herbes de provence

I bought Herbes de Provence when I was in Hawaii. It is an herb mix that is made up of thyme, basil,savory (an herb from the mint family), fennel seeds, and lavender flowers.

We had this for breakfast this morning, but I had pre-cooked this last night--I put pearl onions, sliced potato, chicken and red bellpepper into a foil. Drizzled about 1/2 Tablespoon of olive oil and 1/2 tsp of the herbs, plus a grind or two of fresh black pepper.

Then I cooked everything in a 400F(200C) oven for about 25 minutes. And then put it under the grill for about 5 minutes.

It smelled wonderful and I wanted to eat it last night!

Satoshi enjoyed this dish and said that everything still had its own flavors and weren't overpowered by the herbs. It was really good.

On Saturdays, Satoshi has his weekly German language class, so we usually don't have lunch until 2, this should tide us over until then.

I think these herbs will be good on pizza. ;)

Typhoon update: the typhoon has subsided but left us with LOTS of RAIN!

reconnecting

On my trip home, I reconnected with my very first cookbook made for UNICEF. I am not too sure how I got it, but I do remember that I was in elementary school at the time. I don't think I tried many of the recipes back then, but do remember all the artwork and remember imagining myself living in the different countries with the other children that are drawn in the book.

Another reconnection was made with these necklaces, which my mom had made WAY BACK WHEN. I remember playing with them and using them for dress-up as a child. I brought these to my beads crochet class and everyone oohed and aahed over them. The process to make these involves crocheting, but not with sterling silver wire. Apparently, this type of crocheting (with thread) has been around in the U.S. for a long time, but hasn't picked up in Japan. A couple of years ago, I bought some books on this process and have yet to try it out. It's too bad that my mom doesn't remember how to make these. Hopefully, I can pick up the technique.

Since we're expecting a typhoon to pass over today, it has been raining hard off and on. So, I decided to try another scone recipe. This time from Cream Puffs in Venice's blog. I didn't have currants or lemon zest or shortening for that matter, so I used dried blueberries and left the other two ingredients out and it came out delicious! (if I do say so myself!) This scone is so flaky! It would definitely taste great with some clotted cream or jam on it, but I had it just by itself with some milk! :)

Mildred's Scones : Adapted from Out to Brunch by Donna Dooher and Claire Stubbs.

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, cold
1/2 cup shortening, cold
1/3 cup dried black currants
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 cup heavy cream (35%)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar and salt.
Using a box grater, grate the butter into the flour mixture.
Break the shortening into little pieces and add to the mixture.
With your fingertips, work the flour, butter and shortening together until it resembles a coarse, oatmeal-like mixture.
Add the currants and lemon zest and stir.
Add the cream and mix gently until a ball forms.
Turn the dough onto a floured work surface and either pat the dough or roll it out into a 1/2-inch circle.
Using a 2-inch cutter, cut the dough into rounds.
Transfer the rounds to a parchment-lined baking sheet. Brush the rounds with a bit of heavy cream and sprinkle with granulated sugar.
Reroll the scraps and cut out more scones. If scraps are too small to roll out then pat them into circles of 1-inch thickness.
Bake for 15 to 18 minutes, or until the scones have risen and are golden.

Enjoy!

Note: This recipe will yield 12 to 16 scones, depending on the size.

Have a nice weekend.

scones

If you haven't noticed by now, I love scones. I don't think I really ate them as frequently until I moved to Japan. (To tell you the truth, I don't think I was really into tea either, until I moved to Japan. While in Hawaii, the only brand of tea that I knew of, was...Lipton)

Japan which has been influenced by England and other european countries, has many tea shops and cafes which serve afternoon tea, which I think is also called high tea. To get a table at around 3 p.m. is sometimes ridiculous and you'll have to wait--sometimes for an hour or more!

Now, a bit more educated, I know other tea brands and types of tea and enjoy them with...scones and other sweet treats!

Anyway, I have finally found unsalted butter here! It was at a gourmet supermarket. So, with butter in hand, I decided to try making scones...again. I've made some in the past, and thought I had come up with the perfect one, but am going to take back what I said and go back to the kitchen (drawing board).

I tried the recipe that my Aunty gave me for lavender scones. What I did was cut the recipe in half (because my oven is teeny!), plus, I added a little chocolate chips and used heavy cream instead of buttermilk. They came out pretty good, except that I made them a bit too thin.

I also have a couple of recipes which I'm looking forward to trying out.

Hopefully all will turn out well, will keep you posted.

save the internet

Yesterday, I saw this on eatstuff.net's blog, do your part to Save the Internet.

I've contacted my Congressmen....have you? Act now!

eating local

I've read on a couple of blogs that this month is eat local month. Let me tell you, eating locally (radius 100 miles) in Osaka kind of limits you. Needless to say that it has been hard to find local veggies, seasonings, EVERYTHING. Most of the "good stuff" comes from a little further than the 100 miles. So, I've decided to eat local when possible....

Still, there is one place that I like to order from, OusunoSato. They are a cute little store in Gion, Kyoto. They specialize in making "umeboshi" (pickled plums). Some versions are sour, some salty, some sweet. They also make a dressing, which is great on a grated daikon (turnip) salad. Since I don't go to Kyoto too often, I usually order from their catalog or "otoriyose" as it is called in Japanese.

I recently placed an order with them and eagerly awaited for my delivery. It finally came today, but I was a bit disappointed because I ordered the wrong item! Instead of 2 packages of rakkyo (pickled onions), I ordered 2 packages of benishoga (red ginger). The 2 items are close together on the order slip and I mistakenly checked the benishoga! sigh.

One thing you should understand is that most food items in Japan cannot be returned (especially if you made the mistake of ordering it!), but the neat thing is they send the merchandise before payment! How trusting is that!

So, I guess I'll have to think of ways for us to eat the shoga (ginger)...

goodbye old friend

We decided to give up Satoshi's old book shelf and buy (3) new ones. His book shelf which he bought and assembled when he first went to Hawaii in 1996 has held a LOT of books, folders and papers. (Here's where the shelves will be going, by the phone and by the dining area.)

In buying these new shelves, the rule was no overloading and to purge whatever was not needed. (Here's what they look like after being delivered.)

As I look around our apartment that we have been in for the past 5 years, I can see how much our "nimotsu" (stuff) has accumulated.

When we came over from Hawaii, we had 60 boxes of "stuff", then when we moved from the company housing into this place, we added another 20 boxes...Anyway, we've been working on purging and cleaning up the clutter.

So, thanks, dear friend, we really appreciated all that you did, especially when we had that earthquake the other year and you didn't topple over!
"Otsukaresama" (thanks for all of your hard work)

I also wanted to share with you a snack that I recently found here in Japan. These cookies are made by Beard Papa and an oil called Oillio (which is oil forward and backward).

Beard Papa is the maker of cream puffs, they opened their first store in New York about 2 years ago. When they came to Shirokiya (a Japanese retail and food store) in Hawaii, the line to buy these cream puffs were over 2 hours! I really like the ones in Japan, but were disappointed with the ones I tasted in Hawaii. Somehow the cream filling was kind of heavy and didn't have much taste.

These cookies weren't particularly different from other cookies that I have tasted here, oh well, it was nice to try them. Here are the links: Beard Papa USA & Beard Papa Japan.

Okinawa has gone into their rainy season (tsuyuhairi), so it is just a matter of time before we (Honshu--mainland Japan) do, too. The weather has been very overcast and kind of cold. And I am knocking on wood as I say this, at least it is not humid!

Have a great day, I am off to the dentist to have my 3-month cleaning...sigh...

the food pyramid??

Have you ever seen this? I recently saw this chart being used on a Japanese food show. Apparently, it has been around in Japan for awhile.

This is a re-vamped version of America's food pyramid. The Japanese version has been flipped upside down to resemble a spinning top.

At the top, there is a man running symbolizing exercise. The core of the top symbolizes water and tea.

The yellow section and the largest represents grains--rice, bread, noodles and pasta. You should get between 5 to 7 servings a day. Your total serving size in a day should equal to about 4 medium servings of rice.

The green section represents vegetables--types of potato, mushrooms and seaweeds. You should get 5 to 6 servings a day.

The brown section represents meat, fish, eggs and soy-bean dishes. You should get about 3 to 5 servings a day.

The last section is broken into two. On the left represents dairy products which you should get about 2 servings per day (although I've seen advertisements for 3 servings per day, so I'm not too sure which is correct). And on the right is fruits. You should also get about 2 servings per day.

And the little string like thing to the left of the top represents sweets, beverages such as alchohol, coffee...which we should all be having in moderation...

I thought it was kind of interesting to see how they broke down their food groups and serving sizes. The portions are smaller than what we are used to in America. The chart is kind of helpful because it tells you what your serving size would be if you ate a certain item. For example in the meat area, a serving of fried chicken (toriniku karaage) would already equal to 3 servings. Whereas, a serving of cold tofu (hiyayako), would equal to only 1 serving.

Changing the subject though, I wanted to share with you another of my favorite snacks from Hawaii. It is a party mix type snack made by Big Island Delights. This is the original version. They also have a furikake version which is a party mix covered with furikake (dry seasonings like seaweed, sesame seeds and a shoyu taste). I like the original version because it has corn chips, cheese puffs, cereal, and pretzels, plus a garlic-y, sweet and salty taste to it. Unfortunately, the contents of this bag that I got were really stale. I've written them to let them know, but I'm sure that I'll be back to buy more the next time I'm home.

Only a couple more hours until the delivery of our new shelves, I can't wait!! :)

Hope you have a great week.