Salmon

An ultra simple dinner of salmon broiled with herbs (so soft), salad (so fruity), and some leftover baked purple sweet potato (so sweet!).

Clam Linguine

Tonight Chef H made his signature clam linguine - a simple but very tasty recipe with white wine and garlic - using fresh cockles (small saltwater clams) from New Zealand. Even though the dish is simple and can be made in about 10 minutes, it made us feel like we had a special dinner out. The salad with pears and oranges was also tasty!

Unagi Rice

Always a favorite recipe, tonight with lots of ground up black sesame seeds and unagi from Japan!

Iwashi Mentaiko (Sardines stuffed with pollock roe)

Iwashi is a sardine, and mentaiko is marinated pollock roe. My favorite bento place in Tokyo occasionally served this dish and I remember thinking it was such a treat! Mentaiko has a pretty strong and salty flavor on its own, but is often eaten inside of rice balls or with pasta. Sardines are tasty on their own too, but the tiny pink mentaiko stuffed inside the body make them all the more fun and tasty to eat. They were selling the iwashi already stuffed with mentaiko at Nijiya, so we just grilled them at home. The iwashi had so many little bones that after a while I just gave up on trying to take them out and ending up eating lots of them. This dinner reminded me of how much I miss my favorite bento place!

Tea Pork Tenderloin

Used this recipe again to make tea-stewed pork tenderloin - the slices came out a little chunky, but it was still yummy. Notes for next time: marinate for a day, slice the pieces thinner (after marinating), and use a lid when stewing in the tea! (When H brought this for lunch the next day, a nurse asked him, "Wow, are those brownies on top of your rice??")

Steamed Moi!

You'd think that after overstuffing ourselves with pancakes this morning, we'd have a minimal lunch, but after an exciting morning hike at the beautiful Kaiwa Ridge Trail, we came home pretty starved. Yesterday we'd found a very yummy looking "Steamed Moi Kit" at Foodland, so we gave it a try. Apparently moi used to be reserved for consumption only by male royalty in Hawaii, so it was called the "fish of kings." True to its name, the fish came out so soft and delicious! It was amazing how quickly the two of us finished off that fish. Next time, we'll try making the sauce and garnish on our own.

Tropical Pancakes

This morning, breakfast turned into a special event as we pulled out the Griddler to make tropical pancakes! We divided the batter into two bowls to make half banana-macadamia-nut-pancakes, and half blueberry-macadamia-nut-pancakes. Both were delicious when cooked in the batter, especially the blueberries which became so moist and juicy. Our pancake cravings were satisfied to the extreme - next time, we'll probably make half the amount for a very satisfying breakfast =).

V-day Lobster Dinner

Happy Valentine's Day! Tonight Chef H prepared a scrumptious lobster dinner for us - he broiled the lobster and we ate it in a simple sauce of butter, lemon, and salt and pepper. It was so tasty! It's always fun when H cooks because he uses ingredients I usually don't even think of buying. We made sure to have a nice dessert on hand tonight, too - I'd been wanting to try this green tea and azuki (red bean) roll cake from Panya, a Japanese bakery at the Ala Moana mall - was pretty tasty and a nice close to a lovely dinner.

Sukiyaki

Tonight's dinner was sukiyaki, a hot pot like dish where the ingredients are simmered in a broth of mirin, sake, soy sauce, and sugar. We used pretty standard sukiyaki ingredients: thinly sliced beef, tofu, napa cabbage, shiitake mushrooms, onions, and shirataki (yam noodles). I stuffed the pot so full of ingredients that we ended up having enough food for at least four people! A very hearty and comforting meal. I was telling H that in Japan, there is a (probably outdated) association that you eat sukiyaki on pay day, because that's when you have enough money to buy good quality meat for sukiyaki. After that H kept mentioning how happy he was to have gotten paid that day. =)

Salmon and Sweet Potato Rice

Today's highlights: Juicy salmon. Sweet and hearty satsumaimo (Japanese sweet potato) rice. Just added cut up sweet potato, along with some sake and salt, to the rice/water in the rice cooker and it came out quite nice. Today's salad experiment was lettuce with shio-kombu (a salted type of seaweed), and some sesame seeds and sesame oil. It was okay. But looking forward to trying out more shio-kombu recipes in general.

Beef Tsukudani and Bean Sprout Salad

I am getting into salads this week, hence the star treatment of salads in this meal. Along with the leftover carrot salad from yesterday, today we tried a bean sprout salad with seaweed, canned tuna, sesame oil, sesame seeds, sugar, and soy sauce. It had a nice mild sweetness to it. To satisfy our non-veggie cravings, I made a beef tsukudani to put on top of rice - tsukudani can refer to meat, seafood, or seaweed that has been simmered in soy sauce and mirin. I found this recipe on my favorite cooking site, tried and recommended by 186 people (that's a lot for this site), and it did not disappoint! It was tasty on top of rice, but also delicious as a topping for a bowl of udon noodles the next day.

Pork Daikon Stew and Carrot Salad

I've made this pork daikon stew before but tonight I added tofu too for some added volume. To add some more color to the table, I tried making this carrot salad that my mom makes often: sliced carrots, sesame oil, sesame seeds, salt and pepper, and vinegar. It was good but I think I used too much pepper and not enough salt. New rice update: bought haiga rice, which is mid-way between white and brown rice in that it still has the nutritious rice germ, but without the tough bran of brown rice. I mixed haiga and white rice in a 2:1 ratio. H and I were pleasantly surprised by the mix - it tastes almost like white rice, but is supposed to be much more nutritious, and a good source of vitamins B and E. Good thing we liked it, because we just bought a 10 lb. bag of haiga rice!

Oden and Salad with Sesame Dressing

Back to Japanese food again with oden, the stew of fish cakes, daikon, etc. that we had at Hakkei last month. My new goal is to vary up my salads a little more, so for this salad of mizuna greens and cucumbers, I made a simple sesame dressing: sesame oil, ground up sesame seeds, sugar, ponzu, and a little bit of soy sauce. Loved the scent of sesame.

Chicken Medley

Tonight's dinner was a continuation of the chicken from 2 nights ago. The menu was 1) chicken with ginger (to eat on top of rice flavored with chicken broth) and 2) ground chicken with lemon grass wrapped up in big lettuce leaves ala Thai style wraps. This was the final meal produced by H's mom and concludes our 2 week whirlwind tour of Vietnamese cuisine!

Bún bò Huế and Salad w/Shrimp Chips

Two more traditional Vietnamese dishes tonight. The first is bun bo, which literally means beef noodle soup. It's really spicy, with lots of beef, and is one of H's favorite dishes. The second dish is a shrimp salad flavored with fish sauce that you eat on top of shrimp chips. Sort of like salsa on a tortilla chip!

Rosemary Chicken and Beef Stir Fry

Today H's mom bought a whole chicken and used the first half in this dinner.
Rosemary chicken: Chicken sauteed with rosemary. The aroma of the rosemary wafting through the kitchen was so appetizing, it made my mouth water.
Beef stir fry: Mix of beef, chicken gizzards (heart, liver), tomatoes, and greens. This dish reminded me of how much I love liver. I really liked the tomatoes in the stir fry, too.
To be continued with the other half of the chicken...