crazy pantry

Love Crazy Pantry!

They often have "not so common" veggies like colorful carrots, swiss chard...and recently..beets! or I should say beet!

This huge orb (about the size of a softball) was only 145 yen (plus tax).

It was labeled as a golden beet.

When I cut into it there was a slight layering of white and red, and after roasting a little golden tinge and a little fluorescent pink.

We enjoyed this with an herb vinaigrette.

What are you enjoying these days?

smoked ahi (tuna) dip

Remember that smoked ahi dip I tried when I was in Hawaii last year?

Well, I think I came pretty close to re-creating it.

The biggest problem was to find smoked ahi (tuna). I've seen some places selling smoked tuna online here, but they have it already seasoned.

Then I stumbled on smoked shoyu...don't ask me how they smoke it, but it is really good, and doesn't overpower the shoyu taste.

Smoked Ahi Dip : adapted from the ingredients on the Kokohead Foods label : makes about 1/4 cup

70 grams tuna, oil drained
1/8 teaspoon tamarind pulp, thinned with 1 teaspoon of water
1/8 teaspoon onion powder
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon smoked shoyu
1/8 teaspoon chipotle chili pepper flake
1/8 teaspoon anchovy paste
1 tablespoon mayo

Mix everything together and chill. Serve with lavosh or baguette.

NOTES: So easy to put together! We had this with toasted baguette. Satoshi didn't try it in Hawaii but gave this one a thumbs up. I would definitely make this again.

daily stuff

Today is a holiday, Coming of Age day, celebrating all those turning 20.

This morning's sunrise was beautiful, too bad this picture doesn't do it justice.

Awhile back, Satoshi brought back this can of Tulip luncheon meat from Okinawa.

I decided to try it as "spam musubi".

Well, while trying to open the can with that key thingy, it broke off...I ended up mcgyver-ing the can with some flat nose pliers and a screwdriver.

The width of the luncheon meat was a little smaller than Spam.

I also noticed that Tulip puts coriander and mace into their luncheon meat.

This morning when we had it as "spam musubi", it did taste different from the Spam I grew up with.

Hope you have a nice week.

totsukawa-osaka

On our last day in Totsukawa and the last day of 2015, we started with a big Japanese breakfast...chagayu, TKG (tamago kake gohan), yudofu as well as other delicious dishes.

After breakfast, we had some time before the bus took us back, so we checked out the Sarukaibashi, another suspension bridge, which is 131 meters (143 yards) long and 34 meters high (111 feet), this was was the sturdiest of the ones we tried. (can you see Satoshi?!)

We had some time for coffee made with hot spring water.

The homes and hotels in this area have non-stop running hot spring water, so many homes use it to cook with.

This area was hit by a flood in the 1800s which spurred some of the villagers to relocate to Hokkaido.

Nowadays, there is a area called "Shin-Totsukawa" (literally new Totsukawa) in Hokkaido.

Recently the Totsukawa area in Nara was again hit with a flood, if I'm not mistaken this was about 4 years ago.

This photo shows how far the roadway is from some of the housing but also how close the rivers are to some of the housing.

We had a longer break time at the Tanise suspension bridge, so we "walked" across. (this was the view from the other side)

This was super scary! Probably because we were up so high. Probably because the boards under our feet lifted quite often. Probably because there were at least 10 of us crossing in either direction. And probably because it was krazy windy!

I think we are done with suspension bridges for now...

One thing we tried was Roppoyaki. This one was made by Fukuyarikyu in Totsukawa.

It is like a cake type manju...delicious, but not different from most sweets with sweet bean paste in them.

And at our last "pit stop" we picked up some kaki no ha sushi (sushi that is wrapped in persimmon leaves). This is a well-known item of this area.

The version we picked up had saba (mackerel), sanma (saury), tai (snapper), shrimp and salmon.

We had this for dinner with some toshikoshi soba.

We hope you enjoyed this adventure as much as we did.

totsukawa

We woke up early the next day and went to have a morning bath before breakfast.

I had ordered their "western" breakfast while Satoshi had their "japanese"...still, my meal came with chagayu (what we call chagai in Hawaii), rice porridge with hojicha (roasted green tea).

My breakfast had way too much food while I thought Satoshi's was kind of small...I gave him my chagayu after tasting it.

While eating breakfast, I loved watching the birds pop in and out of the bird feed.

And then we were off on an adventure...

First we had to cross the Yanagimotobashi (Yanagimoto suspension bridge). This bridge is 90 meters (98 yards) long and 10 meters (32 feet) high.

Oh em gee...this bridge swayed so much as we "walked" across it.

If I were in the circus I imagine this was how the tightrope must feel...scary! as there really was nothing to hold onto going across as it swayed!

Not to mention the boards under your feet flip up a little...eep!

We trekked up the Hatenashi Pass which is a tiny trail that connects to a pilgrimage trail that leads to the Kumano Hongu in Wakayama.

This particular trail took about 40 minutes and was very steep and rocky, while the overall trail is about 70 kilometers (43 miles).

Apparently the majority of the trail is still in its natural state.

Walking up gave me a feel as to how people used to travel in Japan before trains & cars.

It is a very tranquil trek too, a nice chance to reflect on things.

At the top, this was the view.

While there we said "good morning" to the people living here.

And then we made our way back to the hotel to pick up our things.

We came upon this waterfall called "men taki".

Of course, to return to the hotel, we had to cross that bridge again!

It took us about 2 hours in total to do this but we were glad we did.

After dropping our things off at the hotel we would be staying at that night, we hopped on the bus again to the area near the city office.

It is a good half an hour ride to the city office area.

Satoshi had wanted to check out the Totsukawa museum and I wanted to check out their michi no eki (rest stop) for souvenirs.

Well, because we were there near the end of the year, the museum was closed...boo!

I was able to buy a yubeshi at the michi no eki which I'll post when we eat it.

Luckily at the michi no eki, there was a soba shop, so we were able to grab lunch...whew!

Unfortunately, the bus that we had planned to catch back to the hotel was not running that day...boo!

So we had to figure out what to do with ourselves for two hours!

I was amazed at how everyone builds to meet up with the roadway...

We eventually made it back to our hotel, Kosenkaku Yoshinoya.

We checked out the surroundings including a trip "up" to the Fukuyama shrine.

And then we had a bath before dinner.

Highlights of dinner were seared wild boar slices and botan nabe (wild boar hot pot).

Another long day, and even if we weren't able to go to the museum we were still enjoying ourselves and the area.

Kosenkaku Yoshinoya
432 Totsukawamura Hiratani
Yoshino, Nara
Phone: 0746.64.0012

osaka-totsukawa

From where we live it is 3 train rides and a 4 hours 20 minute bus ride to the Totsukawa area of Nara.

Nara prefecture has a campaign going on now to visit this area in which they paid for our round-trip bus fares (7300 yen per person).

If you've travelled on the local buses in Japan you'll know that they calculate the fares by the distance travelled (the farther you go, the higher the price).

Look at how blue the river water was...(I took this picture from the bus)

The road to Totsukawa was winding, and was mostly one laned.

Thank goodness they made "pit stops" along the way.

At the first pit stop, we didn't think to buy lunch...this would majorly affect us later...

The second pit stop was at the Tanise Suspension bridge.

This bridge is huge!

It is 297.7 meters in length (325 yards) and 54 meters high (177 feet).

We didn't have a chance to cross the bridge because the break time was only 10 minutes.

80 or so bus stops later we got off at our final destination...Hotel Subaru.

This facility was more like a hostel than a hotel.

We caught some kids using the yaen (human powered gondolas).

Because this area is mountainous with lots of rivers, yaen was often used to cross over to the other side.

You can still find these here and there around Totsukawa but nowadays it is mainly used by tourists.

The lobby was filled with beautiful Totsukawa furniture.

Apparently Totsukawa's key industry is forestry and since it is struggling, they came up with this project to attract more business by using local sugi (cedar) and hinoki (cypress) in furniture and dwellings.

If we had a bigger apartment, I would love this table!

So, I told you we hadn't bought lunch at our first pit stop, well, when we arrived at the hotel, they had just finished lunch service!

Luckily, they had some instant noodles to buy from their gift shop...by the time dinner came around though, we were starving!

Some highlights of the meal...yuzu wrapped with kaki.

This reminded of the one we found in Gokayama.

Yubeshi with cheese. In Nara, yubeshi is a type of non-perishable. Yuzu is hollowed out and filled with katsuo (bonito), miso, sesame seeds then wrapped in straw and put up out onto the roof tops for 6 months. Before eating it, it is sliced thin.

This was delicious with the cheese.

When I heard "yubeshi", I had thought it was similar to the one we found in Wajima.

This one was savory while the one in Wajima was sweet.

Mukodamashi...a millet cake. Muko means husband and damashi means deceive.

Rice was often hard to come by in Totsukawa so in order to have "mochi" for New Years, the wives would make these millet cakes.

These are really dense and filling.

A long day but we were amazed with the tranquility of the area.

Hotel Subaru
909-4 Totsukawamura Hiratani
Yoshino-gun, Nara
Phone: 0746.64.1111

past couple of days

Happy New Year!

Hope the new year is off to a good start for you.

This year's New Year "break" wasn't too long for Satoshi.

On the 29th and 30th of December we went to the Totsukawa area of Nara, I'll post about this soon!

The 31st...we spent making our way back to Osaka then turning in early before the New Year.

January 1st...we had o-zoni (traditional soup) then went to various temples and did hatsumode (prayers for the New Year).

Dinner was o-sechi, which I've written in detail here.

January 2nd...we went to Kyoto to visit MIL.

She is doing fine and we had a nice time chatting, eating and helping her clean some areas that she wasn't able to reach on her own.

After lunch, she let me "raid" her cabinets for dishes...thank you!

It was nice visiting with her.

Yesterday, we hung out at our favorite neighborhood cafe, Hiro, for breakfast.

And because I was craving greens...Dinner was a big grilled Thai beef salad with Kiuchi Brewery's sparkling umeshu.

We still haven't seen a speck of flurries in Osaka.

Hope you have a great week.