Trying Something New… October 6, 2008

Finally it has come to the day that I am sitting at a coffee shop, by my self, typing up my blog. (I actually don’t like the smell of Starbucks, but I didn’t know anywhere else to go…)

Dropped off Zu, she didn’t cry and just said “Bye.”
Last week was the first time she didn’t cry at preschool.  We were about to give up on the Preschool thing, but I am so glad that she is finally getting used to it.

I am doing something on my own.  By my self…  Strange…  A little uneasy of the fact that I am not running around doing something for the house, Zu, or us.  I am sitting down, sipping on tea at a coffee shop.
I said I wanted to do this when I find time for myself, but when it actually happens it just doesn’t feel right that I am not “Working” (mom job), you know!?

I even have a lunch date today with my girl friends!  It’s mid-day, and we are hanging out!  We usually have “Ladies Night”, where we all leave our kids with the dads and the Girls get together for a gourme potluck and drinks at one of our houses.  Lot’s of fun.  These are the times we get to let loose.  But this time it’s strange because it’s day time!  Our kids are in school or some of the girls are just coming out durning their lunch break from work.  I’m really excited!  We are going to a really good Japanese restaurant called Sharaku.  And it just so happens to be my cousins place, where I work!  I may like this lunch thing a lot.

So as I am typing this up, I am talking to my husband via iChat.  He says I need some “me time”.  What’s that?  Who’s me?  Me = ME! Ahhhh…  Such a strange concept that I haven’t had a chance to think about since before Zu!  Wow…  I feel a bit more comfortable with this “Me” thing now, than I did a year ago for sure!  I’m happier, more organized, and things are more under control.  Let’s see how this “Me” thing pans out in the next coming months.  I know I am going to start enjoying this.  Can’t get too cofortable though, we may want another little terror of joy.

Here’s a link to the lettus wrap recipe in the photo: my friend made it, I made the samosa’s.

http://cookpad.com/recipe/397456

Need it in English?  Just let me know and I will put up a post.

A Nice Reward July 12, 2008

It’s been a year since we signed up for having the same monthly payment on our electric bill. They base it on how much energy you spent the year before and take the guesswork out of the bill by paying the same amount every month.
So this is our 12th month and we have seen the results.

Since last year, we’ve changed most of our lights to energy efficient lights, turned up the AC of our house about 2 degrees, unplugging electronics not in use, and made sure we didn’t have any lights on rooms we weren’t using.

Here are the results. Our bill for electricity this month is at $0.00! And our next months bill will be credited about a fifth of the amount we usually pay!! This is awesome!!! This makes me very excited. To see these results make me know that I AM making a difference. Extremely rewarding.
Also if you consider the fact that we got a 5 gallon fish tank with filter, air bubbling thing, and heater for it that runs 24/7 , which I feel extremely guilty about, and is connected to a power strip. (Purchased for the 3 gold fish my daughter won at a Japanese festival, that have since all been replaced with 3 tropical fish within a year…)
We’ve done extremely well this year! Good job me.

There are small things that make a difference and I think everyone can start by turning their AC to 1 degree higher than what they usually have it set at. Trust me, your body will get used to it after a while and you’ll feel great about the difference you are making. It’s summer, it’s supposed to be hot, naturally your body is not made to go from 86 degrees outside to 75 degrees inside. I challenge you. Try 78 or 79 this year. Turn the air off at night and circulate the air in your home with a fan facing out. We have our AC set at 80 when my husbands home, and 81 when he’s not. 82 for the pets when we all leave the house.

Maybe next year we’ll be up to 82! I don’t think John can handle that, he does not like the humidity… but a little humidity is great for the skin. Less wrinkles.

So lets all try to get healthier and pretty, and save our environment all at the same time.

Good Japanese Food July 11, 2008

Food in Japan is incredible. I’m not just talking about the Japanese food, I’m talking about any kind of food.  You can get Italian food and it tastes better, Chinese food is authentic, even a hamburger tastes better.  How is that? Is it possible that they have better, more fresh, ingredients than what we have here in the U.S.?  That has to be the answer!

I come home from my long, wonderful stay in Japan, and I am not in the slightest mood of getting back in the swing of, having to cook every meal in order to have a decent one, so we get carry out.  It wasn’t bad.  We got my favorite Lebanese food, from the Lebanese (Anita’s) restaurant 2 blocks away from us.  Since you can’t find Lebanese food that easily in Japan, I was craving it!
But the next day I go to our local Japanese market, because of the empty bachelor fridge my husband left for me, it was actually depressing.  There is a limit to what you can buy, since they only import 2 options of one thing, and the look of the fish in the cases not that great.  Is this because we are in the Mid-West and have to have everything shipped frozen, or packed in ice?  Before I left for Japan, this was the most fresh place to buy fish.  Doesn’t look anything like what I had in Japan.  Now it doesn’t seem that great.  My mouth has been spoiled.

Being by the ocean, eating fresh caught fish is like eating something from heaven, compared to the once frozen, possibly was caught last week, kind of fish you can buy here…  I pretended that I didn’t know it wasn’t that fresh, and thought maybe I can trick myself into thinking the Sashimi here would be good, so I got some tuna, some salmon, and some yellow tail to take home to have sushi hand rolls that evening.
I also had to stop at the market for some veggies.  I expect Whole Foods to have the best ingredient I can find, since you dish out a bit more to shop there.  So I’m looking, looking, looking…  It’s summer, where are the fresh good lookin’ veggies?
When you shop for veggies in Japan, the super markets are loaded with great looking veggies that are in season.  When I say good looking, I really mean good looking!  The carrots are all the same size, amazingly orange, the strawberries are all the same size in each packet, and are bright red.  Nothing at all close to being wilted or even bruised!  Almost too good looking that I feel guilty cutting it up to use it.
Then back to my real world in the U.S., where the carrots are mostly crooked and for some reason split down the middle, the banana is either green or bruised, and anything with leaves, you can’t use the first 5 layers because they are crushed.
I know it just sounds like I’m just complaining, and I’m just some kind of Japan lover, WHICH I am…, but it’s true!  You really have to see it to believe it.  Even the meat is so much better!  Beautifully marbled and so fantastic that you don’t have to worry about eating Organic.  They don’t use hormones to grow the cows!!  You can also have pork & chicken rare, and not worry about getting salmonella poisoning.  Now that is amazing.  Even the cheap meat at the supermarket is GOOD!!
Anyway, back to my dinner that night.  Disappointing. My lovely sushi dinner that I expected, turned out that I couldn’t cheat myself.  What am I going to do…

I know what exactly is going to happen.  I am going to be disappointed for a little while, then the whole denial thing kicks into my brain, and things I eat here start tasting better again.  Maybe it’s the same chemical that is dispersed after you give birth, so that you forget about the pain you go through during child birth so that you would actually consider having another child.  OK, maybe I’m exaggerating but I’m still a bit disappointed in what I’m getting…

Next weekend, I am planning on going to the farmers market, hoping for something better.  Also my friend has told me of a local organic farmer that will sell a whole pig for a fantastic price!  She also has mentioned how delicious the eggs are too.  I would love to try some.

So here is my future menu for my organic pig & eggs.

Niku-jaga (Pork and Potato’s)

• Half a pound of pork belly meat cubed. (This is hard to find in regular grocery stores here so having my own pig butchered gives me this opportunity. You can also find pigs belly meat at most Korean or Japanese Markets frozen)
• 1 knob ginger sliced
• 3 Yukon Gold potato’s
• 1 or 2 carrots
• 1 large Vidal Onion sliced
• 1 block of Konnyaku (Konjac)
• 4 hard boiled eggs peeled.
• 4 Tbsp of Sake (cooking rice wine)
• 3 Tbsp Soy Sauce
• 2 Tbsp Mirin (or half honey, half white wine)
• 1/2 to 1 Tbsp of Sugar (depending on how sweet you like it) Start out with 1/2 and add more to taste)

Cut all ingredients into bite size pieces and soak the potatoes in water for about 10 min.  Heat up you Le Creuset pot and melt a small knob of butter. Brown the pork on both sides, add enough water to cover the pork and boil for 10 min.  When done, dump water and rinse off the pork.
Put another small knob of butter in the pot and fry up the ginger on medium low heat until fragrant, about a minute.  Put the carrots, potato’s, in the pot and add the pork, eggs, and Konnyaku on top of that and finally cover with the onions.  In a small bowl add the Sake, Soy Sauce, Mirin, & Sugar and put in microwave for 1 min and dissolve sugar.  Pour sauce over the pot with the pork, cover and simmer on medium low for 15 ~ 20 min. Stir and finish cooking with no lid until all veggies are cooked through.

Enjoy with rice & Miso soup or even Udon Noodles.

Recipe for Changing Weather April 4, 2008

I have a soar throat. I don’t know if it’s because we are going from upper 20 degrees weather to 50 degree weather, but I have this sucks.
I can take vomiting, sitting on the toilet, running a feaver, or a stuffy nose, but I can’t stand having a soar throat! You can’t swallow anything, talking is painful, and soar throat medicine is probably the worst because it just numbs other parts of your mouth that don’t need the numbing…

So here’s are some recipe’s for my swollen, soar throat.

Seafood Corn Chowder Soup

• 1 or 2 slices of bacon cut into small pieces
• 1 tbsp. Buttery Sticks
• 1 clove of garlic minced
• 1 Yukon Gold potato
• 1 celery stalk
• 1/4 cup carrots
• 1/4 cup yam
• 1/4 cup green pepper
• 1 cup frozen whole corn kernels
• 1 & a 1/2 tbsp. flour
• 2 tsp. vegetable Better Than bouillon
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup organic 2% milk
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tsp. parsley
• 1/4 tsp. pepper
• 1/2 cup Kani-Kama (immitation crab) or real crab if you have the money to spend.
• 1 cup of frozen seafood blend. (I get the one from Trader Joe’s that has shrimp, bay scallops, & calamari pieces in it)
• salt & pepper to taste

Brown the bacon pieces in a 4 qt. Le Creuset pot (or any other pot with lid). Dice all the vegetables (not the corn) into small pieces, about 1/4″ cube or less. Add butter into pot, with the vegetables and cook for about 5min. lid closed until vegetables are soft.
Sprinkle flour over vegetables, using a sifter and stirring constantly to coat everything. Add the water, bouillon, cover and cook on low for 10min. stir occasionally. Add the frozen corn, cover and cook for another 5 min. Add milk and cook for another 5 min.
Add Kani Kama and frozen seafood and cook for another 7~10 min. Until seafood is cooked through. That’s it!

You can sprinkle it with some Sharp Cheddar & paprika. Serve with some crunchy bread to those who don’t have a soar throat, and you can have the soup over rice. Japanese style! (We put everything over rice)

So now comes the dessert.
A soothing gelatin treat to satisfy my sweet tooth after dinner.

Milk Kanten (Agar Agar)

• 1 cup water
• 1 cup organic 2% milk
• 1 tbsp organic Fat Free Milk
• 3 tbsp organic cane sugar
• 20 grams of Kantenko (agar agar) about 2~3 tsp’s
• 1 can of sliced mango

Put 1 cup of the water in a sauce pan and sprinkle the Kanten (agar agar) on top. (Do not put it on the burner yet) Let it sit for 5~10 min.
Mean while, dissolve the powdered skim milk in 1 cup of 2% milk and set aside. Turn the burner on medium low and wait until simmer. Stir for 2 min., or until the Kanten has disolved. Add sugar, the skim milk + 2% milk, turn the burner off, and stir.
Line a 6″ by 8″ glass storage container with the well drained mango pieces and pour the liquid milk Kanten over them. Let it sit aside until cool and then put in the fridge until firm. (about 3 hours)

It’s sweet and cold to sooth that soar throat. Yummm!

Earth Hour March 28, 2008

This is a very important event, coming up this Saturday.
I am just a messenger…

“On March 29, 2008 at 8 p.m., join millions of people around the world in making a statement about climate change by turning off your lights for Earth Hour, an event created by the World Wildlife Fund.

Earth Hour was created by WWF in Sydney, Australia in 2007, and in one year has grown from an event in one city to a global movement. In 2008, millions of people, businesses, governments and civic organizations in nearly 200 cities around the globe will turn out for Earth Hour. More than 100 cities across North America will participate, including the US flagships–Atlanta, Chicago, Phoenix and San Francisco and Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.

We invite everyone throughout North America and around the world to turn off the lights for an hour starting at 8 p.m. (your own local time)–whether at home or at work, with friends and family or solo, in a big city or a small town.

What will you do when the lights are off? We have lots of ideas.

Join people all around the world in showing that you care about our planet and want to play a part in helping to fight climate change. Don’t forget to sign up and let us know you want to join Earth Hour.

One hour, America. Earth Hour. Turn out for Earth Hour!”

There is also an event that has been going on called GAIA Summit.

http://www.do-summit.jp/en/

People in Japan will be turning off their lights for 2 hours from 6pm for the next 100 days starting this Sunday, March 30th, counting down to the Hokkaidou GAIA Summit. I found out about this event just in time, we will be participating in this event from Sunday. I guess we can combine the 2 events and start together Saturday! Start buying those candles!!

“The Group of Eight (G8) Summit is an annual meeting attended by the leaders of eight countries-Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America-and by the President of the European Commission. A “summit” in the strict sense is a meeting of heads of state, but it often refers also to meetings of foreign ministers and finance ministers prior to meetings by heads of state. In these years, non-G8 countries are also participating in the G8 Summit. For instance, the so-called emerging countries such as Republic of South Africa, Brazil, China, Mexico and India have participated in the 2007 Heiligendamm Summit held in Germany as well as many African nations and international organizations.”

Please join me with millions of people around the world for this wonderful event!

My Okayu (rice porridge) March 25, 2008

This past weekend, I have gotten the comment, “That’s gross. If that’s what I have to eat, I would never be Japanese!” This is about the Okayu.

The same group of people were also making fun of my Organic Loving, Tree Hugger lifestyle.
So, for those of you living in the woods, who have never learned about Global Warming and is just gaining those tons of pounds from your hormone injected, 3 times faster growing animals. Please stop reading this blog. I don’t think this blog is right for you. You may just want to keep idealizing this and not come back to my page. Oh, and I recommend you to buy this.

Any who, after the venting, I am coming back to introduce to you the delicious recipe of my Brown Rice Okayu.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup brown rice
• 30 grams soba (buckwheat noodles) – optional
• 8 cups water
• 1 tsp Chinese Dashi (chicken broth)
• 1/8 cup Daikon Radish (or any other radish or carrot) sliced into small bite size pieces. Oh, Nappa cabbage is good too!
• 1 knob about 5 slices of ginger
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp soy sauce
• small piece of leftover salmon (optional)
• 5 cm of long onion (garnishment)
• pinch of toasted sesame seeds (garnishment)

Rinse out the rice with water and leave it in a large pot with 6 cups of water (covered) for at least 30 min. (If you don’t have time, just leave it in hot water while boiling the soba) Meanwhile break the Soba noodles into small pieces and boil it in some water (2 of the 8 cups) for 5 min. Drain Soba, and set aside.

(I’m cooking with my 2&3/4qt. Le Creuset pot.)

Put the pot with the rice & water on medium heat and start adding the Dashi, Daikon, Ginger, Salt, and Soy Sauce. (You could add a piece of chicken leg or wing, that’s really good!) When it starts to simmer, cover and turn the heat down to LOW. Cook for about 40 min. Add the Soba, and cook for another 10 min. Turn heat off and let it sit for 15 min. with the lid on.

Garnish with the salmon, thinly sliced long onion and some sesame seeds. Yummm

This recipe is very healthy, great for dieting, and fantastic for your digestion. Make a lot and you can freeze 250 gram portions (160 Kcal) & have it for breakfast every morning!

Or just don’t eat it because you’re afraid to be healthy and turn into someone who is JAPANESE!!

Fear of the Poo~ March 22, 2008

I hate training my toddler to go to the potty. I don’t think I have the patience for it. But we have been trying since last August and it’s starting to NOT work… It really sucks.
I even made my own training pants, thinking that some cute pair of polka dot pants would actually get her enthusiastic to wear them. SO Wrong.

On top of that my daughter has developed a mild case of chronic constipation, because she doesn’t want to poop in the toilet. She holds her poo in so that she doesn’t have to go. But when she does go, the poo is so hard that it is ginormous and hurts to come out. She even bleeds…
I’ve been told to change her diet, stop potty training, eat prunes and drink prune juice, & all the above. There seems to be no short cuts for this one.

Here are a few ways that I started tackling this poo.

Changing her diet:

• More fruits that have more water in them. (clementines, grapes, berries, water melon, cantaloupe, pears)
• Lots of dried fruits. (raisins, prunes, dried blueberries, cranberries, cherries, Fig Newmans) Don’t give too many prunes, or it gets messy. Not fun… Try half a prune a day. Other dried fruit, can be consumed in 1/4 cup portions, I think.
• Orange juice, pear juice, prune juice. We always dilute 1 part OJ, 1 part Vruit, 1 part water. Always dilute your Toddlers juice to about 30~40% water.
• No white rice. Sad news for a Japanese person, but we changed my favorite white rice to all brown rice. This was a gradual process. 1 part white rice/1 part brown, to 2 part brown/1 part white.
  Brown rice is tricky. If you cook it the same way you cook as white rice, it turns out a bit hard, and kids don’t like that. If you have a rice cooker that has the brown rice setting, you are in luck. For those with who don’t, just leave the brown rice in water over night, like you do with beans and then cook the following day.
• More high fiber. (beans, whole wheat, multi-grain, broccoli, kale, spinach, brussele sprouts, etc.)
• Eat less dairy. We changed our butter to vegan butter, and my daughter doesn’t like cheese that much, so that’s easy. Biggest obstacle is that she needs her milk, morning, noon and night. Three 8oz. bottles a day. I guess it’s supposed to be about 16oz. of low fat milk a day, so I am starting at 90% of 2% milk mixed with 10% soy milk or water. It will be a gradual process for us.
• Avoid bananas, most dairy, chocolate, red meat, cooked carrots, and french fries.
  Red meat is hard for anyone to digest. Quit red meat for a couple of months and it will do a number on your stomach when you try it again.
• Raw vegetables. Thank you Wonder Pets for helping my daughter like celery!

So following some of this diet, how about a menu.

Breakfast (All Served with a 50% OJ)

• Cinnamon Raisin Oatmeal
• Whole Wheat Toast with Mixed Berry Jam and Prune Puree
• Brown Rice Okayu (Rice Porridge)
• Whole Grain Cereal (Raisin Bran, Shredded Wheat, Clifford, etc. )

Lunch (Served with sliced Tomato’s & Cucumbers)

• Tuna on Toasted Whole Wheat with Celery, Raisins and Green Apples
• Lentil Soup with Whole Wheat Toast or Whole Wheat Pasta Shells
• Vietnamese Pho made with Harusame (Bean Noodles)
• Soba Noodles with Kamaboko (Fish Cake) and Wakame (Sea Weed) or my daughters favorite with Natto (Japanese fermented beans). If your Japanese, you will understand.

Snack Time (serve with 50% juice of your choice)

• 杏仁豆腐(Annindoufu: Skim Milk Gelatine with Seasonal Fruit)
• Sliced Apples with Peanut Butter and Whole Wheat Crackers
• Whole Wheat Fruit Danish
• きな粉クッキー(Kinako Cookies: soybean flour cookies)

Dinner (serve with diluted kids tea with no sugar)

• Baked Fish Taco’s with Whole Beans
• Whole Wheat Shells with Meat Sauce & Tomato Salad
• Miso-Mayo Salmon with Vegetable Miso Soup
• ニラ餃子 (Nira Gyouza: Chinese Chive Pot Stickers) with Daikon Soup

Dessert (I don’t really recommend giving sugar after 3:00)

• Just Plain Fruits could work if you need any.

So now, all I have to do is give her a routine of sitting on the toilet and having her try to poop at the same time every day, which is right after lunch. Zu (my daughter) is still scared of pooping, tries to poop in the toilet once a day. Not yet successful, but we have hope! They say it takes about 6 to 12 months to correct this whole thing. Agh!!

We started to change our diet drastically 2 weeks ago, and we are already seeing results. She is not in pain when she is having a bowl movement any more, and she’s been going 3~4 times a week now instead of 2~3.

The only bad thing out of this whole thing, is that potty training is still a pain in the A, for me. I’ll keep you posted on other dishes I come up with. I will be uploading these recipe’s when I get the chance and link them to this page, so keep checking.