On the other day, I heard a friend of mine complaining about something I would love. She grows vegetables in the backyard and occasionally gets too much harvest to eat. She was particularly complaining about too much cucumbers. Ahhh… come on! Here is an Asian flavoured ‘Miso Dip’ that would help her to snack a …
If you are Italian, you might say ‘this is not Italian Potato Salad!’ Well… I just created a potato salad with the ingredients that I think are Italian such as Italian herb mix and semi-dried tomatoes. This is my favourite potato salad and I like it more than My Family’s Potato Salad! Makes 4 Servings …
I love rice. Especially I love Brown Rice mixed with other grains including Wild Rice, Barley and Quinoa. It takes a long time to cook. So I recommend you to cook more than you need and freeze the leftovers. This dish is one of our heavily repeated dinner menus. My daughter made it first and …
The ‘Namul’, Korean vegetable dish, can be a great side dish which goes well with so may dishes. Many vegetables are in season now and I am making all kinds of ‘Namul ‘dishes. I particularly like this easy Broccoli ‘Namul’. Find other ‘Namul’ recipes here. Makes 4 Servings Ingredients Broccoli 1 large head *cut into …
There used to be a pizza shop near our house. An Italian family was running the shop and their pizzas were delicious. My favourite was ‘Vegetarian Pizza’ with anchovies as optional extra. This ‘Oven-baked Okonomiyaki’ has been inspired by that pizza. The shop is now owned by Chinese and their pizzas are sadly quite disappointing. …
Garlic Chives (’Nira’ in Japanese) are very hardy. They grow so well, produce plenty of seeds and spread even outside of the veggie garden. Every time my husband cuts the grass around the garden, we smell garlic! But this means we can grow them easily. In Japan, ‘Nira’ is considered a vegetable not a herb. …
Kale is easy to grow and has grown too well in my veggie garden. We can hardly keep up eating it. So I blanched a large bowlful of Kale leaves and made this ‘Ae-mono’ (Japanese style salad). ‘Goma-ae’ Sauce is usually made with Soy Sauce but I used Miso for this dish. It was a …
Watercress is one of my top 5 vegetables. I love its peppery flavour. Watercress is always brilliant for salads but this salad is different. It’s a Japanese ‘Ae-mono’ style salad. Vegetables are often quickly blanched before dressed. In that way, the pepperiness is mild and more suitable to eat with rice. Makes 4 Servings Ingredients …
‘Goma-ae’ is a kind of Japanese salad. Most commonly boiled vegetables are dressed with ‘Goma-ae’ sauce which is made of toasted sesame seeds, sugar and soy sauce. There is another type of ‘Goma-ae’ which is not sweet at all, but garlicky. If you like garlic, why don’t you try? Makes 2 Servings Ingredients Asparagus 1 …
My son was a very fussy eater. He didn’t like vegetables but he loved curry. If vegetables and curry were mixed, what would he do? If in curry, he ate anything. This curry was a perfect solution for me to clean up bits and pieces of vegetables in the fridge, plus I could make my …
‘Nimono’ is a simmered dish and it is one of the very Japanese dishes. What I cooked for dinner last night was ‘Nimono’ of Satoimo (Taro) Potato and Chicken as main ingredients with carrots and shiitake. They were simmered in dashi stock flavored with soy sauce, sugar and mirin. It is a very easy dish. …
A Korean grocery store nearby sells many ingredients very similar to Japanese ones and I can purchase dried Wakame. The dried Wakame are totally shrunk and look like thin twigs or something, but the volume increases a lot when rehydrated. You would better use small amount. My mother used to use Vegetable Oil for this …