eek

Warning: this post is about semi (cicada)...

When I was in Tarumi the other day, I noticed several trees loaded with semi (cicada).

If you are looking at this post on a smartphone, pinch the photo to expand...you'll see all of them.

I also lightened the photo, so it is a little easier to spot them all...

Midori and I were sort of screaming as we took the photo...eek!

If you are interested in seeing the video I shot of them a few years back you can click here, to hear just how noisy they are.

Tidbit from Satoshi: only the male cicadas chirp...

Hope it is cooler and quieter where you are...have a nice weekend.

koregusu

Remember those Thai chilies?

Well, I used most of them to make "koregusu" (co-ray-goo-sue) an Okinawan hot sauce.

Just take some chilies, cut off the stem and put them into a glass jar.

Then fill it with some awamori, Okinawan liquor.

I'll let you know when we start using this.

inaba chicken curry series

So that canned butter chicken I was talking about is a new item from Inaba. They are the same people who made those curries with the tuna in them. I don't remember how I found out about it, but I have a feeling it was from social media.

Anyway, I was able to round up the 4 types : from top left: chicken green thai curry, butter chicken, bottom left: chicken red thai curry, chicken yellow thai curry.

So far we've only tried the butter chicken. Instead of it having an Indian curry flavor, I think it tasted similar to the tuna thai curries we've tried in the past with chicken instead.

I'm gonna save the other cans for days that we can't get out of the house to eat.

When we tried the butter chicken was when I made the sabzi and cabbage side dishes.

Since the veggie recipes served four, I served the other half when I made tandoori chicken.

The mango lassi was bought at the convenience store and doctored up with some yogurt.

The weather has turned a bit icy though we were able to get out to see some fall foliage, I'll talk about that soon.

Hope your week is going well.

sounds of summer

The sound of summer in Japan is made by the semi (cicada).

They are awfully noisy especially in the morning. Sometimes you can even hear them at night too.

I once saw one on our lanai door and boy did it shake the glass with its chirping.

I've written a pretty detailed post on them here.

Do you have cicada where you live? What is the sound of summer where you are?

pizza

The media has been running pizza delivery ads left and right, so of course, it gave me a hankering for some pizza.

I wasn't willing to shell out the money for delivery, so I bought some ingredients and pre-made crusts and dinner was on...

Take a look at these huge brown mushrooms, they were selling these in bulk because they weren't "normal" sized...whatever, I was happy that they were selling so many for so cheap!

We also added some black olives, salami and edam cheese.

The pre-made crusts were 22 centimeters (about 8 inches) and there were 2 in the package.

My first attempt, the pizza got a little darker than I expected, but it was delicious.

My second attempt, I had a lot of sliced mushrooms leftover, so I put it all on the pizza...yummy!

I loved the crust, almost cracker like and very crisp.

I think my hankering for pizza has subsided for now...maybe.

easy dinner

Super easy dinner the other night which I based on a dish that we have in Hawaii called kalua pig and cabbage.

Since I had almost half a head of cabbage leftover, I wanted to use it up preferably with an easy recipe.

I thought about kalua pig and cabbage but knew I wouldn't be able to make it unless I made my own kalua pig from scratch, so instead I bought a grilled chicken breast from a yakitori shop in our shopping arcade and chopped it up.

1/2 onion, thinly sliced
about 1/2 head of cabbage, chopped into bite size
1 grilled chicken breast, skin removed and cut into bite siz
pepper

Cook onion and cabbage in a non-stick pan until limp.
Add chicken to re-heat.
Add pepper to taste.
Eat with rice

NOTES: Since the chicken was grilled it had a smoky flavor. This was fast, semi-homemade and delicious.

tan tan men

Lunch on Saturday was Tan tan men. A spicy sesame seed based soup with noodles.

I've made this from scratch in the past.

Since I didn't have much time to get lunch together, I used a pre-made noodle with an instant soup packet.

The only thing with the instant version is that there are no toppings, so I had to make these myself.

The meat on the top is called ja jan, to make the ja jan (seasoned meat) this is the recipe I followed.

This time around I only used 100 grams of pork, added 1/2 a tablespoon of shoyu (soy sauce) and 1/2 a tablespoon of sake (rice wine) and 1 teaspoon of tenmenjan (sweetened miso) when the pork browned. I cooked everything until the liquid evaporated then drained the meat onto a paper towel.

I cleaned some chin gen sai, which I think is bok choy and wilted it in a warm pan with a little water.

Then after cooking the noodles according to the package, I added hot water to the bowls for the soup then added the noodles.

I topped our bowls with the bok choy & the ja jan (seasoned meat).

The soup wasn't as spicy as some restaurants serve their tan tan men, but this was delicious and perfect for a cold wintry Saturday.

life of a cicada

At the beginning of summer, you'll notice all these empty skins called utsusemi left by the semi (cicada). If you ask me, they give me the creeps. But amazingly, they are quite fragile. You can sometimes see them blowing around on the ground.

According to Satoshi, during the summers when he was growing up, they would go around with a net to catch the hatched semi or catch them with their hands (eww!). He said they would look in the trees because that is where the hatched semi fed on the sap of the trees.

Nowadays, you often see children roaming around the neighborhood with these LONG handled nets and a little plastic box--this is where they keep their bounty. (Sometimes you can hear the semi screeching from inside the plastic box--which is actually quite irritating.)

The semi fly around looking for young trees to feed off of and make noises which remind me of those cartoon space ships taking off and/or garden sprinklers.

Apparently, Osaka has a huge population of kumazemi (bear cicada?). This type of semi is supposed to be larger than other semi and they have clear wings. Satoshi says that when he was young, if you were able to catch one of these, "you were the hero" (the kumazemi was a rare species then).

Another type of semi is the aburazemi (oil cicada?), these cicada have darkened wings. Both of these semi have different chirping/screeching sounds, which I can't really describe but when Satoshi describes them for me, it makes me laugh.

The thing I don't like about these semi is that they die anywhere and everywhere. I'm kind of leery of passing under trees because they sometimes just drop dead onto you, or sometimes they fly aimlessly hit you and then die (kamikazes?)....blah. Walking around the neighborhood, it kind of looks like a battlefield of sorts-- bodies of dead semi, wings of semi, road-kill semi--you get the picture. This little guy decided to let out a few screeches before keeling over on my lanai. I'm glad he was kind enough not to die on my lanai slippers (believe me, I've found them there too!)

Towards the end of September, when the weather starts to cool, the suzumushi(bell-ring crickets) and koorogi(cricket) start to come out in the evenings and chirp their chirp. That's when you know you've survived the heat and humidity of another Japan summer.

We still have a ways to go until the weather starts to cool, but it is the end of August and technically summer is over. What a hot and humid one it was...whew!