Showing posts with label sushi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sushi. Show all posts

Sunday, 8 April 2012

Food Adventures: Seeing Double

Apparently our motto this week has been 'why eat something once when  you can eat it twice?'. We've been repeating meals all over the place. At the end of every tasty meal we have, John always says 'I want moreeeee'. This week we've satisfied that craving but just cooking the same meal again the next day. Well, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

We've been making smoothies repeatedly recently, because our local supermarket has had a crazy moment and starting selling strawberries at an actually affordable price. So we've been having banana, strawberry and orange juice smoothies every morning, to make us feel better about the fact that we've been eating welsh cakes or drop scones for breakfast.

For dinner, we had pizza two nights in a row.


After my successes with making pita bread, I wanted to try making pizzas in a pan. I combined a few recipes I'd found on the internet and, success!, a delicious pizza, no oven required.
To make enough for 2 of us, I..

mixed 3/4 cup of wholewheat flour, 3/4cup of plain flour, 3g of yeast, a pinch of sugar and a pinch of salt in a bowl. Add enough warm water to make it into a slightly wet dough. Knead until you get bored. Cover and leave it under your heater unit (or somewhere else warm) to rise.

When it's doubled in size, or you get hungry, split into 4 even sized balls. Leave for a few minutes. Heat a pan up on a medium heat, very lightly grease. Squish out one bit of pizza base to the thickness you want, put it in the pan and top with your choice of toppings.

We used Barbeque sauce (Made by John. When I asked him for a recipe he said "2 big squirts of ketchup, a lug of soy sauce, 1/2tsp of sugar, a slightly smaller lug of vinegar, some paprika. Taste and change to your liking"), chicken, mushrooms, pepper (all pre-cooked) and sweetcorn. John had jalapeƱos on his too. Put the cheese over the top, and put the lid on the pan. Leave until the cheese has melted. Repeat with the rest of the dough, to make 4 small pizzas.

So, so, so YUMMY! I was dubious about the dough cooking, about the bottom being too crispy, and about the toppings not being hot enough, but it really works. And was so good, we just had to make it again the second night because, um, we had to use up the rest of the ingredients. Or something.

Pizza night 2


Then, after leaving Japanese food well alone for a couple of nights, it was back with a vengence to make sushi! We haven't actually made any since we came to Japan, it's so cheap to buy that it barely seems worth it. But, having made some at a friends house earlier in the week (there'll be a blog about that at some point), I wanted to make it again with John. And it was yum. So we had that again a second day too. There's nothing like a varied diet!

Table of yumminess. Sushi fillings: crab, prawn, egg, cucumber, lettuce, mushrooms. Served with miso soup and edamame. 

I'm so proud of my tamagoyaki (the egg omlette). I made it using this recipe, and it was tasty and successful. 

Monday, 2 April 2012

Tokyo: My First Trip, Day 1

An extra couple of days off meant that we had time to go to Tokyo for the weekend. We got an overnight bus down after work on Thursday night, and another one back on Sunday night. The bus was the cheapest way to get to Tokyo and back, but not the most comfortable!! Here are some photos of the first day we were there.

Our bus arriving before 7am meant it was the perfect time to go to Tsukiji Fish Market, and have sushi for breakfast.

John and I shared one bowl of mixed sushi, and this bowl of eel. It's currently my favourite sushi topping.

Fish eyes as big as my fist. Ewww.

Massive tuna.

Moat around the Emperor's Palace

We found an early flowering Cherry Tree :D

At a shrine in Ueno Park.

Lake in Ueno Park.

So cute!

Eating Green Tea Ice Cream at Senso-ji Temple.


Senso-ji Temple...once we were done eating ice-cream we actually managed to explore!


I found the statue of Rat Boy! Read all about him on Rurousha's fantastic blog.

Thursday, 29 March 2012

Food Adventures: Supermarket Sushi

Some things make me love living in Japan. One of those things is shopping in the supermarket in the evening after work and buying lots of reduced food. Admittedly, you can do this in most countries, but in England it would mean soggy sausage rolls and squashed sandwiches. Here, it means sushi and sashimi.


Dinner for two...¥600 (£5). YUM.

PS - Today, I saw an actual real live flower. Growing outside. Spring might actually come to Sendai this year after all.

OK, so they're only buds. But we're getting closer!!

Saturday, 21 January 2012

Food Adventures: Going Japanese (or not!)

Last weekend my new friend Hiroko took me to the library in Sendai and signed me up for a library card. As well as other books, I also got a Japanese cookbook, and we set about trying to cook a dish from it. Since we've been eyeing up all the random fish in the supermarket since we got here, we decided to make simmered fish.
Do not ask me what the fish is, I have no idea! It was really tasty served with some veggies and rice.

And then I tried to make onigiri, my favourite Japanese snack. It's a rice ball (or triangle) filled with something (anything goes pretty much!). I made tuna mayo and egg ones. They were kind of successful but not very tasty :( I don't know why not. 

They looked OK but fell apart a bit when I tried to move them much :(

I got to use my cute little onigiri case though :)

And to complete a Japanese week, we went for sushi for dinner tonight with Amy and 2 Japanese girls she met. Yum.

Octopus and roe sushi. Really tasty :D

Conger eel


Yum yum yum. 

So a very Japanese week all in all...oh, except the very English lunch I made for myself the other day!

I enjoyed this a lot. Oh, and Dad and Stacey, this is just for you to prove that you won't starve when you come visit!

Saturday, 31 December 2011

Otaru Outing

On the 28th, we went on a trip to Otaru, a city near Sendai. It was really pretty and a lot of fun, but so very very cold!

Along the canal looks really European! 

There was a queue to get your photo taken from this spot, so obviously, see queue join queue!

Cool sushi! Yummiest sushi ever for lunch, there are perks to being by the sea, even if it did make it very cold!

Otaru is famous for glass making...so I made my own! Photos to follow when it's shipped to me!

I wasn't very good and the lady laughed at me a lot, but it was a lot of fun.

Anyone got 2,000,000 yen (£20,000) to spare? 

I'm a (very unattractive in this photo) fish

I have no idea why there was a gondola in this shop!

These are made of glass. Aren't they cool?

Amy and John making friends with a massive snowman outside one of the many sweet shops we went into for free samples :)

Lots of pretty stained glass everywhere

Pretty in the snow, especially while inside!


Escaping from the cold is a perfect excuse for coffee and cake

This shop sold music boxes, and is Christmas personified!

Monday, 26 December 2011

Christmas, Japan style!

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas! It's Boxing Day here (the 26th for those crazy non-Brits), and we were planning to go skiing but unfortunately the weather has decreed otherwise. So we've put that off until wednesday and we're going to have a lazy day instead!

Yesterday started off slowly...not surprising since John didn't get in until 7am! Oh well, I'll let him off since it;s his birthday as well as Christmas! Then we woke up and had presents, thanks to Mum, Terry, Stacey, Aunty Alison and John's Aunty June and Uncle John! :D
John in his new t-shirt!


We then headed out and got lunch.
This is Soup Curry, a Sapporo speciality. Most importantly, it had roast chicken, roast potatoes and roast vegetables in it. Almost a traditional Christmas Day lunch!

We then decided to make the most of all the snow and went to a park in central Sapporo. We visited a shrine, got our fortunes and prayed for good luck, and then played in the snow.
"I'm a big tree". It's a Peppy thing.

Pretty river

Walking to the shrine

Praying for good luck

Making snow angels

Ridiculous icicle

Winner of a kids Christmas tree decorating competition

After a short relax(and a skype chat with lovely lovely Stacey :D ), we headed out for tasty tasty sushi...what could be a better dinner for Christmas in Japan? Well KFC actually as that's what they eat here for Christmas (apparently due to a successful advertising campaign in the 1970's!). But we decided sushi was a better option!
The only thing better than sushi? Shinkansen sushi!

John ate crab innards. Gross.

Yes, that is burger sushi.

Yum yum yum! The whole idea of Christmas is to stuff yourself stupid, right???

We then headed to central Sapporo, and did some more highly traditional Christmas things....

Playing air hockey

Trip on a Ferris Wheel (according to Andrew on the phone "just what Baby Jesus did on the first Christmas"!). This is actually on top of a building. I'll take a photo another day!

How pretty in the snow!


We met a random girl who was dressed like this!

I'm being Japanese!!

Christmas was almost over, just one thing missing....cake!

Yummy Japanese Christmas Cake.

We had candles and sung Happy Birthday :D


A very different but very fun Christmas day!