Halloween and Garlic Pork Salad Dinner

 

 

October's main events are  my dad's birthday and Halloween!



 

I went to Breadsociety and they had cute halloween decorations, all made of bread!

 

I bought this little pumpkin guy pastry called "Trick or Treat".

Banana is stuffed inside of the pastry and the face part is made of pumpkin cream.

 

On Thursday, we had a small halloween party at work too :)

We all dressed up in costumes which are made of newspapers!- environmentally friendly costumes.

It was all so fun!

 

 

 

 

 

And this is what I ate for Friday dinner,

Salad.



A bed of lettuce, and on top of that, tomatoes, onions, garlic pork, tuna and egg.



 

I had a huge plate of pasta for lunch, so I decided to eat salad for dinner.
(Well, the salad still looks like a lot, doesn't it. Yes, I know that.)

I ate it with Japanese sesame dressing! YUM.

 

I know that sesame dressing is high in calories...

Is that why there is no calories mentioned in the bottle of my sesame dressing?

I know my other dressings like pickled plum dressing clearly states it only has 3 calories..

I wonder how high the sesame dressing calories are... :O


I'd rather not find out.

:

Buta no Shogayaki Dinner

 

 

Thursday Dinner

 

 

*Buta no Shogayaki

*Unohana

*Spinach in Japanese sauce

*Cheesy soya renkon (lotus roots)

*Okura Mis soup

 

 

 

 

Buta no Shoga yaki (ginger pork)

 

 

 

Previous post on Shoga yaki is here

 

Last time when I wrote this post, I was in Melbourne.

I couldn't buy thin sliced meat in local supermarkets and

I had to either go to Asian grocery shops or Korean supermarkets in city.

 So what I really used in the previous Shoga yaki post is not really thin sliced pork..

 

 

Compared to that, everything is so easy  in Singapore.

I can get real thin sliced meat in local supermarket!

What is more, there is a huge Japanese supermarket called Meidiya too.

 

 

Anyway, so I made ginger pork with truely thinly sliced pork this time

and you know what, IT TASTES BETTER :)

 

 

 Ginger pork Serves 1

 

Ingredients

Thinly sliced pork 150g

Onion1/2

 

Ginger one piece/block

Soya sauce 2

Mirin 2

 

 

Instructions

 

1. Slice the onion thinly. Peel the skin off from ginger, then shave it.

2. Heat up a pan with some oil. Cook the pork and onion till both change colours.

3. Add the soya sauce, mirin and ginger. Stir well and cook for a bit more.

 

 

 

 



!

Highly Recommended Japanese Movies!

 

I watched 2 Japanese movies over the weekend.

One is called Bokuno Hatsukoi Wo Kimini Sasagu/ 僕の初恋を君に捧ぐ
This movie was really good! It made me think a lot about life, love and family and life again!

I cried a lot and then couldn't sleep after that!!!!
It is highly recommended - I instantly had to email my brother and asked him to watch!
Has anyone seen this movie yet?? I just want to share this feelings with someone!

I am so tempted to watch this again!! Tonight!!!
Ah but tomorrow is monday. Better sleep early...so maybe not.
(My habit is to watch the same movies over and over again once I like it so much).


Very Sad, yet very sweet.
I loooove this movie!

The other one I watched today is called Tsurega Utsu Ni Narimashite/ツレがうつになりまして
I have been wanting to watch this movie ever since its ad came out!!
But at that time I couldn't watch it cos I was not in Japan when the movie actually came out!

Today I finally got to watch it! :)
I cried again for this movie, but this time, it was more like happy tears.
And and I loooved the lizard in the show!! So cute!!
I wanna keep one at home too!!!!!

I cried sooooo much over the weekend watching good movies that I am feeling really tired now. haha
Tomorrow is monday! Better sleep early and get good sleep!

Happy weekend :)
また一週間 がんばろー

Japanese Style Bibimbap Dinner

Saturday Dinner * Japanese style Bibimbap


 

 

Singapore is a tropical country and its weather is hot throughout the year.

But recently it rains a lot and it is not as hot as it used to be.

It is kinda cold at night too.

It is considered as "autumn" in Singapore? 

 

 

 

 

Hot miso soup and Japanese style bibimbap dinner for a rather "cold", autumn saturday

 

 

Ingredients for Bibimbap.

*Thin sliced pork cooked in Japanese BBQ sauce

*Unohana (Okara)

*Spinach

*Okura (Lady's fingers)

*White rice

 

Instead of eating this up with Korean sauce, I used Yuzu Kosho.

Both the ingredients and the sauce are Japanese style!

 

I also used Okura in the miso soup.

The combination of Okura and fried beancurd in miso soup is

what my sister taught me in Yamaguchi. I love the stickiness of okura in my miso soup! 

 

Just to enhance this autumn season in Singapore, I ate my dinner with an autumn dinner place mat!

 

 

 

 

 

Cooking Craze

 

 

Wednesday Dinner

 

Beef hamburger steak with veggies cooked in tomato soup

 

 

 

Thursday Dinner

 

Unohana /Okara with carrots and fried beancurd

Okura (lady's fingers) with Summer orange soya sauce

 

 



 

 

 

 

Chicken Karaage sandwich with Carrot bread

The carrot bread is from my new favourite bakery called Bread Society in IION Orchard!

 



 

 

Friday Dinner

 

 

Friday at 5!

 

We had some dumplings and meat buns at work :)

 

 

 

 

 

 



Taco Rice Lunch & Chicken Karaage dinner

 

*Sunday Lunch*

 

Taco Rice

 

Ingredients: Minced beef

Taco chilli powder

Salsa sauce

Cheese

Lettuce

Tomatoes

Onions

Egg

 

 

Instructions: 1. Heat up a pan with minced beef. Stir fry it with taco chilli powder.

(I found beef quite oily so I usually don't put any oil at all)

2. Cook sunny side egg.

3. Cut tomatoes, onions and lettuce in eatable sizes

4. Serve miced beef on top of rice and a bed of lettus, tomatoes and onions.

Place the egg on top. Eat with salsa sauce and some cheese.

 

 

 

 

 

*Today's Dinner*

 

 

*Chicken Karaage

*Spinach egg rolls from the day before yesterday

*Salad

*Rice

 

 

 

 

Ingredients: Chicken thigh 200g

 Soya sauce 4 table spoons

Mirin 2 table spoons

Shaved Garlic or ginger 1 tea spoon

(ginger is better if you are eating this in school or at work)

Potato starch half a cup

 

Instructions:

Marinate the chicken in soya sauce, mirin and garlic or ginger and leave it for a while.

Coat the marinated chicken with potato starch and deep fry them with good quality oil.

 

 



 

Yamaguchi Trip Day3 Last day

 

 

Last day in Yamaguchi :(

 

 

Just like yesterday, when I woke up, there was already delicious breakfast ready on the table.

 

Thank you, sinster :)

 

 Today's breakfast was Japanese style!
Okura & fried beancurd miso soup was super delicious!
I had Soumen Uri for the first time.
Soumen uri is a vegetable, which falls in the same category as cucumbers.
But when you boil it, it falls a part and becomes like soumen noodles!
It was very interesting and delicious at the same time!

We also had egg plant & garlic pickles!
We got this from the very kind house owner yesterday.

Rice was Shin mai = freshly harvested rice.
So it was so soft, sweet and round and shiny like pearls.
It was simply delicious!
 

After breakfast, we packed our stuff and head to the airport.
We had to return the car at the airport by 4pm.
and it takes more than 2 hours to get there from the house
so we didn't have much time left for sightseeing on the last day.

 

 

 Yet, we stopped by at Public Onsen on our way!

It was not as big and fancy as the one we went on the first day,

but I felt so great to take a hot bath!

 

 

 

 

After Onsen, my sister took us to "Go jyuu no tou" = 5 story tower.

 

 I've seen 5 story tower like this in Nara before,

but didn't know that there were so many of this all over Japan.

 

 

 

 

 

Uguisu bari no Ishi datami

The floor just next to this sign board has special effect.

It is called Uguisu bari /Nightingale floor.

 

If you walk, jump, clap your hands on this floor, bird like sound echoes back to you.
I have read about this in one of my favourite books called
Tales Of The Otori
So I was so excited to experience the floor.

The book is highly recommended by the way.


 



 

 

Finally at the airport, we had delicious food again!

 

Deep fried Fugu!

I ate fugu for the first time.

It was very tasty!

 

 

Breakfast+Lunch is called Brunch.

Lunch + Dinner is...??

 

Lunner!

 

It was late lunch/early dinner for us.

 



My mum had Tenpura don + Udon set

 

 



YUM!

My sister had some stewed fish and sashimi set

 

 

 



 

 

My brother and I had Kaisen don!

Sashimi Sashimi!

 



I tried Uni for the first time, but didn't really like it.

 

 

Finally,

 

Thank you so much, my sister, for showing us around!

Thank you Yamaguchi for the beautiful scenery and food!

Thank you Yamaguchi people for your hospitality!  

 

 

My family and I had a great holiday :)

 

 

- The end of my Yamaguchi travel posts-

Saba no Miso Ni dinner

 

 

 

Today's Dinner

 

 

I am half way through the Yamaguchi trip posts, yes I know that,

but here is my Today's dinner. 

 

Saba no Miso ni with lots of ginger



Spinach rolled egg

 Seaweed and tomato salad with pickled plum dressing

 

Spinach egg before slicing

HUGE



 

 

I went to Meidi-Ya, a Japanese supermarket in Singapore, today.

I hadn't been there for a while cos it is kinda far from where I live.

 

Whenever I go there, I buy a lot of things and end up carrying heavy stuff back home.

And it is really tiring when I have to walk to the station for 15 mins and take train, change lines, then walk for another 10 mins to the super market.

 

But today, I realized that there is a direct bus from my place to right outside of the supermarket!

 

It still took a while and was tiring, but it was great that I didn't have to carry heavy groceries and walk for more than 30 mins under really hot sun!

 

 

Today I bought fresh saba.

We can get frozen saba from local supermarkets

but I realized that they are very smelly and not tasty at all.

 

So Today I bought fresh ones from Meidi-ya and made Saba no Miso ni today.

 

 

I also bought veggies, okara, Japanese fish balls, chicken, etc...

I was so happy to see fresh veggies sold in small potions!

 

But then after I got home,,, I realized that asparagus I just bought from Meidi-ya today was

MOULDY!!!!!

 OMG...

 

I had just claimed that veggies in Meidi-ya were fresh

and straight after that, I found out that it was not quite true...

 

 

How upsetting!

 

After travelling a long distance and purchasing a lot of things...

what I've got was mouldy asparagus...

I am not happy at all, Meidi-ya...!!!   :(

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh well... Saba was fresh,

So I made a very tasty Saba no Miso ni.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ssaba no Miso ni recipe

 

 

Ingredients: FRESH saba 2 pieces

Mirin 3 table spoons

Soya sauce 1 table spoon

Miso 3 table spoons

Water 1 cup

Ginger 1/4 cup (after slicing it thinly)

 

 

 

 

 

*Preparation1: Cut a cross on Saba so that Saba absorbs the sauce later

2: Boil the saba lightly and get rid of the water.
(*just to note that "water 1 cup" listed under the ingredients above is not for this preparation but for the sauce we cook later on.)

 

Instructions:

 

1. Place all the ingredience in a pan except for miso.

(When you place the saba  in a pan, make sure its skin is up).

2. Once the sauce started to boil, add miso in.

3 Place an alminium foil as Otoshi buta.

(Otoshi buta=dropped lid, is a lid which directly covers the ingredients placed inside of a pan or pod.

You can google search its pictures)

 

Cook till the saba absorbs most of the miso sauce.

 

 

 



Yamaguchi trip day 2 final Akiyoshi dou

After lunch, we went to Akiyoshi dai's famous cave (a type of Sho nyu dou), called Akiyoshi dou.

It is hard to see, but the cave was huge!
There were many people visiting the cave but it was not crowded at all!

The white statue looking thing in the middle of the photo is buddha.
It looks like statue of a woman praying.
It is amazin that this human looking statue was also made by mother nature.

This rock is called "Jellyfish going up the water"
The rocks do look like jellyfish don't you think?

This is a huge long hall in the cave.
It is called "dragon's hole/exsit".
It did look like a huge dragon could go through the hole.

Walking down the stairs

Looking back the way we walked past.. lots of stairs.

The sharp things on the roof is called "umbrellas".
It looked like there were lots of umbrellas hanging from the roof.

This long rather thin rock pole is called "Daikoku bashira"
which means the most important, core part of something.
I don't think this pole is holding the rest of the cave,
but it does look like the main wood pole we use to build our house!
Daikoku bashira also means "breadwinner" in the family.

This part of the cave is called 100 plates.







After the cave, we walked back to the car park and my sister drove us back to her house.

After staying underground for a while,
outside light was too bright on my eyes!

We walked pass this old restaurant..
the sign board says Wakabaen branch...
Which means ... there is another of this kind somewhere in Yamaguchi?
It was closed today but not sure if it's just today..

On our way back, we stopped by at Hagi.

 

There were statues of famous people in the history.

 

 

 

Hagi souvenir shop!



I bought Yuzu Ponzu (the soya sauce looking yellow bottle on top)
and Natsu mikan wakame (the bottom left) from Hagi!

Yuzu ponzu is like vinegery soya sauce with Yuzu flavour.
Natsu mikan wakame is mixture of dried summer oranges and seaweed

I bought the rest (lotus roots ramen noodles & mentai mayonaise)
from the Yamaguchi airport on the last day.

This is a post box which Hagi people built long long time ago.
They have preserved it very well and they still use it today.

 After buying all the facinating souvenirs at Hagi, we head back to my sister's place.

My sis is renting a house in Yamaguchi
and the owner of the house invited us to their house for a delicious BBQ!

It was a long but full of fun, nice people, beautiful nature and delicious food day! :)


 

 



Yamaguchi Trip Day2 continues..

 

Finally, our final destination is,

 

Akiyoshidai!

 

This area is called Karst landscape.

You might have heard of it in Geography class?

It is a special landscape made by mother nature...

 

Ok I don't know how to explain so I quoted a line from wikipedia

 

"Karst topography is a geological formation shaped by the dissolution of layers of soluble bedrock, usually carbonate rock such as limestone or dolomite. "

 

Do you get it now?

No?

 

Well you can also check out Akiyoshi dai tourist website here ☆

You can choose Japanese/English/Chinese.

 

 

 

 



It might be very hard to see from those pictures, but can you see grey dots on the mountains?

Those are the karst rocks.

 





There are small, but many.

 

 

 

 

 

After stopping the car right outside of the Karst landscape and enjoying the fresh air,

we became really hungry.

So we drove further down and stopped over at this small shop where we could have lunch while over seeing the Karst landscape even closer.

 

 

 

First thing we saw at the shop was ICE CREAM!!

We had to buy one- even though it was right before lunch.

 





 

 

Here, they didn't sell Tomato soft cream,

but summer orange soft cream and pear soft cream!

We bought one of each and shared.



This one is the summer orange soft cream!

This was really amazing!

You must try this.

You won't regret it!





"Welcome to the observatory house"



Can you see a green lable on the guy in the middle?

There are 3 guys made of alminium cans and the one in the middle.

Yes?

 

Welcome is called "kan gei" in Japanese.

 

The word Kan gei is usually written like this 歓迎

But here, they wrote 缶迎 instead.

Both sounds the same but 缶 has a different meaning from 歓

缶 actually means alminium can.

The object was made of cans, so they put 缶 instead of 歓

.. YES, funny?

 

I loved the way they played jokes around this. 

 

I felt very welcomed.

 

 



Next to the can guys, there was this green headed guy.

This is a charactor to represent and promoteYamaguchi.

His name is Choruru.

His name comes from Yamaguchi direct.

In Yamaguchi direct, people end each sentense with "Choru"

and that is how he has got this name "Choruru".

 

The owner of the observatory house explained this to us :)

 

 

 

His head looks like mountains.

 

 

 

 

 

Now, time for lunch!

(In case you have forgotten, this is a food blog by the way)

 

 

 

 

 

My brother ordered Niku Udon (Udon with meat)

Katsu curry for my sis

 

 

 

 

Kitsune Udon for my mum

(Udon with very smooth fried bean curd cooked in sweet Japanese sauce)

 

 

 

 

 

Finally...

 

 

Katsu don for myself!

 

Katsu don has been my favourite food since I was small..

So I was fat in kindergarten.

 

 



ANYWAY

 

 

 When I found Katsu don in the menu, I couldn't resisit ordering it.

My sis couldn't resisit ordering katsu curry either.

But can you see that my mum and bro, the smart ones ordered Udon?

 

We knew that we were having a BBQ  for dinner so they regulated the food intake for lunch.

 

Well, later at dinner, I coudn't eat as much as they did

and I regreted my decision at lunch for a second,,,, 

but NO. Katsu don was great

and I am happy and proud that I ordered it without hesitation! haha

 

 

 

Hmm my dad couldn't join us for Yamaguchi trip this time

 cos he couldn't take leave from work :(

I wish he was there too.

I wonder what my dad would have ordered at lunch.

 

 

Well, we brought him back a lot of funny stories and photos and souveniers to share :)