eat this

You may remember this version.

Well, as I was perusing the aisles at the market I came upon these...chocolate coated coconut sablés.

A little scoop of vanilla ice cream to make a sandwich...

Paired with Kona Brewing's Koko Brown Ale--A brown ale that has hints of coconut and vanilla.

Life is good...have a nice week!

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!

jammin'

I recently saw containers of figs at the supermarket.

Last year when I ran into them at the market, it was the middle of September...the figs seem to be a bit early this year, so I bought a container at 398 yen (about US$3.98) for about a pound of figs and made a batch of fig jam.

After making the first batch, I remembered how great this recipe turned out and wanted to make more, so the next day, I went back to the market and bought 2 more containers for the same price.

Luckily I had enough bottles....I made a total of 10 from the 2 batches.

I hope my family and friends will enjoy them.

homemade gifts

Christmas is just around the corner. The economy is kind of sucky, but you still want to give your friends something small.

How about something homemade?

I recently gave away some homemade vanilla extract and some taco spices.

If you haven't made vanilla extract before, it is really easy. (Maybe you could try this for next Christmas?)

And the taco spices are a nice combination of different spices, beats the pre-packaged stuff!

Just put into small jam jars, wrap up, attach a card...you're good to go!

easy gravlax

Do you like gravlax? I do.

I recently saw this post on Deb's blog.

The recipe is super easy and fast, which is why I wanted to try it. I think if you make traditional gravlax it takes several days.

I roasted a red pepper, some kabocha (pumpkin), an onion, and some sweet potato to make a warm salad. I also added some lettuce on the bottom.

After the salmon was marinated, I added some dried dill, dried tarragon and fresh parsley. Deb uses fresh herbs, but I only had fresh parsley.

For the dressing, I used the vanilla vinaigrette.

It was a great combination and I loved the flavors.

So far this week we've had this for dinner two times, once with the veggies mentioned above and the second time with different roasted veggies (eggplant, red pepper, sweet potato and carrot). Thanks for sharing a great recipe Deb, if I could get my hands on some guava puree, I would try those bellinis too!

trying new recipes

I recently saw this recipe on Foodbuzz, I cut the recipe down to fit my "50 gram butter restrictions". (If you have been following this blog, I cut all recipes that call for butter to 50 grams then scale down the rest of the ingredients to stretch a block of butter. This way I don't make a lot (which I would end up eating myself if I made the full batch) and instead of 1 recipe I can try 4 different ones because 1 block of butter is 200 grams. Oh and unsalted butter is still kind of scarce where I am).

Because I cut the recipe down, I wasn't too certain as what to bake it in, so I filled a greased round tin and baked it for the amount of time suggested.

The recipe calls for lavender sugar, which I had, but I only put in 1 tablespoon and subbed regular sugar for the rest because I feared it would be bitter with that much lavender in there. I also added some slivered almonds and a handful of cacao nibs. The edges came out a bit crispy and overall it was thinner than the recipe suggests, but it was delicious with a light lavender taste.

Another recipe I tried was on the Queen Creek Olive Mill site. The recipe was for Vanilla Bean Vinaigrette. It actually calls for vanilla infused olive oil, but because I didn't have that, I scraped 1/2 a pod and put that into my food processor, then I added 1/2 a teaspoon of dried tarragon, 3/4 tablespoon of honey, 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper to taste. While whizzing it, I added 6 tablespoons of EVOO.

The vanilla flavor was subtle....drizzled on my warm steak salad...Delicious.

Today is Thanksgiving in the States, we don't celebrate it here in Japan, I've never even seen turkey in the markets. In fact, Japan has skipped over Thanksgiving totally and is in Christmas mode. As soon as Halloween was over, the next day up went the Christmas displays. I'm going to miss all the good food but mostly I'm going to miss being with family and friends. Hope you have a great day--Happy Thanksgiving!

wow

Did you vote yesterday? I did (by mail). The coverage here in Japan was unreal, at some points I was thinking, "Japan should be worrying about their own government instead of concentrating so much on ours", but I realized that with the outcome it will affect everyone not only in the U.S.

A national channel broadcasted ABC's live coverage, so I sat in front of the television for most of the morning. I usually go out to buy groceries and lunch during that time of the day, instead, I ate whatever leftovers I had in the refrig and was hooked as to see what would happen.

Finally, I gave in and had to take my nap, (I take a nap everyday so that I can wait up for Satoshi to come home and feed him dinner). I woke up to hear the last part of Barack Obama's acceptance speech. (Thank goodness for the internet because I was able to see the whole speech). And what a speech it was...at points I cried, it was moving and inspiring....exciting stuff! If you have a chance to vote in the country you live in, you should, it can really make a difference.

Now, let's move on to food...a couple of weeks ago when I went to Tokyo, I picked up this tiny bottle of chocolate salted caramel sauce (the bottle on the left) made by Les Comptoirs de Saint Malo. (840 yen about US$8.40)

Well, today I made a batch of David Lebovitz's Philly style vanilla ice cream and scooped out a teaspoon of the sauce.

Nuked the sauce....

then poured it on...heavenly. (I could probably eat this sauce straight out of the bottle.)

What a great day it was.

coconut vanilla jam

After trying coconut vanilla jam in Noumea last year, I was interested in finding a recipe for it.

To my surprise as I was flipping through Christine Ferber's book, she had a recipe for coconut vanilla jam.

My problem with the recipe was that she used fresh coconut...yup, crack it open, scrape out the flesh, save the milk....where the heck would I find a whole coconut in Japan?

I decided to ad-lib. I had coconut for baking. I bought some coconut milk. I used the last half of the Lifou vanilla that I had bought in Noumea.

I adjusted the recipe. The taste was just like what I remembered, though the texture could have been a little softer.

I think if I used something thinner like coconut flakes instead of coconut strips it would have turned out softer. I also think it needs to be a bit more syrupy.

We tried it on toast for breakfast yesterday, but I think it may be better baked in a nice flaky crust or maybe with some dark chocolate covering it....

It is Halloween today but it isn't celebrated much here, though the stores surely take advantage of making some money from it. If you are celebrating the day, have fun but be safe, oh we have another 3-day weekend here, hope you have a good one.

trying fresh figs

After 2 years of blogging and seeing lots of posts on people enjoying fresh figs. I finally got enough courage to buy some.

Last Sunday, I found a basket of them for 350 yen at Carrefour. In some places, the price can range from 350 yen to 550 yen (or higher), so I felt that 350 was a good buy, plus there were about 8 figs in the basket.

We had 2 of the figs for dessert on Sunday night. I rinsed and sliced them in half then popped them under the grill for about 5 minutes. Then drizzled some Big Island honey on them. We didn't know if we could eat the skins, so we sucked out the insides which were delicious.

With the remaining 6, I decided to look around for an easy recipe. The book by Christine Ferber, master of jams and jellies in France popped into my head. I looked through for recipes using figs and found one using only 4 ingredients--figs, sugar, vanilla bean and lemon.

(I've seen her jams in Shinjuku's Istean but never bought any because they are pricey, but I have tried chocolate she made for Salon du Chocolat, under the name Maison Ferber, which was delicious.)

I didn't have lemon on hand but did have some shiquasa, so I used the juice of 2 of them.

The recipe does take some planning ahead. After rinsing and slicing the figs, the ingredients need to macerate for an hour.

After the hour, I brought the mixture to a simmer then chilled it overnight.

The next day, I prepared my jars by washing and sterilizing them. I put them into a 180 C(350 F) oven for 5 minutes (actually the book says 108 C (225 F) but I read it wrong...sigh), and left them in the oven until I was ready to fill them.

I took the mixture and brought it to a boil, skimming off the foam that formed. I cooked it for about 10 minutes--the foam will stop forming when the jam reaches the jelling point.

I carefully removed the vanilla bean and cut it to put some into each jar. I filled the jars up to the top then covered them. Then while the jars were still hot, I turned them upside down and let them cool in that position (the book said to do this, I think it creates a vaccuum).

This was my first time making jam (well, I made strawberry jam before but I didn't put it into jars, so that didn't really count as making jam to me.)

I must say, even though it took some work, it was worth it. This jam was delicious on plain yogurt, maybe a bit too sweet for ice cream. It was great with a smidge of cream cheese on toast.

I think it will also be nice with pork. The vanilla adds a nice warmth to the flavor and I like the deep reddish color.

If you haven't tried fresh figs, you better hurry, from what I've read on the net, the season for figs is rather short.

p.s. it is Keiro no hi (Grandparent's Day or be kind to elders day) = holiday, so we were visiting Satoshi's mom...hope you have a great week.

making ice cream

Last year, I was chatting with my friend Kazumi and we were talking about ice cream makers. I was asking her what brand was the best and told her I was thinking of buying one.

She told me that if I didn't mind, she was cleaning out her garage and noticed several appliances that she hadn't used in awhile, so if I wanted a second hand ice cream maker, I could have one of hers.

I immediately said "yes, please!" After our conversation, it was some time before we got together again, so it was awhile before I received the maker from her.

After receiving the machine, I immediately thought that I should try making vanilla ice cream, as that is the most basic flavor.

Of course, when you get a new gadget, you have to get a new cookbook, right? I purchased David Lebovitz's book, "The Perfect Scoop", it was raved about all over the blogosphere last year. I also found an ice cream recipe book which doesn't use eggs in Japanese.

The reason why I wanted to try an egg-less recipe for my first trial was that I didn't have the confidence of not overcooking the eggs for the custard.

So, I tried the egg-less recipe in Japanese. The method required you to beat the fresh cream with sugar until you got peaks. Then add in some milk and pour the mixture into your ice cream maker.

I didn't like this version at all. First, it was more like ice milk than vanilla ice cream because it didn't call for any vanilla. Next, it was gritty and didn't hold its shape at all (it melted after snapping this shot). And lastly, while beating the cream with the sugar for the amount of time suggested, the cream started to separate. (insert pouty face). So after mixing it with the amount of milk and then putting the mixture into the ice cream maker, there were streaks of oil from the cream, leaving an ugly residue on your spoon as well as in your mouth....blah.

Another thing I didn't like about this book was there was no indication of how much ice cream you would yield if your followed the full recipe...sigh.

So, a couple of days later, I tried David's method for Philadelphia style vanilla ice cream.

His version called for heating cream with sugar and some vanilla from a vanilla pod. I halved the recipe since my maker only makes 1/2 a liter and used part of the Lifou vanilla which I bought on our trip to Noumea last year.

This version also called for vanilla extract. After heating the cream and sugar until the sugar dissolved, I added the milk and the extract. Then I chilled the mixture.

After several hours, I put the chilled mixture into the maker and came out with a creamy vanilla ice cream. This was delicious!

Satoshi had tried the first attempt and was surprised when I told him that I made the second version too. (He thought I had bought it.)

I'm so happy I bought David's book. I will probably take the Japanese recipes and adapt them to this vanilla ice cream recipe. I also hope to try a custard version...hopefully, I'll get up enough courage to.

ma'ona's lavender shortbread

Before I tell you about the shortbread, I need to tell you that I had my vanilla in the refrig (because it is so hot here) and luckily checked it before mold took it over (there was already a little, especially on the beans that were sticking up out of the liquid). I decided to strain the liquid and put it into bottles and will leave it in my cupboard instead. Hopefully it will be okay.

Okay...now onto the shortbread...recently, Alan posted a delicious sounding recipe on his blog for lavender shortbread. I love lavender and shortbread, so this recipe was perfect. On top of that, it didn't take many ingredients.

We still have a butter shortage, most places only allow you to buy one box of butter (200 grams) at one time. I try to have some unsalted butter in my freezer. I am not hoarding as others may be.

NOTES: I usually cut my box of butter into 4 pieces (50 grams each), so I cut this recipe to 1/4. I didn't have a pan to bake this in, so it kind of spread out all over the parchment paper and I could only salvage this little piece....

I used lavender sugar instead of putting the ground lavender and the sugar. The salvaged piece was good. Crispy, buttery, flaky! With the "crumbs"...I'm going to sprinkle them on vanilla or mac nut ice cream.

Great recipe, Alan!

trying to save the planet

With the price of food items and gasoline at premium prices, we've been trying to cut corners here are there, while trying to do our part to save the planet.

Last Saturday, Satoshi went to sell some books for me at Book-Off. They used to take English books, but not anymore. (insert pouty face) I think Book-Off still has a location in Hawaii. The books I gave him to sell were Japanese books that were burdening my book shelf.

Selling 11 books, we got 650 yen (about US$6.50), not much, but at least the books will go to new homes and we have a little less clutter.

Another thing we have started doing is bringing our own water wherever we go. These bottles made by SIGG, a Swiss brand, are durable. Can you believe I saw someone actually throw one of these bottles out in their trash because the paint was a little nicked! How wasteful was that?

We've gotten our burnable garbage down to 20 liters per pick up day. Our burnable garbage gets picked up twice a week. Each person is allowed 10 liters per pick up.

I think they should do something about this dude though...he may be saving gasoline by not riding around in a car and shouting his issues, but he is noise pollution. I didn't think it was election time around here...

Anyway, we may not be totally "saving the planet", but doing a little is better than not at all.

Are you doing something to save the planet?

p.s. Remember I told you about making vanilla? Well, if you live in a place where the inside gets hotter or as hot as outside, like here, please put your vanilla into the refrig. I surfed the net and found out it should be kept in a dark, cool place. During the day, when we aren't at home, our apartment gets to about 36C (95F)!

p.p.s. Yesterday was Doyo no Ushi no Hi, the day when Japan eats unagi (eel) as a way to build stamina for the hot summer. This year, I put the kabayaki sauce on the rice, put the sliced unagi on top, some sliced tamagoyaki (rolled egg) & some sliced okra on top of that...it was good!

Hope you have a great weekend!

vanilla (week 8)

Well, it has been 8 weeks since I started making my own vanilla extract.

Let me tell you, it works. After 8 weeks, it smells like vanilla extract.

I think I put in about 10 pods and used a bottle and a half of vodka.

I actually had to use some of the vanilla extract the other week when I was making my carrot cupcakes.

I re-filled my empty vanilla extract bottle with some of the "new" vanilla extract. I didn't strain the liquid, just funneled it in.

Can't wait to start using this extract in baking.

If you can get your hands on some pods and some vodka, you should really try this.

odds & ends

It is the end of the month, so let's clean out the photos that weren't posted about.

Baked some scones using a new recipe. These definitely have to be eaten with jam--not sweet at all, still delicious though.

New version of stuffed bell peppers, added some renkon (lotus root) to the beef and onions and left out the egg.

Made some 3-bean salad (only with 2 beans--canned garbanzo & cooked daizu(soy bean)). Added corn, bell pepper and onion.

Curry fried chicken. Added some curry powder, salt and pepper to panko (bread crumbs). Dipped the chicken pieces in egg then dredged it in the panko mixture. Ate it with some tonkatsu (pork cutlet) sauce--delicious.

New version of Meiji's almond--this one has salted caramel wrapped around the nut. Japan's latest fad is salty sweets. Delicious, but gets quite salty after awhile.

Used one pod of the Lifou vanilla to make strawberry jam.

Have been enjoying the jam on yogurt in the mornings.

Cut some basil tops so that it wouldn't flower, put them in water---hydroponics?? (maybe) Planted them in the soil, hopefully they will grow.

Found these cute bananas, called "monkey bananas" in Japan and are also called Senorita. Thought they would taste like apple bananas, these were really sweet, not tart like the bananas we get in Hawaii.

Tried the Green & Black's Organic Cocoa. Followed the instructions on the can. Not much flavor. Kind of disappointing.

Got this Japanese confection from one of the memorial services. It is called Hakata no hito (lady from Hakata). A tiny baum kuchen with a sweet bean paste filling--delicious.

Our neighborhood 7-eleven closed on Friday. Satoshi and I are particularly sad to see it go because it came into the neighborhood the same year we moved into the neighborhood.

Another store which closed on Friday is the bakery in our shopping arcade a.k.a. my almost everyday lunch pick-up place. Since I have to find somewhere new, looked into buying bento (boxed lunch) from a sozaiya (pre-made foods store)--420 yen (about US$4.20)--rice with crunchy ume (pickled plum), hijiki (edible brown seaweed), tsukemono (pickled veggies), iwashi hamburger (sardine patty), tamagoyaki (omlette), pumpkin & kusamochi (rice cake mixed with yomogi (mugwort)).