How We Eat in Japan

What's the most of people think how Japanese eat? It is probably "Sushi" but NO we don't eat sushi everyday at home. Sushi is very special treat for me. Sometimes it delivered to home for family gathering, and sometimes we go out. The Sushi delivery service is well known, like pizza delivery service here in the U.S. One exception was one of my good friend's mother used help at Sushi eatery, so while we stayed in Japan, they treated us with home made sushi. It was delicious, as the looks so beautiful! As you may notice this picture below, rolled sushi like California rolls are not traditional in Japan. They started appear more often at a few restaurants.

At my parents' house-which I'm pretty sure "a standard family"-they have several different dishes on table all at once. Those dishes are usually grilled or fried meat or fish, star-fry or simply cooked or pickled vegetable dish, and tofu on the side. Have a small plate for those dishes on serving plates/bowls and a bowl of white rice and miso soup ready.

Children's favorite dishes may be fried chicken, hamburg steak, ramen noodle, and curry and rice.* Sometimes the traditional Japanese dishes were looked down by children. I'm not going to go back the history all the way, but Japanese eating habit was changed after the WW2 was over with.

Japan start imported McDonald in 1972, Denny's, KFC are widely well known. Burger King, Dominos Pizza, Krispy Kreme, Red Lobster, TGIFridays, are also started to become recognizable. Other than that Italian, French, Indian, Mexicans, German, Korean, Chinese, Thailand, Bali **restaurants, many Ramen noodle shops, along with Japanese traditional restaurants are also available.

The restaurants mentioned above have another specific characteristic. They have been modified. These places have been imported from overseas, but do have a Japanese twist to each of them.

I.E. Teriyaki burgers, ginger flavored chicken. Denny's is really different. They have an assortment of Japanese dishes with a twist of the West.

At home, my mother would cook, Chinese and some other country influenced meals. We eat breads daily basis. Japanese bakeries has really good quality breads. So there, we don't just eat sushi all the time. We do have so many variety food to choose from and it is pretty amazing for the little island.

*These have always been well known as children's favorite dishes, many have been changed by now.

** I'm sure there is more different nation cuisines are available.

Junk or Not Junk

I had a little break from cooking in my kitchen last night. We stopped by at FIVE GUYS, and had a BURGER and fries. I heard about this place more than a couple of time and everyone seemed have good compliments about them. Even President Barack Obama had visited Five Guys before (details here).

I try to cook and eat healthy usually. However, this question comes to my mind... "Is a hamburger really categorized as a JUNK FOOD?" According to Merriam-Webster definition of junk food is...

1. food that is high in calories but low in nutritional content
2. something that is appealing or enjoyable but of little or no real value junk food for young minds — Cleveland Amory>

I really believe that hamburger itself is not junk food. The anatomy of a hamburger is a pair of buns, one or more beef patty, and slice of tomatoes and lettuce and/or slice of cheese. At this location, Five Guys, they have list of things we can add for no adding cost. I believe having Mayo and Mustard is crucial on this simple beef patty sandwich. I, personally like grilled onion and mushroom so I added them on mine, as well.

There, we have protein, grains, and few vegetables, and/or dairy products. It may not be covered suggested amount of vegetable and exceeded on protein but I really don't think burger itself is not really "junk food." True damage can be made by eating french fries and fountain drink usually accompanies with hamburgers. Which I did! Well, I barely go to any of fast food restaurant and drink pops at home, so I guess I can afford eating little junk food every once in a while. I cannot even remember when was last time eating like this before yesterday.

A delicious hamburger, crisp french fries, and refreshing pop to cool your throat. I don't mind eating junk food sometimes, but not at the golden arches. :P

Why would Japanese girl even dream about eating hamburger and fries instead of the stereotypical sushi, at first place? I have eating them when I was growing up. Only once in a while though. We have amazing variety of food in Japan and they are pretty decent. I will talk about it next time. :)

So I rolled...

Yesterday's post, I decided to make rolled sushi for packing for my boys' lunch today. So I tried, rolled and the whole procedure went pretty smooth. The 1st son even asked me, why don't I make it more often. However, they both liked it but they both admit that they like a simple cucumber skinnier roll (kappa-maki) is the best.

This roll covers protein and fiber part, like all in wrap kind of item. Original recipe used cucumber instead of lettuce, modification wasn't too bad at all. I like cooking because you can always modified the recipe how you like it, what's convenience to us. So don't afraid start cooking! :)

Anyways, tips for packing bento is...separate food from touching each other-I used a wax paper between sliced apple and sushi, and don't leave any space in the box. Because they have to travel, it can be rough ride, and all the items can be move around thus it can be pretty messy! Another thing, use different kind of color, means pretty much balanced meal. It will look pretty as well. ;)

Today, I have received a box from my mother who lives in Japan. It was a treasure! Everyone in our family got brightened. She puts some of my favorite snacks and dry food for us. I will use one of item to make boys' lunch for tomorrow, "onigiri"(rice balls) so classic for us.

My Boys' Lunch

My both sons' take their lunch to the schools most of the time. I make them the "Bento" or I usually bake breads at home so whenever it's available, I make sandwiches for them with the homemade breads.

When the school first started, I barely let them buy school lunches at the cafeteria, so they had asked me a few times that they'd like to try out some of the cafeteria lunch. The cafeteria offered all the parents to come and try their school lunches sometime in last October and it lasted entire week or so. We have visited and tried what children at the school typically eat. The experience went pretty well. The lunch itself was better than I expected, but I figure if I make both of our boys lunch everyday, it's cheaper and healther. Plus I can actually see how much they have eaten. This picture below, is the one we have tried. it was Oriental Chicken and rice.

They bought cafeteria lunch few times each month so far. Only time I don't have anything to pack in the morning. My 1st son had experienced the cafeteria lunch wasn't so good...

These are typical bento, I make.

I do use some frozen item for bento if I don't have anything else available. My boys favorites are Trader Joe's Mandarin Chicken and Pork Shumai, they both are taste pretty good even when it's not hot anymore. Yes, it is pretty important to think about how the food will taste like, at the time to eat. Usually for me, it is about 3-4hours after I pack them, so it's better to be cooked, but chilled when you packing them into the bento boxes.

I get questions often from boys teachers or moms sometimes, about what was in their lunch. It must be very strange for others....

Other than bento, usually like this... sometimes, I add a little bag of chips or a stick of yogurt with an ice pack.

So tonight, I was a bit tired to start baking own breads, and I haven't really see anything particularly boys will like to have on their bento...I asked my 1st son, "What do you like for your lunch? Cafeteria lunch or sandwich?" If he answered and said sandwich, I would have start baking a bread for tomorrow by now, but he said "I wanna mommy's food." so I asked him back, "What do you mean, mommy's food?" then he said, "obento" (with "o" in the beginning of the word, it's a polite form in Japanese, most of the time. Not all the time...) Wow! It made my day!! I was very happy to hear him saying that. :)

I searched my pantry, and I found a little package of tuna. The ones we normally use for sandwich or salad. And then, I looked up a recipe using tuna for bento and I found one, and I'm pretty sure that boys will love it. It's rolled sushi and cooked tuna in it. It must be hard to imagine, so I link this recipe with picture on it, here... Wish me luck! Because I am not a sushi professional. I am Japanese but I don't eat sushi everyday or I don't make them at home so often...

Cakes and me

As much as I like cooking, I like baking as well. I grew up eating cakes for special occasions and they were always decorated with heavy whipping cream. Not icing cream for any chance. The most of time, American cakes are too sweet for me. So I bake every occasions so that I can always make it how I like it. Thank you for my mentor who taught me how to bake it right. I have added some of my creations to my gadget. Hope everyone enjoys it. :)

How to cook TOFU-1

Tofu was something I didn't like to eat when I was growing up. It served pretty simple, especially during summer time. Excess water out of tofu ("how to excess water out of tofu" appears below), cut them as you like, garnish them with sliced green onion, graded ginger and bonito flakes(katsuo-bushi) drizzle soy-sauce over. As an adult, I can appreciate this simple dish, but as a child, it was just tasteless and not much of fun food for me. Don't get me wrong, my mother is a great cook. She has influenced me so many ways. Just this dish was not very kids friendly.

My boys, who are 5 and 7, they eat tofu just fine. However, I made this homemade chicken/tofu nuggets on the day of Super Bowl this year and they loved it!

I've been trying avoid eating at any of the fast food restaurants since I've researched on American diet as a final essay for my English class. There's so many things I'd like to point out and warn everyone still like to eat them but not this time. Anyways, kids are attracted to hamburger, chicken nuggets and fries, even though no toys attached on the meal. So at home, I tried to recreate and make it healthier version of those food items sold at fast food restaurants. I have made homemade hamburger on homemade buns with oven fries and coleslaw on the side often. However, I have noticed my 1st son, he really likes meaty, crunchy and deep fry kinda food. Of course, I look into frozen aisle but surprise to find out that how small amount really chicken is in the frozen chicken nuggets... it's almost any! I couldn't find any list of ingredients for chicken nuggets on web sources but if you happened have them in your freezer please take a look at them. They should start like "wheat gluten" and "onion flavors"... As most of us know that those list of ingredients on pre-made food package are listed by descending order, and chicken was placed on 4th or 5th on chicken nuggets! So I spent few minutes to research how to make chicken nuggets and they looked pretty easy. Here is the procedure how to make chicken nuggets at home.

1. Ground own chicken meat (breast chicken traditionally, but you can add thigh to flavor it up) on food processor/or simply use ground chicken
2. Add some flavors and glue (such as salt and pepper, onion powder and some spices as you like, and starch-I used flour, if you like you can add an egg also)
3. Shape them (I use an ice cream scooper and drop them into a bowl of flour)
4. Pat them with flour/bread crumb/dipped in batter
5. Deep fry them and eat!

I am not vegetarian and I don't think I can be one but I still like to eat healthy food. I had extra tofu in fridge when I made this chicken nuggets, so I have added about a half of tofu(water excessed) into 1 small package of chicken tenderloin on Step 1. Good things is that tofu is fully cooked food, so it reduces the cooking time if you mix into the meat, and tofu barely have much of flavor itself so usually it kind of blends into whatever you adding on to.

A few weeks ago, I didn't have enough grounded beef to make up one of meat loaf recipe, so I added tofu. I made sandwich with left overs and served to our friends, but nobody noticed it until I told them. I highly recommend using "farm" tofu when you cook. Because they have less water, easy to excess water out of it. I like to use silky tofu when I eat as is. You can taste the silkiness of soy much better.

How to excess water out of tofu?

Excess water by placing a tofu on a bowl/deep dish, and traditionally place something heavy like cutting board and wait for 20-30 min. I just let it stand for about a half hour, when I eat them.

No time to wait around for the full half hour? Try wrapping a paper towel around the tofu place it on a plate and cook it using a microwave for 1-2 minutes. But be careful, this is fast and easy but the tofu may be pretty hot to handle it.

Hope you've enjoyed my story. Can't wait share more story about my food!

Welcome

Hello everyone out there, who's interested in my blog. Before I start, I thought it will be appropriate to introduce myself. I was raised in Japan and I am Japanese, so my English is not perfect, so please bear with me.

I'm married to an American man for almost nine years and has been creating dishes that are fits us for many ways. My husband really likes Japanese cuisine, which makes much easier for me to cook everyday.

My husband is in the U.S. Navy and stationed in Sicily, Italy before, so we try to recreate Italian dishes as well. In Japan, Italian, American, and French cuisine are very popular. This will be another story.

Problem cooking here is that some of the ingredients are not easy to find in the United States. Luckily, I have a few stores I can go to and find some rare items or fresh fish; that I really like about being this area. I search for American recipes often and modified it to make it healthier and easier for me to cook, as well. So I cook Japanese, American and Italian most of the time. We like to go out to eat and our favorites are Mediterranean, Mexican and Italian so far.

When I tell my ethnicity which people usually can guess it easily, they assume that I COOK sushi at home all the time. That's probably 1st stereotype I hear a lot about being Japanese. However, in Japan, I never ever made sushi myself before till I moved in the U.S. (Yes, I learned how to make California rolls and took them to my 1st pot luck party I was invited.) The typical sushi was always take out or eat out food for a special occasion, when I was growing up. Different style of sushi, which is in plate or bowl, doesn't require to be shaped, which showing on the picture above call Tekka-don is a good example of sushi made at home.

Tekka-don is sashimi tuna on top of sushi rice. How to make sushi rice is easy, I found an authentic recipe at All About. I've purchased sashimi grade tuna at local grocery store, Harris Teeter. Have soy sauce and wasabi in a small plate or bowl ready for dipping. When you start eating this sushi, pick up one slice of sashimi tuna and dip the sashimi tuna on to the soy sauce/wasabi and then bring back to the rice bowl and scoop up one bite of the sushi rice. Finally, all the layer of yumminess (sashimi dipped with say sauce and sushi rice in all one bite) to your mouth. That's how we eat Tekka-don.

This picture from New Year's Day of this year. Our boys enjoyed it very much.

Hope you've enjoyed my story. Can't wait share more story about my food!