Back to School

First day of school! This turned out to be a colorful dinner thanks to some leftovers from the weekend. The dish in front is niku dofu ("meat and tofu"), usually stewed with green onions, but today I also added some green beans and onions. We also had some stewed kabocha, pork-stuffed eggplant, and cherry tomatoes.

Japanese Turnip Stew

After getting some large round Japanese turnips at the Farmer's Market last weekend, I was excited to try a new recipe, since I barely ever buy turnips. The funny thing was that once I served the dish, it looked almost exactly like this pork and daikon stew that I always make. The flavor was kind of similar too, though this one had a more gentle and kind flavor, since you use much less soy sauce and much more sake. It was yummy.

My Little Green Thumb

This morning we went to the KCC Farmers' Market for the first time in weeks, and were so happy to see a new vendor selling many types of potted herbs. We decided to start our new mini herb garden with things that seemed the easiest to take care of - italian parsley and thai basil. The parsley added some nice color and flavor to our delicious shrimp, clam, and tomato pasta lunch.

Miso Soup N Things

When we first moved to Hawaii, I thought that I would never be making miso soup anymore since warm soup is not necessarily what you want to eat when you're already plenty warm. But for some reason we've been having miso soup almost every day recently. I guess I love miso soup too much to let it disappear from our lives. So tonight we had it with some pork, fried tofu and veggie stew; and a couple of days ago, with some chicken, tofu shiraae, and stewed kabocha.

Goya Champuru

Tonight's goya champuru ingredients: bitter melon, pork, tofu, egg, onions, carrots for some extra color, soy sauce, sake, and ginger for some extra flavor.

Ankake Night

Pork and vegetable ankake, miso soup, and some sweeeet mini tomatoes.

Saba Mirin

Mirin-marinated mackerel with a tofu salad and eggplant miso soup.