Weekday Dinner

Hi, this is KK, Sushi Artist / Healthy Muffin Maker / Mum 🙂

Thank you for visiting my blog.

 

It’s been a while since I last introduced our family dinner, and thought I’d share a recipe or two.

 

Tonight was simple as usual, the Menu was (starting from the top)

-Spinach in sesame dressing

-Eggplant and onion in miso paste

-Pan fried chicken with plum flavor

-Koya-Tofu (dried tofu cooked in Japanese broth)

-Miso soup

-Hijiki rice

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Very simple, easy to cook with lots of veggies.

 

At the moment, Yumi is really into Hijiki Rice, and will eat 2 bowls! I try to make a lot of it and keep stock in the fridge for emergencies.

 

Here is the recipe

Hijiki Rice

-2 cups rice (Japanese standard = 360cc)

-10g Hijiki (it is a type of seaweed)

-2 Tablespoon dried anchovies (you can use canned tuna in water)

-2 Chikuwa (Japanese fish cake)

-2 Deep fried bean curd, (pour cupful of boiling water over it to remove excess oil)

-1/2 carrot

-2 1/2 cup liquid (including 2 Tablespoon soy sauce, 2 Tablespoon mirin)

 

Method

Step 1: Soak Hijiki in water for 15min, wash rice under running water, drain and soak in clean water for at least 30min.

Step 2: Chop chikuwa, bean curd and carrot into small pieces

Step 3: Drain rice, place in a thick pot (I use Le Creuset), place chopped ingredients, hijiki, anchovies and pour liquid; Cook on high heat for 8 min, then on small heat (VERY SMALL) for 12 min, wait 10 min and remove lid.

 

Enjoy it hot or in OMUSUBI style!

 

Greens! With sweet&sour sauce

Hi this is KK, Sushi Artist / Healthy Muffin Maker / Mum 🙂

Thank you for visiting  my blog.

As I mentioned before, we are supposed to eat 350g of vegetables a day. When you weigh this, it’s quite a lot, and eating this as a salad can be quite difficult, unless you really love fresh veggies. Also, if you are on a diet, salad is not the best option for 2 reasons. One, the dressing can be high in calories, so you have to eat it with salt & pepper & lemon juice, which can be boring after some time. The second reason is fresh vegetables tend to “cool” your body, and if you want to lose weight, you should be “warm”ing your body, so rather than eat raw vegetables, it is recommended to eat cooked (steamed or grilled without oil) vegetables.

So, my saga continues to eat yummy cooked vegetables, and here is a new flavor that you can try.

You can use any vegetables with this sauce, I made the sauce in double batch, and used it the day after with red capsicum, mushroom, onion and tofu! It was also yum,yum, my daughter ate all the tofu,,, Hope you can find your best combination!

Ingredients for 2

-1 Onion

-1 Green Capsicum

-1 Bak choy

-1 bunch Garlic chive

-2 Free range Eggs

-Sesame oil for cooking

Sauce

-200ml Water

-2 Tablespoon Soy sauce

-3 Tablespoon Mirin

-1 Tablespoon Oyster sauce

– Ginger(about 1/2 your thumb size)

-1/2 Tablespoon vinegar

-1 Tablespoon potato starch mixed with 1 Tablespoon water

Method

Step 1: Chop all your vegetable into strips, garlic chives can be cut into 5cm lengths; beat eggs in a bowl

Step 2: Heat sesame oil in a frying pan, cook eggs until they are half cooked, take them out on a plate and cook vegetables in the same pan; in a different saucepan cook the ingredients of sauce EXCEPT ginger, vinegar and potato starch (this is to be added at the end)

Step 3: When the sauce comes to boil and the veggies are cooked, add ginger, vinegar and potato starch to the sauce, make it thick; add eggs to veggies, finally mix the sauce with veggies and serve

All this process is done in less than 10min, so be quick :-)! You can make the sauce separately beforehand and mix it with any veggies that you like. There are so many combinations to choose from, just take what’s left in your fridge!

Handy Chicken Mince

Hi this is KK, Sushi Artist/ Healthy Muffin Maker / Mum 🙂

Thank you for visiting my blog.

Here is another recipe that you can prepare in your spare time, and use it in different ways! With this recipe and my Handy Salmon Flake recipe,   it makes dinner preparation much easier!

 

Ingredients (I usually split my chicken mince pack, freeze half and cook half amount at a time)

-250g Free range Chicken mince

-2 Tablespoon Organic Raw sugar

-1 1/2 Tablespoon Mirin

-1 1/2 Tablespoon Sake (cooking rice wine)

-4 Tablespoon Soy sauce

Method

Step 1: Mix all ingredients in a bowl, make sure that the lumps from meat doesn’t exist and is mixed well with the seasoning

Step 2: Put everything in a non stick frying pan and cook on low to medium heat; during this process, liquid will come out from the meat but keep on cooking, breaking up the lumps as you cook. Similar to cooking scrambled eggs, using spatula.

Step 3: Cook until most of the liquid is gone, you can serve this hot or cold.

I would like to introduce the variation using this mince, but in Japan, we usually eat it with rice. It is called “Soboro-gohan” and a popular dish for take away lunches. My 18 months old daughter love this, as I wrap it with rice in nori seaweed.

In that sense, you can use it in sushi, mixed seasoned rice (Maze-gohan), with noodles, with veggies, the possibilities are endless, and a big help to add one extra dish on the table. ENJOY!!

Butternut pumpkin miso soup