iced strawberry matcha latte

V wanted the recipe for the iced strawberry matcha latte....here you go!

Iced Strawberry Matcha Latte : serves 1

3 strawberries, diced

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon matcha

hot water

ice

1/2 cup almond milk (or milk of choice)

Dice the strawberries and add sugar, let sit aside to macerate

Make your matcha...I added some hot water (about 3 tablespoons) then whizzed with my milk foamer thingy, set aside

Add strawberry then add to cup

pour in almond milk, or milk of choice

Add the matcha that you set aside

Stir

Enjoy!

NOTES: I think I used a 200 mililiter sized jar (8 ounces) enjoyed this version more than the one I tried with strawberry jam

I think it might be easier to drink if you mash the strawberries...

We usually don’t have strawberries in summer, so I had to make it now

If you try this, I hope you enjoy it too

cherry berry

We tried a new (to us) strawberry variety called Cherry Berry.

The color is a deep red like cherries.

And it is super sweet.

Apparently it is a type of Tochiotome strawberry, from Tochigi Prefecture.

I'm glad we got to try this and will keep an eye out for it in the future.

supermarket finds

Love the different varieties of fruits in Japan.

This strawberry is named Ibarakiss...Ibaraki prefecture + Kiss = Ibarakiss, cute yeah?!

The berries were bruised, but huge and sweet.

I'm glad we got to try these.

sky berry

We recently tried a variety of strawberry called Sky Berry from Tochigi Prefecture.

It is very early in the season and these were not too sweet.

The berries were of good size.

Hopefully I'll be able to find sweeter berries in the coming weeks.

strawberry (almond) milk kanten

It's been awhile since I've made strawberry milk kanten.

This time instead of milk I used almond milk. I had omitted the condensed milk because the almond milk had some sugar in it, but after tasting the finished product, I think I could've added it.

I put them into the tiny yogurt pots and custard bottles that I have, they have covers so they are easy to store.

Strawberry season is coming to an end so I guess I'll be making these again next year.

ichigo

Yesterday was the 15th...apparently it was ichigo (strawberry) day.

15 in Japanese the number is literally ichi-go...a goro-awase (to use the sound of numbers in Japanese to make words from them) for strawberry.

I actually picked up these berries over the weekend at a fruit & veggie stand, they were bigger than the berries I had seen in the markets and a little pricier, but I loved the ruby red color and they tasted sweet too.

From December we start to see strawberries in the markets, they are grown in hothouses for the strawberry laden cakes at Christmas time.

The price of them slowly starts dropping after the New Year.

Are strawberries in season where you are?

zippy's fresh strawberry summer salad

I know, I know by looking at the title you're shivering if you are reading this in wintry climates, but strawberries are kinda in season over here (for Christmas), so it was the perfect chance for me to try this.

While in Hawaii this past summer, I scribbled down this recipe by Zippy's, a popular local family style restaurant.

I adapted the dressing because I didn't have dry mustard, I also added more "stuff" to the salad...here is what I did...

Adapted Zippy's Fresh Strawberry Summer Salad (MIDWEEK 9/11/2013): serves 2

Salad
2 generous handfuls of baby leaf mix (washed and shaken dry)
10 strawberries, tops taken off and sliced in half
1/2 a package of maitake
10 shrimp, deveined, rinsed and butterflied
some yellow bell pepper, cleaned and sliced thin
some glazed pecans*
some bleu cheese

Dressing
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
3 tablespoons olive oil
some grated onion
grinds of pepper

Glazed pecans
handful of pecans
1 teaspoon maple syrup
Tossed and baked in 325F (165C) oven for 10 minutes

Sautee the shrimp and maitake in some olive oil on medium heat until shrimp and maitake are cooked, set aside
Toss the baby leaf, shrimp, maitake, yellow bell, strawberries in 2 tablespoons of dressing
Top with cheese and nuts

NOTES: This was delicious! I think the bleu cheese I used needed to be a little stronger, but all the other flavors went nicely. The dressing is a bit puckery, sweet-sour. I think the next time I make this dressing, I'll add a little dijon or whole grain mustard.

I'm making this again, but during Spring...

It's Friday here, I hope you enjoy the weekend!

whiz...brr

We had a mini snow storm the other afternoon. Nothing that stayed on the ground for too long, but it was fun to see (from my seat on the sofa).

It is still a bit too cold for smoothies, but since Satoshi was off on business, I made this one for my breakfast the other morning.

I've been seeing blueberries from Chile in the markets lately, and the local strawberries are in the markets too.

Here's what I put in it...10 blueberries, 5 strawberries, 1 small banana, 1/2 teaspoon ground flax seed, 4 tablespoons plain yogurt and 1/4 cup skim milk...whizzed together, even though it looks like only a cup worth, it was a little over, a very simple and delicious breakfast.

whiz it

If I remember correctly, my first attempt at smoothies was pre-immersion blender, and I think the texture was a bit more "chunky" then because I was using a food processor.

Fast forward to yesterday...Satoshi was on a business trip, so it was just me, myself and I for breakfast.

4 strawberries (about a handful), 1 small banana (12 centimeters, about 4 inches), 1/4 teaspoon ground flax seed and 1/2 a cup of milk.

Whiz it...this one was definitely smoother.

I think my favorite combo for smoothies is strawberry and banana.

Actually I've never really tried any other combo...I should be brave and experiment more.

I also had 1/2 a slice of toast with chocolate peanut butter spread and some black tea.

What did you have for breakfast?

re-use

I think that sometimes I buy desserts just for their containers.

Of course what's inside is delicious and pretty, but if the containers can be re-used, I'm all excited to try and fill them up.

The first two photos are of desserts we got from MIOR, a shop in our shopping arcade, pretty yeah??

The containers are glass and hold about 3/4 cup of liquid.

Perfect when you want just a little something sweet.

I recently used up a NOH Foods haupia packet that I had for sometime now along with some Jell-O chocolate pudding.

I also crushed some shortbread in-between the layers & on top.

I also tried a kanten recipe which I saw in a free newspaper that I picked up at the market.

Here's the recipe so you can try making your own dessert if you'd like:
Strawberry Milk Kanten adapted from free newspaper at market

4 containers that hold 3/4 cup
1 packet agar-agar powder (4 grams)
200 cc water
150 cc skim milk
1 tablespoon condensed milk
7 strawberries, tops off & rinsed

Slice some strawberries & chop up the rest, set aside
Add condensed milk to skim milk, stir and set aside.
In a pot, add the water and agar-agar powder, bring to a boil stirring with a wooden spoon
When it comes to a boil, cook for 2 minutes, stirring.
Turn off heat and add milk mixture, stir.
Add sliced strawberries to containers
Spoon in warm milk kanten mixture and top with chopped strawberries
Try to divide milk mixture as evenly as possible.
Put into refridge to set.
Enjoy.

NOTES: I had envisioned having the strawberry slices line the sides of the glass but when I poured my milk mixture in, they all floated up. I think if you want to hold the strawberries to the side of the glass, the pieces have to be thicker.

Also, kanten's texture is firmer than gelatin, so don't freak out when you eat this, it is kind of dense, not wiggly-jiggly.

The original recipe sets the mixture in a pan, if you want to make this in a pan, the measurements are 15 cm x 12 cm (about 5 inch x 4 inch)

The original recipe also uses 200 cc (1 cup) cream but I lightened it up using skim milk, though I only had 150 cc (3/4 cup).

The original recipe calls for 3 tablespoons of condensed milk, I think I should have used the 3 because the version I made wasn't sweet at all. It wasn't bad, but I would've liked something a little sweeter.

I have more packets of kanten, so I'm definitely making this again.

UPDATE: perfect sweetness with the 3 tablespoons of condensed milk

v-day

How was your V-day? Ours was good. The day started out with me giving Satoshi chocolates and a card.

In Japan, the guys get all the attention on V-day, if you want to read up on it, I've written something about it here.

As I was returning from the market it began to drizzle and the drizzles turned in to snow!

It ended up snowing the whole afternoon. I loved how the snow fell, it reminded me of white feathers, beautiful!

While it continued to snow, I heard commotion going on outside and decided to check it out, I'm kinda nosy like that.

It turned out something needed fixing, and this poor guy was outside with a plastic sheet overhead.

For dinner, I tried a new recipe.

It was a spicy pork wrapped with cabbage. Of course, I didn't read the recipe properly and ended up detouring a little from the original.

Spicy Pork Wrapped with Cabbage :adapted from ESSE March 2011 issue : serves about 3
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup sake (rice wine)
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 tablespoon shoyu (soy sauce)
1.5 tablespoons miso (soy bean paste)
1 teaspoon tobanjan (chili paste)
150 grams pork, thinly sliced
1.5 tablespoons ground white sesame seeds
3 leaves of cabbage, washed

In a pan, put the first 6 ingredients in and add the pork.
Turn the heat up to high and while mixing, let liquid evaporate.
After the liquid evaporates, add the ground sesame seeds, mix well.

With your leaves of cabbage, heat in a microwave (600W) for 90 seconds. Be careful of the steam and remove the hard stem. Then wrap 50 grams of pork.

Cut in half and serve with rice.

NOTES: The original recipe says to put about 50 grams into 1 leaf for a serving, but my leaves of cabbage weren't too big, so I made about 4 or 5 little rolls as 1 serving and served with lots of rice.

The original recipe also calls for the cabbage to be boiled but since I didn't read it properly, I nuked it.

For dessert we had dark chocolate dipped strawberries. I used Rowena's idea and placed some heart sprinkles that I had.

The day after, the sun came out and started to melt the snow.

p.s. yesterday, we visited MIL and she is happy to be at home. She can't sit on the tatami like she used to nor can she go upstairs to sleep, so she is living on the 1st floor of her house for now.

BIL & SIL take turns daily to check on her and bring her food, and once a week her doctor and a nurse make house call visits to help change bandages and such. It was nice visiting with her though we worry about her getting around her house.

Hope your V-day was a nice one, boy the week went by quickly, hope you have a nice weekend!

kamuro

season around here, though this year, the strawberries are apparently very expensive because of the bad weather.

I tried Kamuro's ichigo daifuku recently.

The mochi (rice cake) outside is like a fluffy marshmallow and besides the whole strawberry in the middle, what usually is a sweet bean paste, is instead made from egg yolk and milk and the texture is like a whipped custard.

Super light and delicious. I'm glad I only bought one otherwise I would have eaten more.

jammin'

And here I thought that the strawberry season was over...

This past Saturday when I went to one of my favorite fruit/veg stands, they had these strawberries...195 yen (about US$1.95) a basket!

The sign said, "perfect for jam!"...so I bought 2 baskets.

The berries were ripe, very ripe.

For strawberry jam, I use this recipe, the first time I tried the recipe I microwaved it as the directions said, but now I cook it on the stove.

This time I also squeezed some lemon juice onto the berries.

For the 2 baskets, I used 5 tablespoons of sugar and it was just the right sweetness.

So far, we've had some on plain yogurt.

And on pancakes using this recipe. This time I added some ground flax seed to the batter.

mmm!

strawberry love

I want to share with you two more strawberries that we've tried.

The other week, I walked past a yaoya (vegetable/fruit stand) in our shopping arcade and couldn't pass these up.

The sign said "asa-tori" which means "picked this morning". A container of this for 400 yen (about US$4).

I'm not sure of the variety but they were fresh, local and sweet.

I also wanted to show you Saga Honoka, from Saga prefecture in Kyushu. These berries are quite large and sweet.

Their mascot, or "image character" as the Japanese like to call them, is Licca-chan, who is (in my opinion) the Japanese Barbie.

Are you loving any fruits lately?

things I'm liking (for breakfast)

What are you enjoying for breakfast?

I hope you do eat breakfast, did you know that until Satoshi and I started dating, he didn't?!

Now, he says, "he can't live without it" (breakfast).

Anyway, it has been awhile for a "things I'm liking post", so I thought I'd share with you some things that I'm liking for breakfast.

I first heard about Pon juice from Martin's blog.

This is one of the first "local" orange/citrus juices that is a juice made from 100% mikan (tangerine)grown in Japan.

Most others add grape juice or other fruits to come up with the 100%, leaving you with only a smidge of orange in there.

On the container they are called "pom" but the katakana reads "pon".

It is a little pricey, but worth every "penny", especially since they don't use a lot of preservatives or colorings. I think the label only lists 2 ingredients, the mikan juice and a preservative.

We'll be drinking this often.

It is strawberry season here.

The other day, while I was at the market, these caught my eye.

Hinoshizuku are grown in Kumamoto and are really sweet.

I debated whether to get them because they were quite expensive, 599 yen (about US$5.99) a container, but I'm glad I did. In the container there were 2 layers, total about 35 or so berries.

They are sweet and delicious, perfect for our mornings.

Nisshoku's quick oats. On their site it says that they are the first company to bring oatmeal and cereal to Japan in 1929.

Everything grown in Hokkaido and don't you just love the can?

I bought the quick oats at Seijo Ishii but noticed on their site that they have a rolled oats, which I'm interested in trying. I hope I can find them somewhere.

In the meantime, I have Bob's Red Mill Thick Oats in the container, which I brought back from one of my trips to Hawaii.

I recently found these kiwi, I've mostly seen the ones from New Zealand but these from Shikoku (Ehime) caught my eye...198 yen (about US$1.98) for 5.

They were a little tart and a bit on the unripened side but were great with plain yogurt and homemade granola made with pecans, pistachios and dried cherries.

Is there something you are enjoying for breakfast?

on the lanai

The weather during this time of year has its good days and bad, but for the most part they are good.

The temps are great, though you need a light jacket or sweater on those windy days. I love being able to take my naps and sleeping at night with the windows open, not having to worry about humidity. (oops I said the "h" word...)

Recently on my lanai, I noticed my green onion had a flower getting ready to bloom. Before it could do so, it was so top heavy, it creased itself literally to the point of hanging on by a thread.

I cut it off and put the flower into some water. It started to bloom.

I also noticed this rather large strawberry in my planter and hope no birds do before I can pick it. Most of the strawberries that I have been picking are so tiny but this one is actually quite large. I should pick it soon...

Awhile back after seeding a raw red bell pepper, I threw the seeds into a pot outside. I think it is beginning to take (crossing my fingers that it is and not something totally different). It will be so cool to grow my own peppers since I am addicted to them as of late.

I noticed that the clover I planted started to bloom also. Satoshi had received these packets of clover seed, so I sprinkled them in two pots and just kept watering them every so often.

There are 3 plants I have inside the house. (If you look at the last photo) During the winter the one with the big leaf and the one hiding under it were actually brown because I had them outside, I think they like more "tropical" surroundings.

So, I pruned them and brought them indoors...they are looking good, though the one hiding under the leaf needs a bit more time. The one in the glass container is a coffee plant, I am crossing my fingers when I re-plant it that it takes. My first coffee plant died with the cold of winter.

I missed Earth Day the other day, so this post is kind of a make-up for it, hope you celebrated the Earth on Earth Day!

Today is the start of Golden Week here, some people will have 16 days off! (some taking vacation, while other have to take mandatory leave due to the economy) though we aren't planning to go anywhere as Satoshi has to work during the middle of it. Just as well though, most places will be packed with people that are out and about. (We are planning a short visit to Kyoto to spend some time with my MIL on some of the days that Satoshi is off though.)

on a sunny day

The wind has been really cold the past couple of days, I think they said the temps would be similar to February's, there may even be some snow in some places...Yikes!

Anyway, on a sunny day, while I was walking, I ran into this doggie in our neighborhood, I guess she (I'm assuming it is a she because of the ribbons) and her master were out for a "walk".

On another sunny day, I tried the 5 minute mug cake that Rowena and Laura posted about. I split the batter up between 2 mugs. I also added toasted macadamia nuts and one small handful of Ghiradelli 60% chocolate chips (these chips are larger than the usual chocolate chips).

I snapped the photo of them as soon as the 3 minutes were up. While putting my camera onto the table, they fell. While they were still warm, I turned them out onto some plates. The texture was dense probably like those English puddings. I say probably because I've never actually had an English pudding.

Eating it warm was delicious. The chocolate chips were oozy, and there was crunch from the mac nuts...Dividing the batter was a good thing. This "cake" was just enough to satisfy a sweet tooth, plus I have one for Satoshi to try.

On my lanai, I took some close-ups of the lavender, strawberry flowers, and tulip.

Happy Wednesday!

the past couple of days

Thank you for your Christmas wishes. Satoshi was able to take the day off so we spent the day together. (Christmas is not a national holiday here, so if it falls on a weekday, most times Satoshi has to work--I think this was the first time in 7 years of living here that he was able to take the day off.) To our family and friends, we appreciate all of your cards and gifts.

This Christmas was rainy and cold. I was hoping to see some flurries but there were none to be seen.

We had our annual Christmas party on the 23rd with two other families. I brought two cream cheese dips. One with smoked salmon and one with roasted garlic and served them with Ritz crackers. It was a nice gathering and nice to see our friend's children who are getting bigger each year.

Our Christmas dinner last night was a pupu (appetizer) party. I made a version of Deb's ahi, avocado, crab towers. For some reason, the market didn't have maguro today, so I subbed salmon cut for sushi. I did it a bit chunky but it was still delicious.

We also had slices of apple with smoked cheddar.

There was also some chips and a glass of Two Oceans pinotage, a South African wine.

Dessert was chocolate dipped strawberries.
Recently, I bought a fondue pot by Vanilla Patisserie, which I found out is a shop in England. DHC, which I have written about before, was selling these pots in dark 70%, milk with hazelnut and white at an introductory price of 800 yen (about US$8). Of course, I bought the 70%. Just warm up the pot in some hot water for about 10-15 minutes and you are good to go.

Despite the rain, it was a great day. We hope you had a Merry Christmas and were able to enjoy it with family and friends.