Spicy Pork Noodles

Also Chinese, this is our second favorite. We tried it once with tofu, but it just wasn't the same.

Ingredients:

1T oil
1 clove garlic
1t ginger, minced
0.5lb pork, ground
0.25C onion, chopped
1T soy sauce
0.5C dashi
0.5C green peas
2T hot bean paste
2T hoisin sauce (or sweet bean paste)
1T sugar
1T sesame oil
soba noodles
flour

Directions:

Cook noodles (any noodles will do, but soba are healthy and tasty, just be sure to rinse them in cold water several times after they are cooked.) Heat wok and add oil. Fry garlic and ginger for 30 seconds and add pork, cook until gray. Add all seasonings, dashi, and peas. Boil and thicken with flour. Stir in sesame oil and serve over noodles.

Note: Dashi is a kind of vegetable fish broth. You can get it pre-made, in a tea bag, or as a powder you add to water.

Peanut Chicken Broccoli Stir Fry

This is our absolute favorite recipe so far, we've cooked it up many times, nearly once a week, while in Kyoto, but it is a Chinese recipe! They don't actually do stir fries, or even have woks here in Japan. It is spicy though, so be warned!

Ingredients:

2T oil
0.5C peanuts
1t chili powder
2 cloves garlic, minced
2t ginger, minced
0.5C green and / or red peppers
0.5 bunch broccoli, chopped
1T soy sauce
1T sake
1T hot bean paste
1T rice vinegar
0.5t sugar
1T sesame oil

Marinade:

1lb chicken, cubed
2t sake
2t sesame oil
1t flour

Directions:

Make marinade and let chicken sit for at least 30 minutes. Heat oil in a wok and fry peanuts stirring constantly for about a minute, set aside. Combine chicken and chili powder in wok and cook until chicken is white. Add garlic, ginger, peppers, and broccoli and fry for 1 minute. Add remaining ingredients, mix well, and reduce sauce. Add peanuts and serve over rice. Enjoy!

Cabbage Dumplings

If you get sick of those other dumplings or you don't like pork, mix it up with these!

Ingredients:

large cabbage leaves
0.25L tofu
0.25L ground chicken
1 carrot, minced
1 shitake mushroom, minced
1 egg
1T onion, chopped
1T soy
1T mirin (japanese cooking wine)

Cooking liquid:

1.5C chicken or vegetable broth
3T mirin
3T sake
1t soy sauce

Directions:

Mix ingredients. Divide and roll in cabbage leaves. Mix cooking liquid. Arrange rolls in a flat bottomed pan, add cooking liquid and bring to boil. remove scum and lower heat to medium. Cover until liquid is reduced by half. Remove rolls. Add flour to remaining liquid and use as sauce. Enjoy!

Japanese Dumplings

Ever wonder how to make pot-stickers or dim-sum? We sure did, so here's one version we've tried and liked.

Ingredients:

0.5L ground pork
1C cabbage, finely chopped
0.5C button mushrooms, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 spring onion, chopped
2T soy sauce
1T brown sugar
1t sesame oil
1 pack dumpling doughs

Directions:

Combine cabbage, mushrooms, onions, pork, and garlic. Add soy, sesame, sugar, and salt + pepper to taste. Mix. Add 1t of mix to center of dough, wipe edge with water (or egg) and close. Repeat until all ingredients are used up. Heat a pan and add 2T oil. Carefully add dumplings. Fry till brown, I like to fry them on each side, but this is not necessary. Remove pan from heat and add water until it comes halfway up the sides of the dumplings, return to heat and boil until water is gone. Enjoy!

What is that great garlicy, oniony, soy sauce that usually comes with pot-stickers or scallion pancake? Well, its about a half cup of soy sauce mixed with one glove of minced garlic and one chopped green onion...

Spinach with Mustard Sauce

A nice side, doesn't taste particularly Japanese to me, but hey, what to I know.

Ingredients:

0.5 bunch spinach
1 abura-age
2t mustard
1.5T soy sauce
1t sugar

Directions:

Boil a pot of water with a pinch of salt. Add a hand-full of spinach, when the water begins to boil again remove spinach and plunge it into a bowl of cold water. Repeat until all uncooked spinach is cooked. I find it helpful to hold a bunch of leaves by the stems and dip them in the boiling hot water and continuing holding them while the water heats up again, this way I don't have to fish the cooked leaves out of turbulent water. Gather all the spinach leaves, squeeze out excess water, and cut into 1.5" long pieces. Toast the abura-age, yes it can go in a toaster or toaster oven, and cut into thin strips. Mix the mustard, sugar, and soy to make a sauce. Combine spinach, tofu and sauce, mix well, serve, and enjoy!

Scambled Tofu

This is a great quick meal. Good with noodles, rice, or toast. Serves two people well, breakfast, lunch or dinner!

Ingredients:

2T oil
1 carrot, strips
1 green pepper, strips
1 hand-full snow peas
2 mushrooms, chopped
1 sheet abura-age (thin fried tofu), strips
0.5 cake tofu
3T soy sauce
0.5t salt
2T sake
1 egg, beat

Directions:

Heat oil in pan and saute carrot, pepper, peas, mushrooms, and abura-age for 5 minutes on medium heat. Add tofu, crushing with spatula and saute a further 3-4 minutes until tofu is crumbly and moist. Add remaining ingredients and cook 2-3 more minutes, tofu should remain moist. Egg is optional, but I find it helps hold everything together in a nice way.

A note about cooking with tofu: It is a great help to properly drain the tofu before cooking it. To do this open the tofu package, discard the liquid and place tofu on a cutting board that slopes slightly into the sink, perhaps by sticking a spoon under the non sink side of the board. Place another light cutting board or small plate on top of the tofu and let sit for at least 30 minutes. The weight squeezes out excess juice in the tofu and it drains into the sink. Otherwise all that extra juice will end up in the pan while cooking the tofu, diluting the sauce, and making a watery, rather than dry, dish.

Vegetarian Gravy

Why eat mashed potatoes plain when you could have onion gravy?

Ingredients:

2T butter / oil
2T whole wheat flour
1C veggie stock (or water from boiling potatoes)
1 onion, diced
1T soy sauce
1 clove garlic, minced
salt + pepper

Directions:

Cook flour in butter / oil until brown, boil stock at the same time. Remove both from heat and add stock to flour, stir briskly and return to low heat. Fry onion. Add to gravy with garlic and soy. Before serving add a drop of sesame oil. Enjoy!

Matthew's Wild Mountain Apple Muffins

Those of you whom I have been fortunate enough to talk to while I've been away know how much this experience is affecting my outlook on food and cooking. I'm obsessed! It has been so great learning new recipes and trying local food; I've really been trying to broaden my horizon. So before I leave Japan I thought I'd try to post up a few recipes that Alison and I particularly like and have modified slightly to our own tastes.

Our shed in Wild Mountains had many cookbooks, and after the builder's party we had literally dozens of eggs and apples, so I tried my hand at these apple muffins. They were so good! And everyone liked them, so it became a tradition that I'd make a new batch as soon as the last one was gone.

Ingredients:

1C honey
1C oil
4 eggs

2.5C whole wheat flour
3t baking powder
0.5t salt
1t allspice
1t cinnamon
1t nutmeg
0.5C powdered milk

3 apples, shredded
1t vanilla
1C chopped nuts and / or raisins

Directions:

Mix wet stuff, mix dry stuff, combine lightly. Fold in fruit, nuts, and vanilla. Put in oiled and floured muffin tins and bake at 400 for 12 -15 minutes. Enjoy!

Our Green Diet in Review

For the past week or two we've stopped our green diet and have been eating Japanese food we cook and a lot of cheap junk food. We still drink our wheat grass twice a day to maintain some alkalines in our bodies, though. I amazed to say there is a noticeable difference. It was hard to tell if we had more energy, better sleep, etc. when we started the diet because we had been eating pretty well at Wild Mountains anyway, and certainly no junk food. But now, with significantly less green vegis it is all coming back to us. We're more tired in the mornings, run out of energy in the evenings, are breaking out, and I'm having trouble sleeping. Could it be something else I'm not thinking of? Sure, but our diet seems to be the biggest thing to change in the past two weeks. Back to eating one dollar Fuji apples...



We went to another market the other day at a shrine; it was a lot of fun. It was about half the size of the first market we went to and much less crowded, which was nice, and many of the vendors appeared at both. The shrine was interesting too, there were so many of these little stone shinto kami houses! This one happened to be behind a flowering tree that smelled like sugar! We got to the market rather late, around four, and I decided to get some jeweled rice balls steamed in lotus leaves. They were Y100 each, but since it was late, or maybe because we're foreign, she gave us each two, so nice.

やさかーじんじゃ

In keeping with our new diet we've been trying to get healthy fresh produce. Now, you wouldn't normally think this would be a problem when there's a city vegetable farm every three blocks or so, but apparently every grocery store in 京都 (Kyoto) is closed from Jan.1 to Jan. 3. So we've had to really on 7/11 cup-o-noodle miso soups. Sad. Since everything's closed we decided to go to the one place that would surely be open, やさかーじんじゃ　(yaska-jinja) shrine. Everyone goes here for はつーもうど　(hatsu-mode), the first shrine visit of the year. You're supposed to buy a little piece of paper with your horoscope on it and tie it to a tree to bring good luck. Or at least that's what I gathered from what we saw happening. You could also buy a wooden plaque and write things on it, resolutions or wishes lets say, and hang that up too. It's very strange being in a crowded place where everyone has an extreme sense of purpose for being there, but you are really unsure about what that reason is, and can't communicate to find out either.