My Sticky, Hairy Balls

Mmmm.... Hairy....

Closeup of my balls

Man, I love my hairy balls!

I got the recipie... I mean recepie...reci..... My friend Anna from Walden Effect had a post on how to make them. Not a very precise recie..%$##$!. Not very precise directions, but it is not a very precise kind of dessert.

You need:

• nuts (any kind) 1/2 cup (I used a bag of mixed nuts)
• three kinds of dried fruit (any kind) 1/2 cup each (I used dried bananas, prunes, and mango)
• 1 fresh lemon or other citrus (I used sudachi)
• some shredded coconut about 1/2 cup

First, I put my nuts into the food processor and pulsed it a few times to chop them up quite fine. Then I dropped my banana into the mix. Add the other dried fruit and chop it up fine. Then add some lemon juice (in my case Sudachi) and mix it up so it is sticky. Then just roll them between your palms until they are round, and (this is the only part that was my own idea) drop them in a bowl of shredded dried coconuts. Presto! My sticky balls were now hairy and not so sticky.

Hold my balls in the palm of your hand and feel their dense heft. Just don't squeeze them too hard or they will lose their shape and make your hands sticky.

And delicious! People just can't keep my balls out of their mouths! The salt from my nuts and the sweet from the fruit makes a delicious balance that is just right! But if you really want to make it even better, try dipping my balls in honey before you pop them in your mouth.

I can't wait to serve them at a party. I'm sure they will be a big hit. I can just imagine all the people tweeting about it from their iPhones. "Eric's Hairy Balls are so delicious!"

Coconut Banana Corn Flakes

Happy New Year!

I poured a bowl of corn flakes and cut up a banana before realizing we had only a quarter cup of milk in the carton in the fridge. Who does that? Anyway, there was also half a can of coconut milk left over from a coconut banana pudding we made yesterday.... Well, it says milk on the label...

You really should try this. It was amazing. The crunchy cornflakes, the sweet bananas and that coconut.... This is the way corn flakes should be eaten.

Snow Hangover

Yesterday, a storm passed though, dumping about 30-45cm of wet yet fluffy snow over the area. Since it only snows like that once every few years, the city has never bought snow moving equipment. So this morning our road is a mish-mashed icy bumpcicle of re-frozen slush. It will probably melt by the afternoon. But until it does, I am declaring a snow-hangover and not sending the kids to school!

And to celebrate the snow hangover, we are having an upscale version of the usual rice-browns I make.

Ingredients:

• Cooked Rice (one small bowl per person)(short-grained sticky rice is preferred)
• Eggs (one per person)
• Soy sauce (1tsp/person)
• Cheese
• Onion (one small)
• Bacon (one strip/person)

1. Caramelize the onions over low heat in some butter.
2. Cook the bacon until crispy.
3. Mix the rice, eggs, and soy sauce in a medium bowl.
4. Drop one serving of the egg/rice mixture into the frying pan at medium heat. Sprinkle some cheese over it.
5. When it looks dry around the edges, flip it.
6. Cautiously check to make sure the cheese is golden brown, and transfer to the plate. 
7. Smother with caramelized onion, some bacon bits, and more cheese. Top with some mayo and ketchup.

My "Rice-Browns"

Espresso Pancakes

This morning I was making pancakes for the kids and drinking some espresso (well, OK, it was Italian Coffee) made in my new Moka Pot. More on that later. Anyhow, the daughter came over and said how wonderful the coffee smelled. She asked me if I had ever put coffee into pancake batter before. I immediately dumped a bunch into the batter.
Folks, you should try this. It was very delicious. I didn't measure, just added what was left in the pot. Probably about 3 Tbsp.

On to the moka pot- this thing is wonderful! We got the three cup pot by Bialetti. I thought of Minnesota coffee cups when we bought it. Not quite the same! The three cup pot filled about half a Minnesota sized coffee mug. But it was so deliciously strong! I looked on Wikipedia for more information about it, and they said that it is not a true espresso maker, since they have to be made at 9 bar (atmospheric pressure at sea level), but moka pots have a maximum pressure of 1.5 bar. But I am not a foodie, and I could care less if it is "true" espresso. Now I just need some little tiny espresso shot cups and I am all set!

Popcorn Cornbread

I had a hankering for some good old fashioned cornbread this morning. But, here in Japan, I have never seen cornmeal for sale. Anywhere.
Then I had an idea- what if I took some popcorn kernels, put them in the blender, and hit the button?
I am proud to tell you that it worked like a charm. The noise was intense, but the effect was wonderful cornmeal.

My recipe- adapted from the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook:

1c flour
3/4c cornmeal
3 Tbsp sugar
2 tsp. Baking Powder
1 tsp. salt

2 eggs
1c milk
1/4c veg. oil

Mix the dry ingredients in a medium-large bowl.
Mix the wet ingredients in a small bowl.
Add the wet to the dry and stir just until moistened.
Dump it in a cake pan, and chuck it in a 200C oven (400F) for 20 min.

That's good eating.

New Year's Eve

On Dec. 16, I wrote about my buckwheat harvest and how I planned to make "Toshi Koshi Soba" for New Years Eve.
So we did it! We made "Go-Wari Soba." Which means that it is half buckwheat and half wheat flour (the gluten holds it together).
If you want to try it, you need:

Ingredients
150g Buckwheat flour
150g Wheat flour
129g water between 20-25 degrees C.

Start with 150g each buckwheat flour and wheat flour.
Measure the water into two cups- 90g in one, 39 in the other. 

Sift the flours together

Now you have 300g of flour ready to go

My helpers drizzle 90g of water while stirring with chopsticks.
Then mix it with your fingers to make it grainy.
Add the 39g of water a little at a time as you continue to mix it.
When the grains get bigger, stop adding water and make a ball.

Kneading the dough 100 times

Cover the dough and let it rest while you flour your rolling surface and get out the rolling pin.
In Japan, most serious foodies have a soba kit, with a big rolling pin and board.
I am not a foodie, I'm an eater. I use my table and a regular sized pin.

Press the dough flat with your palms.

Begin rolling the dough out. You are aiming for a rectangle.
After two or three times, roll the dough onto the rolling pin, and rotate it 90 degrees.
Then unroll it again, and continue. This should give you a relatively square piece.

When it is about 1mm thick, flour 1/2 of the sheet, and fold it in half.
It helps if you roll the sheet onto the rolling pin one last time before you fold it,
otherwise it will stretch and stick to your table surface.

Fold it in half again, (now it is four layers thick) and put it on a cutting board.
Use another cutting board as a ruler and cut the noodles about 1mm thick.
If you cut, and bump the ruler with the side of your knife, you can get a good rhythm going.

The noodles, cut and ready to boil.

Put a BIG kettle on the stove and get it boiling. 

Now you need to make the soup. I didn't take pictures of it, but it is so easy.

Ingredients:

6 cups of dashi-broth (made from dried bonito flakes, or "Katsuobushi". Look in an Asian Grocery. Most people use prepared granular bullion)

1/2 cup soy sauce

2 Tbsp of mirin

1 tsp of sugar

1 skinless chicken breast cut in bite sized pieces.

Dump it all in a pot and boil it until the chicken is done.

By  now the big kettle should be boiling. 

You will need a large bowl, with a smaller colander inside it, and a steady stream of cold water into the bowl.

Divide the noodles in four (I like to put them into the four bowls that we will use to eat with), and get ready, because this part moves fast.

1. Drop 1/4 the noodles into the boiling water, and stir it a few times to make sure the noodles don't stick to each other.

2. When the noodles float to the top and the boiling resumes, count to 15, scoop the noodles out, and put them into the colander. Rinse them lightly, drain, and transfer them to the bowl you will eat out of. (try one noodle to see if it is done to your preference, you can then adjust the time)

3. Repeat steps one and two for the other 3 bowls.

4. Ladle some of the soup into the bowls over the noodles, maybe sprinkle some green onions and tenkasu on top, and dig in. After finishing the noodles, put a ladle of the water used to boil the noodles into your bowl and drink it dry. 

A bit thick and thin, but delicious!
(We didn't have any green onion)

My Rice For Lunch

My homegrown Koshi-Hikari and my wife's "Saba no Miso-ni" (Miso Mackerel)

Well, I finally had a chance. I cooked and ate the rice.
It was so good! But I am not exactly an unbiased party.
According to my wife, who is Japanese and spent her entire life eating rice, the texture was "mochiri" (kind of springy) and the taste was different from the Koshi-Hikari rice that we usually buy. I think she is being polite when she says "different." But I loved it. The kids loved it, and the woman I love says she loves it just to make me feel good!
She is sitting behind me on the sofa and she says that I should have put the fish and rice on proper serving dishes if I was going to put the picture on the blog. So imagine the rice in a bowl, and the fish on a square plate, with the chopsticks balanced on a ceramic eggplant, with a lacquer bowl of miso soup behind them. (I just didn't want to do all those dishes)

If you want to make Miso Mackerel at home, here is my wife's take on the recipe.

Ingredients:
Mackerel (1, cut into fillets)
Soy sauce 1 tbsp
Japanese Cooking Sake (rice wine) 1/3cup
Water 1 cup
Sugar 3 tbsp
Miso 4 tbsp
Ginger (freshly grated 2 tbsp) or powdered ginger 1/2 tsp.

1. Pour some boiling water over the mackerel.
2. Bring the water, soy sauce, and rice wine to a boil, and put the mackerel (skin side up) in the pot. Cook on medium heat for 10 minutes or so.
3. Add the miso and boil it down until it is nice and thick.

Open Sandwich, Ulrich Sandwich, Bread Baser, or Tartine

 I love sandwiches. I love grilled cheese sandwiches. 

But I only had one slice of bread and about 3 minutes....

Behold with all proper awe and adulation, 

THE OPEN FACED GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICH!

Single slice of bread, buttered on both sides, some cheese...

Flip it quick

Browned cheese.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

Squash Surprise!

So we wanted to try the squash I grew in the garden this year. The wife can't cut squash- they are too hard for her. So yours truly tackled it and soon split it with our heaviest knife. So far, so good. I scooped the insides into a shallow dish- since I wanted to roast the seeds. Suddenly, little white jumping larvae were boiling up out of the squash innards in the bowl! The wife was seriously grossed out and left the kitchen, telling me to cover the bowl or put hot water on it, or to just "DO SOMETHING!" So I put them in the microwave and zapped them. It worked. But as you can see, a few escaped to the floor. Once you could disassociate them from being inside food you wanted to eat, they are kinda cute, and funny when they jump.
A few minutes later, the boys and I were on the sofa when we saw a pair of them jumping across the floor. So I took a video. Those little buggers could jump about 20cm!

Tephritidae are a kind of fruit fly. Here in Japan these are called "Kabochamibae." Lit. Pumpkin Fruit Flies. They do a lot of damage to squash here. The adults look a bit like small wasps, and they lay eggs on or just under the skin of the squash. The larvae eat their way to the center and then go to town on the soft inner pith.

I checked our squash very, very carefully, and found no damage to the meat of it. So I scraped off an extra few millimeters and we cooked and ate it. The same with the seeds- none had any damage. They just were eating the connective tissues around the seeds apparently. Maybe they would eat into the meat and seeds if they were older. But anyway, it was pretty good. No wonder the flies liked it.

The next squash I will open up outside to spare the wife some distress.

So the way I made the roast seeds was to:
1. wash the seeds in a colander until they were clean
2. Boil them in fairly salty water for 10 minutes.
3. Put a dollop of sesame seed oil on a shallow baking dish, and spread the seeds one layer deep.
4. Sprinkle with salt and roast them at a medium high temp until they were just about to turn from chestnut to black.

Man, they were so good.

Man, I Love Tacos!

I love tacos. But the fat! So a while back I thought- how can I make tacos more healthy?
At first I diced an onion and put it in the pan with a little less meat. It was good. Not mind bending, but good.
The next time I put in some eggplant and green peppers, and reduced the meat even more. Very nice indeed.
This last time I had about 1/4 the meat called for on the seasoning packet, tons of green peppers, eggplants, onions, okra, and......... a bowl of short grained cooked rice! The rice blended in so well, that nobody noticed it! I don't know how it would work with long grain rice, but good Japanese rice- wonderful! So now we have relatively healthy tacos. The only thing I would do different next time is to add some chili peppers, since the veggies toned down the heat of the seasoning.

Also, if you don't have tortillas, try making a taco salad on a bowl of rice. It is fantastic! Plus, it ends up in your mouth, not on your clothes, the table, the baby's head....