Bare minimum requirement

Hitsuyou saiteigen



The week's make-ahead is six dishes, and one of them is steamed broccoli...I also have my usual soy eggs and shredded carrot salad. The one on the bottom left is ground pork with ginger and mushrooms stir fried in sesame oil and soy sauce. I could add a little broth and tofu to it, or maybe put it on toast with cheese for a quick breakfast sandwich.

My mom has the flu. She didn't want to go to the doctor's, which I get and would have respected if I hadn't been so sure it was the flu and I was afraid of my dad getting it. Managed to convince her let me take her to the local clinic open Saturday afternoons and have the test done and get the Relenza inhaler. The pharmacist was super nice and counseled her on how to do it and asked if she wanted to do it right there, and she did. The whole process took about an hour and a half at the local clinic and pharmacy. Mom paid 20%.

You can pry universal health care from my cold, dead fingers.

Being lazy

Namakeru

I have come to realize that if I don't set goals on what I want to get done for the weekend, I will do nothing beyond the minimum requirement and check blogs and social media.

The minimum requirements for weekends are:

Meal prep (3 times a day x2, unless we eat out, which we're trying to avoid, which is another post for another day)
Clothing maintenance (the Pumpkin Daddy does all the laundry, but I hand wash my bras and, depending on the time of month, cloth panty liners. I also de-pill and, if needed, steam press my sweaters.)
Makeup maintenance (washing makeup brushes, taking inventory, trimming/ tweezing eyebrows)

...which is probably a lot less than most people who have kids are responsible for on weekends.

So, I've taken to setting goals on weekends that don't have actual scheduled activities. Last weekend, I decided I would prep 5 dishes for weekday breakfasts/ lunches and sew something for Tiny Vader. I made 4 vegetable dishes and 1 meat dish, and that with rice or toast was everyone's breakfast, and my lunch for the week. I made Tiny Vader a sweatshirt gray hoodie (I'd already made him a sweater, but the Pumpkin Princess said that Vader was probably more a hoodie person than a sweater person), but then I realized it looked wrong unless he wore a T-shirt underneath, which he didn't have.

This weekend, I also prepped food. Behold, the Instagrammable enamel and glass containers on a white countertop, with filter...

...and Tiny Vader got his T-shirt. So it was a really good weekend!

Except for the notable lack of physical activity...

The first day

Shonichi

So this morning I took the Pumpkin Princess shopping, and bought groceries while I was at it. For lunch, I whipped up fried noodles with leftover meat and veggies.

I started pressure cooker chicken broth with two chicken carcasses, the green part of onions, celery leaves, and shiitake stems. I let it cook 40 minutes under low pressure, and left it to cool.

While it was cooking, I made pickled ginger. I chopped fresh ginger into matchsticks, 

salted it (about 5% salt per weight) and put it in a sterile jar full of rice vinegar.

The pinkish color isn't the lighting. It really turns pink when you put it in vinegar (think of the pickled ginger slices they serve you with sushi!).

After I turned the heat off the pressure cooker chicken broth, I headed alone to the craft shop (thank you, Pumpkin Daddy). I wanted to buy thread for my pants alterations, and ribbon for the hat and the shirtdress.

 I’d checked my thread swatches for the color numbers of the thread I needed for the pants alterations, and I headed to the craft shop all proud of myself...

This could be the only place on the Internet you will find this information in English. Tokay, a big craft store chain in Japan, carries Shappe Spun sewing thread by Fujix (most common sewing thread in Japan), but it’s an exclusive line unique to Tokay alone that has different color numbers from the thread in other stores. The usual Shappe Spun color numbers are useless.

I thought about going home and bringing the thread swatches to the store to find the best matching thread, but that would be an extra degree of separation from the correct color. I couldn’t bring the pants themselves because they were in the wash. So, no thread.

I was totally ready to shell out for nice grosgrain ribbon like from Mokuba, but all they had was the moderate grade stuff. At least it was 100% cotton. So I bought the ribbon (wide for the hat and narrow for the belt) and left the store.

I felt unfulfilled because of this thread number and non-high brand ribbon snafu, so I headed to Daiso and got 100 yen (+ tax) acrylic paint in dark brown, ochre, and black. I also got dish sponges to use for seat cushions for the sofa (any left over can be used as...dish sponges!)

I came home, and after a cup of coffee, picked the meat off the chicken carcasses and got this much meat for later use. This container is 600 mL.

I also put some of the chicken broth in the same sized container and put it away in the fridge marking it “soup" in two languages. (We don’t want any intra-fridge accidents).

Dinner was boiled potatoes; fried pumpkin slices; not-stuffed cabbage (same ingredients as stuffed cabbage but with chopped cabbage and the ground beef and onions loose in the pot); bean sprout, scallions, and chia soup (with the chicken broth); and plain white rice.

So, I'm prepared to get at least something on the list crossed off tomorrow or the day after. Not bad!

Proper and traditional

Seitouha

In Japan, New Year decorations are traditionally burned in a ritual bonfire. It’s called Dondoyaki. Burning is a sign of respect, because smoke goes to the heavens. 

The smoke is supposed to have cleansing and protective properties, so you cook food over the flames 

when the fire has settled.

(I've written about Dondoyaki before.)

Cooking mochi (rice cakes) here is traditional. Cooking dried squid here is traditional. Cooking marshmallows here is NOT traditional. 

Cooking marshmallows isn’t traditional, period, but we’ve done it here the past couple of years because marshmallows are easier to stab on the tree branches.

So of course if we roast marshmallows, we must have s’mores. But to have s’mores, we must have graham crackers. And they are hard to come by in backwoods Japan. I expect they are available in upscale grocery stores near the US Embassy in Tokyo. I found them on Amazon, but they were 5,680 yen (plus 500 yen for shipping) for four boxes.

We made do with thin cookies I got from the local grocery store. Add chocolate and freshly toasted marshmallows, and you can’t go wrong…

but it wasn’t the same.

The Pumpkin Princess and I gave them out to anyone who looked interested, including her friends from school and their grandparents. Most people loved them. But I still felt like someone who was serving pizza with mayonnaise or sushi with soggy rice. This was their first encounter with s'mores, and I wanted it to be right for them. 

Does this make me one of these people?

Boxed lunch

Obento

I make lunch once a year, for the annual Pumpkin Daycare field trip to the Safari Park. I spent the week pondering how I would do this, and got up this morning half an hour earlier than usual to make these.

For the Pumpkin Princess, Sugar Bunnies. She voiced her approval during a sneak preview before breakfast.

For the Pumpkin Prince, Anpanman

The faces are egg, ham, and a carrot slice. For the eyes/ eyebrows/ noses/ mouths, I used special punches to cut nori (dried seaweed sheets).

The egg was a little dry, which meant that nori did not stick to it as well as it did to rice or ham. The Pumpkin Princess burst out laughing when she opened her box at lunchtime because the nose and mouth of the rabbit were stuck to the top...

The grownups just got everything tossed into 3 tupperwares :P

Skimming off

Pin-hane

or, how to make good curry, caramelized onions, and an ice cube tray's worth of chicken stock in a single session.

Caramelize 3 thinly sliced onions.


Spoon about half into ziplock bag and freeze.

Add carrots and chicken, and sautee until chicken is slightly browned on the surface. Add chopped potatos. Add water. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 20 minutes or until potatos are cooked throughly.



Skim off about 1 cup worth of the resulting soup and pour into an ice cube tray to freeze. Add House Vermont Mild Curry.

Enjoy curry. Break off frozen pieces of caramelized onion when needed for soups and such. Use soup cube when a recipe calls for a very small amount of broth, or pop a soup cube in rice cereal or oatmeal for baby food with added flavor fit for a Pumpkin Prince (or your own favorite baby).

Wednesday's dinner

Suiyoubi no gohan



Spaghetti with a Bolognaise sauce I'd made 2 weeks ago from tomatoes from our garden, and frozen in an enamel container (about 80% of my containers are either Pyrex or enamel. The food can be as greasy and saucy as it likes :). Corn chowder, made from canned corn, bacon I'd cut up and frozen a month ago, onions chopped and cooked until translucent and frozen 3 weeks ago, milk, and a roux cube (again, roux cooked in bulk and frozen in an ice cube tray. I know one ice cube is about 1 tablespoon, so one cube is enough to thicken 2 cups into chowder). Toss everything into pot at once, and whisk with wire whisk (while poking at the pot the spaghetti is boiling in with the other hand :P)

Salad and frittered sweet potatoes compliments of Pumpkin Granny :) but I think it would still be a decent dinner even if the salad weren't as nice (bean sprouts, cucumbers, marinated onions, and celery) and the sweet potatoes weren't there.

That's another way to do it.

Sou iu yarikata mo aru.

There was an alternative recipe for curry in my geeky cooking book, so I tried it yesterday.

The basic premise is that you use half the prepackaged curry squares you would usually use in the same amount of water, and use lots and lots of caramelized onions as the substitute thickening agent.

This is the curry base that we use in the Pumpkin Palace, simply because it is the least spicy one I can always find in the local supermarket.



You start by stir frying a couple cloves of garlic and red pepper in oil until the garlic is golden brown. If you're using half the package of curry base (that is, you want as much curry as you would if you were using the entire box), you should use three or four cloves. I wanted half a package worth, so I did two cloves of garlic, and I also skipped the red peppers for the Pumpkin Princess's sake.

Then, to the garlic, you add thinly sliced onions. Lots. There's about 300 grams (2/3 pounds) of onions in the pan.



Sautee over high heat until caramelized. Then, deglaze the pan with the usual amount of water as instructed on your box of curry base.

Add thinly sliced carrots, and bring to a boil. Simmer for about five minutes. Let cool to a temperature that won't melt your blender (for me, this involved leaving it on the stove while I left to pick up the Pumpkin Princess from day care), and blend until you have a smooth puree.

Pour back into pan, add potatos cut in the usual bite size pieces, and cook until the potatos are soft. When the potatos are well cooked, add sugar, butter, and salt to taste.



You may have noticed there is no meat in this curry. You're supposed add something like pork cutlets or pork stir fry (I did unfrittered cutlets).

The taste was, well, different. It tasted less like curry and more like a stew. My family liked it, and I'll be cooking this again, but only when I have the time. The usual method of following the package instructions but using chicken stock is far easier.

Alternative curry recipe (makes equivalent of 1 package of curry base)

3 or 4 cloves garlic
4 dried red peppers (seeds removed) (optional)
2 T cooking oil
600 grams (1 1/3 lbs) onions, thinly sliced
1 large carrot
as much water as the instructions tell you to use for your package of curry base
2 large potatoes
2 T butter
2 t sugar
1/2 package curry base
2 t salt

Cook garlic and red peppers in oil in a large frying pan or pot until garlic is golden brown. Add onions and sautee over high heat until caramelized. Remove red peppers, saving them for later. Add carrots, deglaze pan with water, and simmer for 5 minutes, then cool. Process in blender in batches until completely smooth. Pour back into pan, add potatoes and cook until tender. Turn off heat, add butter, sugar, salt and curry base, and mix well until the curry base is evenly melted into the curry. Put red peppers back in mixture. Serve with rice and whatever meat you have.