caramel custard

Had some milk that I needed to use up so I tried making caramel custard for the first time.

This what the Japanese call purin (pudding)

The recipe I tried makes 6 but we don't need 6 around here, nor did I want to use 6 eggs, so I cut the recipe down to make 2.

Plus, my oven isn't that big and I don't have a pan large enough to make a water bath for 6 jars.

The recipe starts by making the caramel and then goes on to make the custard.

It was my first time making caramel and I should have read up more about how to do so from the internet because I did all the things you shouldn't do...

Despite my failures, I salvaged some of the caramel for the bottom of the jar.

The custard itself was on the softer side, but everything tasted good.

The caramel had a little bitterness to it and the custard was rich and creamy.

Oh and it was a nice way to use the Oui yogurt jars too.

At least now I know how to do this and will definitely try again when the weather gets cooler.

hatsubon

Over the weekend BIL had a service for MIL's hatsubon.

If you are interested as to what hatsubon is please look here.

Since everyone's case numbers have been going up, plus it is so miserable and hot, BIL said that we didn't have to come.

I think we should've gone, but Satoshi said "if BIL said no need then no need go" (well he didn't say it in pidgin...)

The only reason I am relieved that we didn't go is because Satoshi always eats and drinks too much whenever we all get together which is not good.

Since BIL held the service at his home, we sent some Japanese sweets to give as offering.

And the other night for dinner we had unagi, which is MIL's favorite.

I hope to get some flowers to place in front of her photo today.

Missing you MIL.

bread pudding

Used the last package that I received from Val.

First off, the recipe calls for 4 eggs! that is like almost my whole container...there are only 10 eggs per container here.

On top of that, my eggs were not large, in fact I think they were small.

It also called for 9 slices of bread...had to guesstimate because most loaves in Japan are small...instead I used 1 boule.

Instead of melted butter I used melted coconut oil.

And I had 100% chocolate which I received from a friend awhile back, but didn't know how to use, so I added it to this.

I figured this bread pudding might be super sweet, so using the 100% chocolate would cut the sweetness...semi-bad idea, 100% was kinda too bitter.

I prepped this the night before, so the bread could soak.

Then I woke up super early since the instructions says it takes an hour to bake and an hour to cool, so that we could eat this at 6:30-ish...naps are so important, yeah?!

Love the top, it got all crispy after baking.

I froze the rest of this so we'll be eating this in the coming weeks…gonna add some kind of protein when we do.

Thanks Val for all these packets to try they were a little too much for just the two of us but I think these are great to make for parties or pot luck.

beef tomato

Not sure what made me crave beef tomato, but I did so, luckily there was a recipe for it in this cookbook that I have.

Beef Tomato : makes 2 or 3 servings, adapted from "Hawaii's Best Local Dishes"

200 grams thinly sliced beef

1/2 onion, cut roughly

3 small bell peppers, cleaned and cut roughly

2 tomatoes, cut into 6 wedges

2 teaspoons oil

Marinade for meat: 1 nub ginger, grated

1 clove garlic, grated

1/4 teaspoon sugar

1 tablespoon shoyu (soy sauce)

several grinds of pepper

1/2 tablespoon cornstarch

Gravy:  1 tablespoon okonomiyaki sauce

Marinade the beef for 20 minutes.

Heat 2 teaspoons of oil in a pan and saute the onion and bell peppers for about 2 minutes.

Add the tomatoes and cook for another minute.

Take the veggies out of the pan and cook the meat.

Put the veggies back into the pan with the cooked meat and add the okonomiyaki sauce.

When everything is well coated, serve and enjoy!

NOTES:  I didn't have all the ingredients for the gravy, which asked for worcestershire and ketchup, instead I added okonomiyaki sauce because it tastes like worcestershire and ketchup, kinda.

Also, I didn't have sherry to marinade the meat and used balsamic vinegar, but should have used sake instead.

This was pretty easy to put together and tasty, I would definitely make this again.

this and that

Filled up my second stamp card from Benny.

I had mentioned in the comments of that post that filling one of these up gets us 500 yen off our bill, but I was mistaken, they give us 300 yen off our bill.

I really like shopping here because it is rarely crowded. 

Been enjoying the ikaten noriten combination snacks....fried squid and fried nori, good on its own but fried is a bonus.

Thick pieces of maguro (ahi/tuna) from Benny...

8 pieces of maguro was about 850 yen (tax included)...using a 30 yen coupon….3 pieces for me, 5 for Satoshi.

Super fresh and delicious.

And so…we hit 3875 cases yesterday in Tokyo, 10,000+ overall in Japan.

Did you see the crowds outside of the Olympic stadium during the opening ceremony last Friday? from what they showed on tv here, it was krazy crowded…can only imagine what the numbers will be over the coming days.

Holding the Olympics just gives everyone a reason to get out and about…their reasoning is that they have waited a year to see friends and family…well if you haven’t received your vaccines yet (they are still vaccinating the higher age groups) AND the Delta variant is floating around…

It doesn’t help when the Prime Minister has no message or plan as to what we should be doing.

Talk about frustrating.

On Tuesday, we both felt a bit sluggish and I had a slight fever, so it was good that we had stocked up on food and just stayed indoors.

Having a slight fever and dealing with the humidity and heat was not fun.

I wasn’t exercising my arm, but using it when I cooked or did the dishes…yup chores still had to be done…

Can you believe July is almost over?

Have a safe weekend everyone.

doyo no ushi no hi

Yesterday was Doyo no Ushi no Hi, the day when everyone eats grilled unagi (eel) to build stamina for the heat of summer, which I've written about here.

Well, since I had planned for it to be raining from the typhoon and that maybe we wouldn't be able to get out of the house after our vaccines, this was our dinner last night...corned beef and cabbage.

The heat is pretty brutal this year too, so I'm sure we'll eat some grilled unagi in the weeks to come...

sunset

This was the sunset on Monday.

The weather dude said that it turns this red, orange, pink color when a typhoon is approaching.

Luckily we only had some rain on Tuesday and more rain overnight, nothing more.