Ugh, the weather has been so hot the past couple of days. The temperature was about 35C (95F), stepping out of the house smelled like a sweaty locker room and felt like when you open the oven door....blah!
But enough about that...the nice thing about having family come to visit you, is not only being able to spend time with them, they also bring you nice goodies.
Like this trek mix from
Trader Joe's. I really like
Trader Joe's and wish there was one in Hawaii. But, it also keeps the excitement alive for going to one in the continental U.S. I brought most of this on our climb.
A huge bag of Hershey's Extra Dark miniatures. I've posted about the chocolate bars previously,
(here).
A bag of dark chocolate dipped mac nut shortbread cookies from
Big Island Candies.
A bottle of mom's bread and butter pickles. These are great on tuna sandwiches! If I ever venture to try making these, I will definitely share the recipe!
A bottle of mom's strawberry guava jelly. Strawberry guava is a type of guava in Hawaii, there is no actual strawberry in the jelly.
And a box of cookies from the
Honolulu Cookie Company.
I also wanted to share some of the food finds from our recent journey.
A
shiomame daifuku (salted bean rice cake stuffed with salted beans and sweet bean paste) found in a little shop called
Kikyouya in front of the Ootsuki station. Sorry, I didn't get a picture of the inside, but it was really soft and delicious!
Kikyouya
1-2-1 Ootsuki, Yamanashi
Phone: 0554-23-2011
http://www.kikyouya.co.jp/
A
cocoa daifuku (rice cake stuffed with cream and chocolate bean paste). This was found at a little shop called Miyazakiya near the Gotemba station. They also have a
cafe daifuku which has coffee flavored bean paste, but we didn't try it. My mom didn't care for this one, but my dad and I enjoyed it!
Miyazakiya
1991-2 Shinbashi, Gotemba
Shizuoka
Phone: 0550-82-1629
The hotel we stayed at in Hakone served us a juice made from
Wasei mikan. Mikan is a type of mandarin orange. It was very light and refreshing.
Hope you are enjoying the weekend--we have a three-day weekend here!
Yesterday, mom made some papaya-pineapple jam, she defrosted some papaya puree, added a couple of cans of crushed pineapple, sugar and lemon juice.
I usually don't like the smell of papaya cooking, but the house smelled pretty incredible.
Today, she got a chance to finish her original project--making strawberry guava jelly. She added lemon juice and sugar to the guava juice and although, there was a small mishap in the kitchen, everything turned out okay.
Remember when I showed you the photo of the strawberry-guava?
Well, since then, my Aunty has picked several bags from the 2 trees near her house. My aunty cleaned most of them and then froze them, then passed along these frozen guava to my mom--the jelly maker in our family. 
After the 30 minutes were up and everything was bubbling and smelling good, she put everything to strain on a sieve. (You are supposed to hang it in some cheesecloth to let the juices drip out, but she said she did it the "lazy way").
She got this much juice from one batch and repeated the process several times to fill up 1 and 1/4 gallons.
Wai'wi (pronounced "y.v.") also known as strawberry-guava, is called this because when ripened, it is red like a strawberry and they are smaller than the other guavas found in Hawaii. These guava are great to make jellies and jams with...Ono! (delicious)
Tiare gardenia or sometimes called Tahitian gardenia. These fragrant flowers are perfect hair accessories, one resting on the ear. If the flower is on the left side, you are free. The right side, you are taken. And if you wear them on both sides, you are taken but you're looking for another.
The yellow hibiscus is the state flower of Hawaii. You can find this plant as landscaping shrubs all around the islands.
Ugh, the weather has been so hot the past couple of days. The temperature was about 35C (95F), stepping out of the house smelled like a sweaty locker room and felt like when you open the oven door....blah!
A huge bag of Hershey's Extra Dark miniatures. I've posted about the chocolate bars previously,(here).
A bottle of mom's bread and butter pickles. These are great on tuna sandwiches! If I ever venture to try making these, I will definitely share the recipe!
And a box of cookies from the Honolulu Cookie Company.
A shiomame daifuku (salted bean rice cake stuffed with salted beans and sweet bean paste) found in a little shop called Kikyouya in front of the Ootsuki station. Sorry, I didn't get a picture of the inside, but it was really soft and delicious!
A cocoa daifuku (rice cake stuffed with cream and chocolate bean paste). This was found at a little shop called Miyazakiya near the Gotemba station. They also have a cafe daifuku which has coffee flavored bean paste, but we didn't try it. My mom didn't care for this one, but my dad and I enjoyed it!
The hotel we stayed at in Hakone served us a juice made from Wasei mikan. Mikan is a type of mandarin orange. It was very light and refreshing.