Multi-country Dish

Bottom (a lunch dish): spearfish (or black marlin?) a teriyaki style, mabo to-fu and sweet sour pickled cucumber (Chinese style), young lady's finger served raw with bonito flakes, pumpkin boiled in soy dashi with sugar

Top (my apology for poor presentation on the second photo - my stomach can't wait for dinner ;D) : stir fried Chinese cabbage, fried dumplings (or 'gyoza' in Japanese), and spaghetti with clam fried sauce, made with sake, soy sauce, salt, pepper and garlic.

A Five Minute Dish

Colorful, healthy and taste good - as long as you have the right sauce ready in the refrigerator.

The meat is pork, sliced thinly and boiled lightly as for shabu-shabu, choose organic lettuce, carrots and broccoli if you eat them raw, and have a ready made sauce for shabu shabu. My favorite are sesame sauce and Japanese lemon soy based sauce.

Auch! i forgot the rice ... now that takes at least 30 minutes! ...

Energy Breakfast - Try!

Do you know that 200 ml of fresh watermelon juice, if consumed with a teaspoon of salt and a cup of barley tea, altogether provide us with a set of minerals equivalent to that in a sport drink? This facts is based on a research by a health practitioner in Japan recently. So if you feel you want extra energy in a hot summer, please do try the above.... Well, i always go for natural stuff wherever possible.

But you are right, sports drink is available everywhere around the corner. It is probably easier just to get one.... the point is to drink enough minerals in summer time, when you tend to loose a lot of them through sweat.

Cold Breakfast In Summer

Feeling summer fatigue, no appetite, why not try this cold breakfast - cold Japanese vermicelli ('somen') with fried eggs, fish cakes and Japanese herb for toppings, Japanese pear ('nashi'), summer tangerine and for sweets, healthy jelly ('kanten anmitsu') with brown sugar sauce.

Pork Menu - Non Oil

In summer we sometimes feel fatigue because of overheat and loss of minerals through sweating. One of my favorite dish this season is pork (which is a good source of vitamin B and minerals).

Top:

Pork dipped in "honey soy ginger garlic spring onion mixture" for a few hours, then grilled, arranged with boiled soy bean (young, eda-mame), and tomatoes

Bottom:
Sliced shabu-shabu pork with a choice of sesame sauce or soy with yuzu (Japanese lemon), lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber arranged in soy sauce and umeboshi (pickled plum) and seaweed with spring onions miso soup.

Simple and non-oil menu is always best!

A Lunch Set @ Chinese Restaurant

Nowadays Japanese consumers are picky and demanding when it comes to eating out. Compared to 10 years ago, now we can find many restaurant with good quality but reasonable price. One of my favorite Chinese restaurant here is Tonshinju, a chain restaurant which has been successfully expanded its market throughout Tokyo this past few years.

They presented their dish very simple and clean, the kitchen can be seen from where customers sit, vegetables used for cooking are grown in Japan (therefore we don't have to worry about over-used pesticide as it would be the case for vegetables imported from China), the chefs are all Chinese men, but registered cooks, not illegal workers, the taste is authentically Chinese and natural for they don't use MSG or additives. Would you believe it that for these dish I paid less than 2000 Yen.

Fish Dish For Lunch & Dinner

At home, our favorite fish are:

1. salmon

2. Japanese horse mackerel

There are various ways of eating salmon in Japan, "raw" as in sashimi, salted salmon in grill, teriyaki salmon, pan fried salmon with butter and soy sauce*, smoked salmon, salmon pickled in miso paste then grilled ... and the list can go on forever :D

For mackerel, our favorite are raw mackerel and sun-dried salted mackerel for grill*.

* See photos

Vegetables like tomatoes are easy because they need no cooking and are tasty by itself. However, my favorite is to add a little extra to fresh tomatoes, so we won't get bored with the taste. Such as: by sprinkling sugar and grated sesame, or sugar, soy sauce and little sardines.

For cucumbers, we have a special miso paste used specifically for pickling vegetables. Picked vegetables are very good for health.

On the left, eggplants are cooked in dashi, soy sauce and sugar... its soft texture came from the tasty liquid which tastes sweet and rich ... both adult and children love it!

White vegetables, curled like a little rose, is pickled daikon (radish).

On the top right, vegetables used are: sweet potatoes cooked in sugar and soy sauce, potatoes cooked in dashi and baby sardines.

Theme: Easy Red and Green (continued)

Left: bonito sashimi with fresh chopped onions and English spring onions and sauce (soy, vinegar and dashi)

Top right: boiled octopus with seaweed and cucumber salad

Bottom left: a piece of 7 fruits jelly in watermelon

Wondering what can be those 7 fruits?

watermelon (seedless preferred), melon, peach, mango, apple, tangerine, grapes (seedless preferred)

Theme: Easy Red and Green

Left: squid stir fried with spring onions, red and green pepper

Right: 7 fruits jelly in watermelon

First, empty the watermelon with spoon and make a shape of a watermelon bowl.

Then, cut into pieces 7 types of fruits and put them nicely in the watermelon bowl.

Prepare jelly mixture as usual.

Believe it or not, my six year old daughter was the one in charge of this fruit jelly dish :D

Theme: Spicy and Less Oil

Top left: fried eggs with grated carrots and baby sardines served with fresh mini tomatoes, sweet pumpkins boiled in sugar and a little soy sauce,

tomato salad with sesame powder and salad of cucumber, carrot and daikon in sweet vinegar

Top right: charcoal grilled unagi with seaweed toppings (children's version: bottom right)

Bottom left: eggplants fried in miso paste with chili

These dish contain very little oil, mainly to fry eggs and eggplants (1 tablespoon each).

Today's Cooking - Theme: 10 Vegetables

Top left: Breakfast menu (peach, pickled round radish (kabu), clam and tofu miso soup, nato and chives, mushroom cooked in soy sauce on brown rice)

Top middle: fresh from the garden cucumbers, white radish (daikon), carrots and cabbage in salt and fish powder, pickled for an hour

Bottom left: potatoes and chicken cooked in soy sauce and sugar

Top right: Sweet pork ribs with parsely fresh from the garden

Bottom center: freshly picked young okra and tomatoes, served with bonito flakes and soy sauce

Bottom right: hand made bread naturally fermented yeast made from rice (I did not make the culture, but bought it at the store).

Thoughts from today's menu: I like keeping my own little garden of mini tomato, parsely and cucumbers because most of these vegetables are best eaten raw and fresh. They are not so difficult to grow as long as you have good soil, enough sunshine and a little patient with harvesting.

For those interested in any of the recipes above, please feel free to contact me. Otherwise, enjoy the photos! More coming soon! :)