bambucha

Rainy season started Wednesday and it rained all.day.long.

Tuesday night though, we had this...globe zucchini stuffed with pearl barley, quinoa, parmesan and a tomato meat sauce.

I had seen others cooking with this type of zucchini online but this was my first time to actually find it at the market and try cooking with this.

I wasn't too sure if the ones I found were large or small...but think it was quite large.

This year, we sure have had been lucky with bambucha (huge) produce...here, here and here.

I hope to come across these again at the market...

Have you cooked with this type of zucchini before? How did you cook them?

zoodles

Zoodles are what they call the "noodles" made from zucchini.

Anyway, Satoshi made zoodles for dinner on Sunday.

I cut them a little and put it into a non-stick pan.

Then on medium heat, I covered it for about 4 minutes.

While cooking some liquid came out from the veg, so it kinda steamed during that time and became a little soft but not mushy.

And then we topped it with homemade meat sauce.

This was a nice way to get in lots of veggies.

It is still quite warm to be baking stuff or eating casseroles, but I also want to try baking the zoodles with cheese...

UPDATE: 9/26/2016 baked zoodles with cheese, rice and some minced chicken...so good!

zucchini fritters

Yesterday was rather...hot (24C = 75F), though I have to be thankful that it wasn't humid.

Somehow I had zucchini fritters on my brain, probably because I was trying to think of ways to use up the carrot ginger dressing.

Here's what I did to make the fritters...makes about 10

1 zucchini (about 8-inches long), grated
some onion, minced
1 egg
6 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon olive oil
some water
oil to fry

I zapped the zucchini in the food processor and then minced the onion by hand.
Then I mixed everything, adding a little water to get a thick consistency (kinda like waffle batter)
In a heated non-stick pan, I added some oil (maybe about 2 tablespoons) and fried the fritters.
Afterwards, I drained them on a paper towel.

NOTES: this was good, I served them alongside with some baby greens and cherry tomatoes. I also stir-fried some eringi and red bell peppers then drizzled some of the carrot ginger dressing.

I think these fritters would be perfect in a bento (boxed meal) or even as a sandwich.

The weather dude says our temps will go up even higher today...oh boy! Hope your week is going well.

sliders & stir-fry

Made some tandoori chicken the other day.

For dinner the other night, we cut up some pieces of chicken and added some grilled zucchini to some pumpkin rolls to make them into a sort-of slider.

Lots of flavor, a little sweet from the roll and spicy from the chicken...delicious!

With the leftovers, the next night I made a stir-fry.

I sauteed eringi mushrooms, zucchini & asparagus in some olive oil and then added the sliced tandoori chicken to heat through.

Simple and delicious...my kind of meal.

*we're on a little excursion, will moderate comments when I return.

a different kinpira

I had some kabocha (pumpkin) in my fridge and wanted to use it up, so I tried a new recipe.

This recipe is for kinpira using kabocha. I didn't quite have the amount of kabocha that was required for this recipe, so I threw in some zucchini, which was also leftover.

Here's the recipe if you'd like to try: adapted from "Orange Page's Yasai ga ippai toreru mainichi no okazu" : serves 2

1/4 kabocha (pumpkin), raw, cut into matchsticks
1/2 zucchini, raw, cut into matchsticks
1 tablespoon oil
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon sake (rice wine)
1.5 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon shoyu (soy sauce)
1 tablespoon ground sesame seed
grinds of pepper, to taste

In a heated pan, add the oil and butter.
When the butter is melted, add the kabocha & zucchini
Toss around and coat well.
Add the sake, sugar & shoyu
When liquid evaporates, add the sesame seed and pepper
Enjoy!

NOTES: When cutting your kabocha, try to cut it so that each piece will have some green on the tip (it looks nice). This kinpira tastes different from the kinpira that I usually make but shoyu and butter really work nicely together.

I served this with rice & maguro tsukudani (seasoned tuna).

chocolate zucchini nib muffins

I saw this recipe on La Fuji Mama and had to try it...well, I used her idea but turned it into muffins instead of cake.

I thought, instead of making a whole cake, making 6 muffins would be somewhat "figure friendly".

So, I went to a basic muffin recipe that I normally use and added chocolate chips, cocoa powder, zucchini & some cacao nibs.

The results was a fairly moist muffin.

Chocolate Zucchini Nib Muffins--makes 6

6 grams baking powder
140 grams flour
10 grams unsweetened cocoa powder, I used Droste
1 egg
80 grams sugar
50 grams butter, measured then melted
70 mililiters milk
40 grams grated zucchini
20 grams chocolate chips
1 handful of cacao nibs

Sift the baking powder, flour and cocoa, set aside.
Preheat oven to 350F (180C).
In another bowl, beat the egg and sugar for about 2 minutes.
Add the milk and melted butter, beat for another 10-15 seconds.
Add the zucchini, nibs and chocolate to the the sifted dry ingredients and add to the egg mixture.

Stir with a spatula and mix until just incorporated.
Fill 6 muffin papers as evenly as possible.
Bake for 25 minutes.

NOTES: Maybe I should have added more zucchini because you can't taste the zucchini at all. (Or maybe you aren't supposed to be able to taste it?) It is a great way to get your veggies in and it makes a perfect snack or breakfast on the run. I would definitely make this again.

eating "local"

Last Monday, after my dentist appointment, I went into Hanshin department store to pick up something for lunch.

I also needed some celery so I went to their produce area. Now, I don't usually shop for produce at the department stores because they tend to be on the pricey side.

Surprisingly, they were having a sale and everything was rather reasonable and an even bigger bonus was that the items on sale were grown in Japan.

I found a bunch of celery for 298 yen (about US$2.98). Usually when I buy celery, they have 1 stalk packaged and it is usually 158 yen (about US$1.58)...so I was excited to pick up 3 stalks for the 298 yen.

The zucchini was of good size too and were 2 for 298 yen (about US$2.98). Usually when I buy zucchini, they are scrawny and cost 298 yen for 1.

Lastly, the asparagus were unbelievably cheap also...189 yen (about US$1.89) for 11 stalks. Usually they only have 3 woody local stalks for ranging between 158 yen and 198 yen (about US$1.58-$1.98).

When I went to pay for them, the cashier said to me, "how shall I cut it?", pointing to the celery. I told, "just cut it in half." She immediately pulled out a produce knife and cut it in half, this actually surprised me.

The good/bad thing about shopping at the department store was that they wrapped everything in this brown paper, though I guess it was better than a plastic bag.

I've already used some of the celery and one of the zucchini for 3 bean salad and vegetable soup.

And I've used the asparagus with some eringi and shimeji mushrooms for a stir-fry with a little butter and tarragon. We've also eaten the leftovers for breakfast with a sunny-side up egg on top and toast.

I also tried Ellie Krieger's "Grilled Zucchini Roll-ups with Herbs and Cheese". This was delicious, only problem I had was getting the zucchini slices thin.

Though we aren't truly eating local, we are eating more items from Japan. Have you been eating local and/or more items from your country?