makeshift

Most homes in Japan do not have central heating.

You could look at that as being a "bad thing"...but I like the fact that I can use my hallway as a makeshift refrigerator...storing veggies and other items that don't fit into my "real" fridge.

Do you have central heating in your home?

ice maker

It's still blazing over here, so let's talk about ice.

Last month when I was in Hawaii, Aunty M's ice maker went kaput.

She mentioned that someone would need to come and fix it.

Also awhile back, BFF, W mentioned if she wanted her refridge to make ice, she would need to install a waterline...

Apparently most U.S. refrigerators with ice makers need to be near a waterline, like near the sink.

In Japan though, our ice making refrigerators can be placed anywhere there is a plug, because we have a cartridge that we fill with water.

We put this cartridge directly into our refridge.

The water is sucked out and brought down to the ice making area of the freezer.

"Cool", yeah?!

wt?!

I don't know about your house, but at ours we have spiders.

They come in from the lanai and like to hang out on the glass doors and screens.

Every so often you can find spider webs here and there on the legs of the sofa and such.

The other day, while I was brushing my teeth, I spotted one hanging around on the corner of the bathroom door jam.

I just left it alone and went on with things.

Then in the afternoon, I was putting together a salad and opened the refrig door and lo and behold...there was the spider.

I'm not sure if it was the same one that I had seen earlier.

But now it was in the refridge and still alive! WT?!

I left it alone...hope it likes the cold...

Have a nice weekend!

refrigerator oatmeal

I've been seeing this on the web lately and had to give it a try, I adapted this recipe.

Here's what I did:

Refrigerator Oatmeal : 1 serving adapted from "The Yummy Life"

1/4 cup old fashioned oats
1/3 cup chocolate coconut milk
1/4 cup non-fat Greek yogurt
1 teaspoon ground flax seed

Topping: 1 apple banana, sliced

NOTES: I used this brand of "milk", it is really good, or as the label says "so delicious".

Since the milk was already sweetened, I didn't add any honey or any other sweetener to my oatmeal.

I didn't have rolled oats and just used old fashioned oats.

For winter months, warm/hot oatmeal is nice, but for summer this version is good!

I'm making this again using this Almond Coconut milk (which a reader, Marisa, told me was good)...you know it's gonna be just as good!

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.