5 minute ozoni

Sunday dinner was ozoni.

I know you usually see ozoni during New Years but since the weather was fahreezing and we stayed in all weekend, this was perfect.

I used some dried veggies, which I reconstituted with hot water.

It was my first time using the dried veggies and it came out quite good.

And heated up some mochi from the freezer.

As for the soup, I used a packed of instant suimono.

This was delicious and perfect for the weather on Sunday.

I will definitely keep these dried veggies on hand in my pantry.

the first week of 2019

Happy New Year!

Hope you started the new year off with little to no stress.

I think we started the year off right by being able to see Mount Fuji.

We had ozoni for our first breakfast.

We also went to a lot of shrines around our area for hatsumode.

We also had osechi...this year I bought mostly everything since we were on a little trip before the New Year (which I'll write about later), but did make namasu and tataki gobo (burdock root).

We didn't have all the foods to make it an authentic osechi...oh well.

We face-timed with family on their first day of 2019 (love technology!)

finally got to introduce Satoshi to Civitas, he had the "snack" plate with ham and enjoyed it...we'll definitely be back.

On Friday, Satoshi went back to work, so I went to see "A Star Is Born", I didn't realize it was a remake (have not seen the original nor the other remake)...Loved the music!

Lunch before the movie was at City Bakery...veggie sandwich and cappuccino.

Saturday we went to Naritasan in Chiba.

Lunch or more like mid-afternoon meal was at Surugaya where we waited 3 hours for unagi! (more about that later too).

So that was our first week.

I'll write up things more in detail later, but thought I should kind of bring you up to date.

Have a good week!

the past couple of days

Satoshi went back to work today, so I have some time to post.

On New Years Eve day, we had toshikoshi soba for lunch.

Although we had more soba than soup...

Then for New Years Eve dinner we had all sorts of nibbles.

New Years Day morning.. we had ozoni with mochi in it, some sekihan (reddish rice with azuki beans), and o-toso (which is just a little sip of sake to ward off illnesses and to start the new year).

We went to several of the shrines that we normally do for Hatsumode (first prayers of the New Year).

While standing in line to get to the prayer area of a shrine, we saw this huge tai (sea bream), just hanging in front of an izakaya (Japanese pub).

Huge, yeah?!

I was surprised no cats had attacked it...

Dinner was o-sechi, the foods that are normally eaten during this holiday...I've written about this previously,here.

I'm super thankful for pre-made stuff and not having to do these foods from scratch.

On the 2nd, we braved the crowds of the department store to pick up some bento.

Luckily, we knew what we wanted to get, so we were in and out of there rather quickly...it was super nuts!

We brought the bento and went to visit MIL.

This year is the Year of the Dog.

I noticed this origami dog on MIL's calendar, so we cut it out and folded it into the dog.

We saw the Super Moon as we walked home from the train station.

And then last night, we were craving some meat, so we had some steak with mango chutney and other nibbles.

With all the eating I did, I definitely need to get some walking in...

Hopefully you all had a great holiday season.

happy new year

How was the last day of 2014 and the first day of 2015? Hope you had a nice couple of days.

On the last day of 2014, we went to our favorite neighborhood cafe for breakfast. We also picked up some coffee as we were running low.

Lunch was toshikoshi soba, in Japan, you are supposed to eat it at midnight. In Hawaii, we usually eat it for lunch (because our family usually is ready to go to sleep at midnight), and I also thought we shouldn't really be eating soba so late, so we picked up some kakiage (fried vegetable with shrimp and squid) and had it with our soba.

Dinner was an assortment of things you usually find in the o-sechi, the traditional dishes that you eat during the new year. If you are interested I wrote up a detailed post here.

On the first day of 2015, we had ozoni (the traditional soup with mochi in it).

We then went out to various temples in our area for hatsumode (the first prayers of the new year).

Most places were closed so we were really thankful that a ramen shop in our shopping arcade was open for business.

Dinner that night was a combination of bagna cauda sauce, roasted sardines and daikon leaf pasta. Some dried fruits, cheese and other nibbles with some wine.

On the second day of 2015, we awoke to white rooftops. It had actually started snowing the day before in the afternoon, but I guess it continued through the night.

There wasn't any left on the ground, though there were some slippery spots while walking.

We visited a few more temples in our area and then had lunch at a different ramen place.

After lunch we face-timed with family in Hawaii (love technology!) and then spent the afternoon watching another blizzard whizz by our window.

This little snowman was seen while walking to pick up some food after lunch.

Tomorrow we visit MIL. I'll post about Nagasaki after Satoshi goes back to work and I more time "me-time".

I hope your first weekend of 2015 will be a nice one.

Talk to you again soon!

the first couple of days

Reader Alan had wrote to me about not posting about ozoni.

I've posted about it several times, and didn't want to bore you and post about it again, but since he asked, I'm posting...

Let's reverse a bit...On December 31st, we had toshikoshi soba for lunch, in Japan, you are actually supposed to have this at midnight, but we didn't know whether we would be awake at that time or not, plus, eating that late is a no-no for us these days.

You know, I have many dishes, but nothing proper to warm sake in...sad, yeah?!

Our osechi was store bought, the only thing I made was dashimaki egg (which wasn't traditional)...my kind of cooking.

Buri teriyaki, chikuzeni, kuromame, namasu, konbu maki, tazukuri, kamaboko...I was missing some items from a traditional osechi but we got to eat some of those missing items when we visited MIL.

This year's ozoni was "lazy" style.

A packet of instant o-suimono, some mochi, some daikon slices and hot water.

Heat your mochi and daikon in a pot with water so that they soften, and then pour over the dry o-suimono in a bowl.

I actually saw a version of this on a TV commercial, their version only had the mochi and the o-suimono.

You could probably "jazz" it up with some kamaboko and carrots too.

January 1st, we visited MIL.

Besides osechi, we also had sushi. She said it was her first time ordering from this sushi place, but we thought it was pretty good.

On the 2nd, we did our hatsumode.

We went to a couple of our "usual" places to pray but also went to the Toyonaka Inari Shrine. We were amazed at how big this shrine was, I think we're adding this to our list of places to pray at.

And we had some Japanese sweets, uguisu mochi (which is coated in a green soy bean powder) and shogatsu mochi from Kagetsudo.

So there you go...If you're interested, you can also read a detailed post about Japan's New Year here.

Kagetsudo
1-12-24 Honmachi
Toyonaka, Osaka
Phone: 06.6852.6105

p.s. It's Friday here, and a 3-day weekend, enjoy!

foodie new year!

It is the New Year here in Japan. I want to wish you all a Happy New Year! This year's Chinese astrological sign is the inoshishi (wild boar).

Unfortunately, Satoshi had to work today. It's not that he wanted to work on the first day of the New Year, but it is his turn to...plus, if you were on a trip and ran into some kind of trouble, you'd want someone to answer your call, right?

This morning we had ozoni. It is a traditional soup that most families have on the first morning of the New Year. I wrote more about this last year, if you'd like a re-cap, check it out here.

For lunch, I didn't feel much like cooking, especially since it was only for myself. But because many of the shops aren't open today, I decided to see what was in my freezer...I came up with croque monsieur--a very fancy name for a ham and cheese sandwich. I sliced some red onion and sauteed them in some butter, then put some butter into the frying pan and toasted both sides of the sandwich. Then I sprinkled cheese on top with some pepper and oregano and put the whole thing under the grill for 5 minutes. Having it with a bowl of cafe au lait made me feel like I was in Paris...


Dinner was our o-sechi (traditional dishes for the New Year). Our rice was a kamameshi type (rice cooked in an iron pot called a kama), with kuri (chestnut), kuromame (black beans) & gomoku (usually five ingredients--carrot, konnyaku (devil tongue jelly), sansai (wild mountain plants--warabi (fern shoots), zenmai (flowering royal fern)), takenoko (bamboo shoots). The rice is cooked with a shoyu (soy sauce) base which is put into the pot along with all these ingredients. Nowadays instead of having a kama (iron pot), you can cook this dish in your rice cooker.

We also had kohaku namasu (carrots and white turnip soaked in vinegar, sugar and mirin).



Kobumaki (rolled kelp), this dish is to bring yorokobu (happiness).

Tazukuri (dried anchovies), which prays for a good harvest.

Hinode cut kamaboko (fish cake cut to look like the sunrise). The fish cake is made in the celebratory colors of white and red.

Nasudengaku-roasted eggplant with a dengaku miso sauce. The miso sauce is a little sweet. I made the miso sauce with 80g red miso (soy bean paste), 1.5 T sugar, 2 T mirin (sweet rice wine) and 1/3 cup of kombu dashi (kelp stock). Since I roasted the eggplant and shiitakes in the oven, they came out a bit dry. I'll try cooking them in the frying pan again soon. This dish isn't part of the New Year celebratory foods, but I thought it would be a good dish to accompany all of our other dishes.

We toasted with a cup of sake (rice wine)--a limited edition ginjo (highly milled rice with or without alcohol added) called Manotsuru Tokimeki made by Obata brewery, from the island of Sado in Niigata prefecture.

During this time of year, you are supposed to warm up the sake, but I couldn't find my tokkuri (bottle to warm up the sake). So I decided to use my reishu (cold sake) ochoko (cups).

Cheers! Here's to a great start of a foodie new year!