May 15th Lunch

May 15th,

I really wanted to eat a Japanese menu.

Maybe my stomach needed something gentle.  There's a lot of Japanese dishes that are delicious but are easy on the digestion.  Maybe the day after binging on junk food.  Also miso soup as part of your breakfast is good for mornings you have a hangover, it will help rehydrate you.

Lunch:

Tofu Salmon Stew, Cucumber Otsukemono (Pickled Cucumbers), Tamago Yaki (Japanese Style Eggs), and Miso Soup with Onions

Tofu Salmon Stew.  Very simple to make but very delicious.  The main flavoring I used was ginger which is also very good for you if you aren't at your 100%

Japanese style eggs, known in Japanese as Tamago Yaki (tamago = egg, yaki = cooked). It's basically scrambled eggs wrapped into a roll and cut into thick slices.  You see them a lot in Japanese bento.  There are two types of tamago yaki; sweet and non-sweet.  Sweet type of tamago yaki typically is plain but non-sweet type of tamago yaki can have various other ingredients mixed in with it such as fish like salmon and tuna, and veggies like carrots, daikon raddish, and sea weed.

Whether the tamago yaki is sweet or not depends on the preference of the maker, but in Sushi restaurants tamago yakis are typically sweet.

Of course, I have had tamago yaki since I was little but this is the first time I have ever made them.  The ones I made are the sweet kind, not too sweet.

My mom always made non-sweet tamago yaki for me at home with plenty of spinach.  I didn't particularly dislike spinach but it definitely made it easier to eat it.

May 12th Lunch

May 12th,

I dish I ate a lot as a kid but not as an adult: Sloppy Joes.

I loved sloppy joes and you can't really find it here so I decided to make it!

Sloppy Joe with Avocado and Egg & Carrot Oven Fries

It ended not being so sloppy as the sloppy joes I remember for my childhood but still I liked it.

May 9th Lunch

May 9th,

Oh spring, how I love thee.... If only I didn't have hay fever.

I've been watching these medical variety shows a lot lately because everyone's so health conscious.... I think I am turning into a hypochondriac.  Well, not really turn into so much as becoming more aware that I am.  I used to think I had a brain tumor when I was little because I would get migraines so often...  that's not a hypochondriac thing to think, right?

Lunch:

Mackerel Stuffed Peppers, Creamy Mashed Potatoes & Sliced Tomatoes

I used canned mackerel to make the filling for the stuffed peppers, which makes things so much easier because you never have to worry about under cooking things.  You don't need to cook it for long so that the peppers don't get too bitter.

May 7th Lunch

May 7th,

I think I'm in love with those Italian style burgers I made.  It's especially good with the garlic tomato sauce.

Cheesy Italian Style Chicken Burger with Tomato Sauce & Baked Pumpkin Chips.

Mmm... Cheesy innerds.

May 5th Lunch

May 5th,

Early this morning, we were hit with a pretty sizable earthquake.  Luckily, only 17 non-serious injuries.

Still was not happy to wake up at 5AM to an earthquake.

For lunch, I tried a new version of hamburger.

Cheesy Italian Style Chicken Burger with Tomato Sauce, Avocado Salad, Tofu Pumpkin Potage with Bread Sticks.

I mixed basil in with the ground chicken and filled the burger with melty cheese.  It's topped with a garlicky tomato sauce made with fresh tomatoes.

Mmmm~... cheesy goodness.

May 4th Lunch

May 4th,

I used the leftover negitoro to make a sort of negitoro don.

"Don" or donburi is a bowl dish where meat, veggie, or fish dishes are served on a bed of rice.

It's usually very filling.

Negitoro Don with Avocado

May 3rd Lunch

May 3rd,

They were having a sale of one of my favorite things, negitoro!

Negitoro is a tuna pate that is used in sushi.  It is usually topped with chopped scallions.

I used it to make today's lunch.

Negitoro Cups with Kabocha and Tofu Potage

I toasted gyoza skins to make cups and filled it with rice then topped it with negitoro (which I mixed with a little bit of soy sauce and wasabi paste), minced tomato and cucumber.  It was like a Japanese taco cups.  I love it!

May 1st Lunch

May 1st,

Last night, it was raining so hard I thought my apartment would be swept away!

It's lovely today though.

Lunch:

Non-Spicy Japanese Style Mapo Doufu Don

Just used ground chicken, tofu and onion.  Instead of using doubanjiang (a tangy Chinese miso that helps give it its spice) I used regular miso.