almonds & milk chocolate...so good! I didn't share...

Tankan, a type of citrus.

They look really ugly, but when you cut them open they are bright orange.

They don't have any seeds and they are really sweet.

They reminded me of the oranges my mom used to grow.

What have you been seeing in your markets?

float lemon tea (heart)

After that krazy lunch...I went to check out the mall up the street, before catching the bus back home.

As I was wandering in my favorite knick-knack shop...I found the tea with the dried lemon hearts!

The green box has tea from Miyazaki Gokase and the red one has tea from Shimane Izumo.

The heart shaped lemon is from Hiroshima.

Brew the tea then set the dried lemon on top.

So cute!

I'm glad I found this and didn't have to enter the lottery to get them.

We're back in a cold snap the past couple of days...have a nice weekend!

float lemon tea

I think I first heard about this tea from a television program.

Mitsuura Brewery makes several types.

Even one where the lemon is formed into a heart while it is growing, sliced and then dried.

That version is only available by lottery, so I was excited to come across this when we visited Miyajima.

We happened to check out a teeny knick knack shop and the tea caught my eye.

We got the ginger version.

After brewing the tea, place the dried lemon on top of the beverage.

The lemon stays afloat while you enjoy the tea.

The tea, lemon and ginger are all made in Japan.

You can even eat the dried lemon after you finish drinking the tea because it is organic.

Different but delicious.

I'm glad we got to try this and hope to order some other items from their online shop.

takaminoen meyer lemon juice

My host brother's wife recently gave me this bottle of meyer lemon juice.

I remember many years back when my blog friend Rona asked me to look around online for meyer lemons for her...it is exciting to see food items slowly making their way into our markets here.

This happens to be from Mie Prefecture.

So far, I've used it on sautéed shrimp.

This doesn't have preservatives, so I'll have to use it up quickly.

Thank you, K!

preserved lemon chicken

A couple of weeks back, I preserved a lemon in salt because I wasn't planning to use it any time soon and I didn't want it to rot before I had a chance to use it.

Actually preserved lemon is trending here. Growing up, my mom used have a huge jar of preserved lemons outside, she never cooked with it, instead we used to eat a little of it whenever our throats were sore.

I found a recipe to use the preserved lemons and adapted on it.

Preserved Lemon Chicken adapted from Dancyu makes 6 servings

2 huge chicken thighs (with skin, no bones), cut each thigh into 3 pieces
3 prunes
3 apricots
6 olives
6 wedges of preserved lemon
3 bay leaves
2 tablespoons of the preserved lemon juice
4 tablespoons whiskey
1 onion, thinly sliced
4 button mushrooms, thinly sliced
olive oil

Put the first 8 ingredients together and marinate for at least half a day.
Put the thinly slice onions and mushrooms in a baking dish
Lay the chicken, fruit and olives on top of the onions and mushrooms
Drizzle some olive oil over the chicken
Bake the chicken (uncovered) in a 180C(350F) for 30 minutes. And then under the broiler for 7 minutes.

NOTES: this was good, I would use slices of preserved lemon rather than wedges. I flipped the chicken around every time I opened the refrigerator door. The original recipe directs you to sear the chicken in a pan then bake-off. Next time, I would cook everything in a frying pan. I served this with quinoa and broccoli. I have a little more preserved lemon and will make this again.

lemon chicken

The other day, I was craving lemon chicken.

Thing is you don't really see it on menus here.

So, I figured I had to make it from scratch.

I didn't want to fry chicken though, so I cheated and bought some pre-made karaage (fried chicken).

The surprising thing is that many of the cookbooks I have, have the sauce recipe for lemon chicken but most only call for a tablespoon of lemon juice?! and lots of vinegar...Really?!

I had some local lemons that I wanted to use, so I made up this one:

juice of 1 lemon (about 1/4 cup)
2 teaspoons honey
1/4 cup water
slurry (cornstarch & water)
thinly sliced lemon
pre-made karaage (fried chicken)

Bring the lemon juice, honey and water to a boil and drizzle in the slurry until you get the thickness desired.
Add the sliced lemon at the end.
Drizzle over the chicken.

NOTES: I think my sauce could've been a little thicker but this really hit the spot. I served the chicken over stir-fried veggies.

p.s. It's the start of a 4-day weekend and the tail-end of Golden Week, have a nice weekend, everyone!

me-li-le poom!

Okay, so there was the "mantra" Me-li-le-pi Om!

Now I introduce you to "Me-li-le Poom!"

Mexican Lime, Lemon, Poppy Olive Oil Muffins.

I found some blue poppy seeds at the gourmet supermarket (Seijo Ishii) and since I had some lemon in my refridge, I decided to "re-try" this muffin, this time remembering to add the lemon juice.

I loved the popping of the poppy seeds in my mouth and the citrusy-ness.

This was moist and perfect for afternoon tea and for breakfast.

Follow this recipe subtracting the pistachios, but adding the juice of 1 lemon and 15 grams (about 2 tablespoons) of poppy seeds.

me-li-le-pi om!

"Me-li-le-pi Om!" Is a Zen mantra...not!

The weather on Thursday was cold and rainy so I stayed indoors and tried to keep myself entertained by making some sunshine.

The "mantra" stands for Mexican Lime Lemon Pistachio Olive oil Muffins...I shortened it because, well, it was too long! (See what happens when I stay indoors all day long??...)

I've been intrigued with many posts about olive oil cakes/muffins. Looking at the many online recipes, it seems as though they use olive oil in place of butter, so using a muffin recipe that I always use, I subbed a Mexican Lime Olive Oil which I had received from my cousin way back when.

The oil was amazingly still good and very fragrant.

I had intended to also put some lemon juice into the batter (squeezed the lemon and everything) but totally forgot to, so the recipe only has the zest of a lemon in there (and I had a nice yet sour apertif while waiting for these to bake).

The muffins came out very moist, citrus flavors are strong with a little crunch from a handful of pistachios (should've added a little more!). (I received the pistachios from Rowena, thank you!)

Here is the recipe if you'd like to try it: makes 6
150 grams flour
6 grams baking powder
1 egg
80 grams sugar
50 grams Queen Creek Mexican Lime Olive Oil
70 mililiters milk
handful of pistachios
zest of 1 lemon, minced

Sift flour and baking powder, set aside.
Throw in zest and pistachios into flour mixture to coat

With a hand mixer, beat egg and sugar
Add in oil and milk, beat a little longer

Add the wet mixture to the dry and mix well with a rubber spatula

Bake at 180C (350F) for about 25 minutes.

NOTES: Actually, I was envisioning a lemon poppy olive oil muffin, but couldn't find black poppy seeds, only white. Then I got to thinking about the pistachios I received from Rowena and lemon. And then remembered I had the lime olive oil tucked away in my cupboard.

Anyway, this was very citrusy and moist. I would definitely make this again especially when I am too lazy to defrost some butter.

Even though the weather outside was miserable, I'd say there was a lot of sunshine in my kitchen.

lemon chocolate nib muffins

Sorry for so many muffins this week, I had some butter that I wanted to use up.

Anyway, before we went to Palau, I also had some lemons that needed using, since I knew I wouldn't get around to using them before we left, I zested, squeezed and froze them.

Then yesterday, I prepared the batter according to the following recipe (it is similar to the muffin recipe I just posted with a few changes)...

Lemon Chocolate Nib Muffins--makes 6

150 grams flour
6 grams baking powder
1 medium egg
80 grams sugar
50 grams butter, measured then melted
50 mililiters lemon juice
20 mililiters milk
zest of lemon
60 grams chocolate chips
handful of cacao nibs

Sift the baking powder, flour and set aside.
Preheat oven to 350F (180C).
In another bowl, beat the egg and sugar for about 2 minutes.
Add the milk and melted butter, beat for another 10-15 seconds.
Add the lemon juice, zest, nibs and chocolate to the the sifted dry ingredients and add to the egg mixture.

Stir with a spatula and mix until just incorporated.
Fill 6 muffin papers as evenly as possible.
Bake for 25 minutes.

NOTES: The original lemon muffin recipe says "juice of one lemon". I didn't know if I should add the lemon juice plus the full amount of milk in the basic recipe or even out the liquid to match the amount of liquid in the basic muffin recipe. In the end, I decided to even out the liquid, for fear of having too much liquid in the batter. These were puckery. The chocolate I used was 60%. I think if I used a chocolate closer to milk chocolate, it may have balanced things out. Still, I liked these---really moist, chocolatey and very lemony.

It is Friday...Saturday starts a 5-day weekend here...hope you have a good weekend!

things I am liking (and disliking)...

This post is kind of a copycat of Deb's post, things she's liking this week, except I'm adding a spin on mine with a disliking portion.

First off, the things I'm liking....

Big Island Candies' lemon shortbread. I received these from my Aunty M, lemon shortbread with lemon bits in it, some covered in white chocolate, some in dark, some plain.

Not really a fan of white chocolate, I was surprised that the lemon shortbread actually matched the white chocolate more than the dark. (Thank you Aunty!)

With this awful humidity, I'm also liking cold drinks...Blueberry Bliss tea from Teavana. I received this from Deb when I met her. This tea is refreshing and delicious! I love the mixture of blueberry, rooibos and rosehip. (Thank you Deb!)

Last summer I read of a great way to make iced tea without having to heat up the water on the stove. Just pour 1 liter of water into a jug and add 3 tea scoops (about 3 tablespoons) of tea. Put the jug into your refrigerator overnight. Of course, if you want to make your tea stronger, add more tea leaves.

And iced coffee...when I make espresso or brew some coffee, I try to make extra to chill for the following day.

When drinking it, I add some milk to my coffee and then add more ice...mmm. If you use sweetener, you may want to make a simple syrup to put in the chilled coffee or put sugar into the coffee/espresso while it is hot. I drink my coffee black so I don't put any sweeteners in.

I am liking eating from the rainbow. Dinners have been mostly veggie type. For this particular meal I had eringi with kim chee, carrot salad, couscous pesto salad, 2 bean salad and fig with gorgonzola honey and pecan.

It was my first time making fresh figs with gorgonzola, a drizzle of honey and some pecans...mmm!

So, what is the part that I am disliking? After making the fabulous dinner mentioned above, Satoshi calling me last minute to say that he will be eating out...too bad, more for me!

What are you liking/disliking?

antenor

I had been eyeing this in the glass case of Antenor for some time now, but kept putting it off until last week.

Lemon tart 315 yen (about US$3.15).

A flaky crust (though I have eaten better crusts a.k.a. mom's), sponge cake, lemon curd, more sponge cake, more lemon curd, topped with spurts of whipped cream.

The lemon curd was tart, the custard was sweet...it was a good balance.

The box it comes in makes a nice little photography studio too.

more recipes from ellie

For dinners, I've been cooking more recipes from "The Foods You Crave" book. One night was the "salmon with sweet and spicy rub". I used sashimi grade salmon, mainly because I was lazy and didn't want to bother with picking/pulling out bones. The salmon came out really moist, tender and delicious.

I served this with "asparagus with lemon and tarragon". She suggests nuking the asparagus, but I steamed mine.

This was a good match since fish is usually served with lemon.

Another recipe I tried was "salmon cakes with ginger-sesame sauce". Since I only had a can of smoked halibut, that is what I used. The halibut was firmer and smoky in flavor, (because it was smoked) so the cakes were a bit dry. Still, it was an easy recipe. Also, I didn't make the ginger-sesame sauce and instead made her "smarter tartar sauce" since I didn't think the ginger sesame sauce would match with the smokiness of the cakes.

I served this with steamed broccoli and the lemon and tarragon dressing, the same dressing as the asparagus. I think this dressing would work with steamed beans or actually any warm vegetable.

Since I only made half the recipe of the salmon cakes, I had one egg left in my carton. As I flipped through the book, I noticed that her recipes for muffins makes 12 with 2 eggs, so I cut the recipe in half and made 6 muffins with my last egg.

The muffin recipe I tried was the "apple-pecan muffin". The recipe calls for applesauce and buttermilk. I didn't have applesauce and wasn't going to buy (or look for it at the store) or make it, so I instead subbed some yogurt in place for both the applesauce and buttermilk.

I also didn't have wheat flour, so I added some ground flax. The muffins had just a touch of sweetness from the apples and topping. It was perfect for breakfast.

I hope to try even more recipes from this book. You can find most of these recipes on the Food Network site.

blueberry lemon muffins

Yesterday I posted about making ice cream. Well, I also went onto Amazon Japan to "review" the Japanese recipe book in Japanese. I gave it 1 star and basically wrote in Japanese what I did in English. (Actually, I wasn't going to even give it a star.)

Well, apparently "they" don't like less than 3 stars...they deleted my review! This actually has happened before, we had bought a book from a secondhand seller through Amazon Japan and I remarked that it had looked like it was taken from the library, it still had the dewey decimal label on the spine of the book!...well, the secondhand seller didn't like my review and harrassed me by sending me e-mails to change my review and the seller also e-mailed Amazon to the point where they deleted my comment...definitely no freedom of speech here!

Anyway, let's move onto something cheery...food!

What to do when you are in a pinch to have something fast for breakfast? I usually make scones or make muffins.

This past Saturday, I needed something quick for our breakfast, so the day before I made muffins with some blueberries and lemon that I had in the refrig.

I used this recipe as the base (minus the nibs & tea) and added 60 grams of fresh blueberries and the zest of one lemon.

The results were a great muffin, not too sweet, not too sour, just right.

With the juice from the lemon, I made some lemon fizz.

Maybe breakfast was a bit overkill with the lemon and blueberry in both the muffins and the fizz but it was quick and delicious.

making fizz and "stuff"

Thanks for all the great comments. I was surprised to hear about all the different types of drinks and snacks that everyone has at their Starbucks. And I was also happy to hear that, not everyone hangs out there. For me, I like them only because it is smoke-free, if I really had a choice, I know I wouldn't go there because they are quite pricey. In fact, they recently raised the price of their beans and drinks. 10 yen..but still.

Anyway, enough about Starbucks for now...In a recent post, I wrote that I was craving fizz and sugar. Since then, I have been trying to wean myself off of soda (since there is tons of sugar in it) and tried to make something as natural as possible.

On Thursday, at the supermarket, I debated over the lemons. They were selling 3 tiny lemons for 150 yen from the U.S. Versus 1 big lemon from Chile for 129 yen. I chose the 3 for 150 yen about US$1.50 and bought 2 bags. Then I squeezed the 6 lemons (about 1/2 cup lemon juice--not much juice as they were teeny) and added 2 cups of fizzy soda water. Then in a glass, I added ice and a teaspoon of blueberry honey.

I mixed it well to make sure that the honey dissolved. It was really refreshing and having it in the morning really wakes you and your tastebuds up! (You can adjust the sweetness if it is too tart, but we really liked it this way.) I am definitely making this again.

Did I say enough of Starbucks? Well, yesterday, I tried these blueberry-yogurt pancakes. Delicious, light and fluffy and on their "Wellness Selection" menu. I guess having yogurt in the pancakes make them "healthy", but I think it was counter-acted by the whipped butter...which I used the whole little container of (there is a butter shortage here, couldn't let it go to waste, could I?)

This year's summer has been really hot which may not be a good thing for us humans, but it has been a good thing for the veggies. They are HUGE! Take for example this eringi, (was about 6 inches long and 2 inches in diameter) usually they are skinnier and half this size.

I saw a television program once that said that Japan measures their produce by weight, them packages them for sale at about 100 to 150 grams per package, so most times they mix small veggies with big ones.

When I bought this (for 98 yen about US$.98), there was just this one inside, though I don't think it was 100 or 150 grams.

p.s. something is wrong with Blogger...I cannot access my blog to answer comments. Hope this gets fixed soon!

simple salad

I tried this really simple salad recipe (in the photo it is the salad on the right) from Made Healthier. For the dressing I used my favorite, lemon oregano vinaigrette. Since the only honey I had open was a blueberry one, I used it in the vinaigrette. The dressing came out really nice.

I wanted to show you the packaging for the lemon. It shows the picture of the farmers that grew it. Nice way for you to appreciate your food and the people who grew it.

I also made the gobo salad with fresh gobo. I used this gadget by OXO to julienne the gobo and carrots.

On my way back from the market, I happened to be looking up at the trees and noticed this fuji(wisteria) hanging down from it. It was about 3 feet from where I was standing, so I had to zoom up on it.

For breakfast today, I mixed the rest of the salad into an omlette, topped it with some pre-made pasta sauce and had some baguette with herb garlic cream cheese.

odds & ends

In Japan, they have different types of strawberries. This one is called Amaou.

Not sure if this is what is called an acrostic, but the name comes from A: Akai (red)
Ma: Marui (round)
O: Ookii (big)
U: Umai (delicious)

These guys were definitely big, round and delicious! Perfect for dipping in dark chocolate. (Mom says that this is an acronym not an acrostic...thanks Mom!)

So, without butter, I used only olive oil for these banana nib muffins. As I baked the muffins, I realized I didn't put in any eggs or vanilla extract either! They came out a bit dense, but they were really moist, probably because of the bananas.

Some "old-fashioned" bacon that I found. Only 6 slices in a package...won't tell you the price. Of all the brands I've found, this one cooks up the crispiest! With a brand name like, Butz, I wonder if there is some kind of hidden message? (Maybe?)

A new brand of candied yuzu (citron). Saw a segment on television where they were making these. It takes about 6 months to make a batch. They soak the citron peels in sugar water for several days then, air dry them r-e-a-l-l-y s-l-o-w-l-y, then add more sugar.

These peels are so delicious! Makes your mouth pucker because they are so sour. They are brownish, because they don't add any coloring.

Well, they have finally started building. It looks like it will be 3 (or probably 4) new houses on the lot next door. All I know is that the scaffolding is as high as our building (3 stories)! If you notice the 2 cement slabs, each is for a house.

The newest macaron flavor at Starbucks is lemon. A bright yellow outside with a tart lemony gel filling. Delicious!

I had lunch with my host-mom the other day. I like having lunch with her, it gives us time to bond and she always tells me about the newest food trends. I wanted to share what she told me...egoma oil. Egoma is in the same family as shiso (perilla/beefsteak plant) and the leaves are found in Korean cuisine, maybe the oil too? She said that if you have high cholesterol, this oil will help bring it down and is better than olive oil. The only thing with this oil is that it is expensive and has a very short shelf life.

Hope you have a nice weekend, next week is Golden Week here.