Recently Consumed

Just some odd and ends from the last couple of weeks.

After having the “special” hot pot rice at Eastern Dynasty; the Missus became certain that we could do better at home. So guess what we’ve been having weekly these days?

Along with the usual; lup cheong and stuff, we’ve been using left over roast duck from our visits to Eastern Dynasty, Hong Kong Kitchen, and other places, along with more importantly the duck drippings. Duck fat is used to coat the nabe to help build a nice crust. And a 3:1 soy sauce to dark soy sauce mixture to help flavor.

The Missus has been into gardening this year. I’m waiting until warmer weather to start growing peppers again and maybe evening making some hot sauce again! Meanwhile, as you might have noticed, I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with some of the items the Missus is growing, like the Keru Kurogomae. We’ve had a good amount of chard, which is great for my Pesto Chard dish. But the stems were huge and even though I use stems in that recipe….I developed it to actually use stems, there was just too much. So, I decided to do some pickling; which turned out quite well.

The Missus also enjoys the onions I have in the pickle as well.

And then I decided to pickled some okra….which was quite good as well.

This one uses dried dill, which was a first for me.

These come in handy when the Missus says She wants something, ahem, “easy and light” for dinner on one of our warmer evenings….

The Missus always seems to get “sucked in” when She goes shopping with me at Nijiya or Tokyo Central. For instance; She saw this Hokkaido Mushroom Curry and just had to try it.

So, of course I had to go ahead and make Chicken Katsu, etc…..

Sadly; it was really bland, and quite thin, almost watery……

Well nothing ventured, nothing gained….or something like that!

Hope everyone has a great weekend now that the rain has passed!