Time to start cooking "osechi"

Christmas was over and it's time for many housewives in Japan to prepare to welcome the New Year. I would say not all, but many of them cook a set of traditional dishes for New Year.

We call it "osechi " which is supposed to be prepared in advance before the arrival of the new year. You may find it very interesting that each dish of "osechi" has a good reason behind its name and it somehow symbolizes good health, good fortune and prosperity.

That is the significance for us to have "osechi " during the first three days of the new year. 

And like my mother did, of all "osechi " I start by cooking "kuromame". It is slow simmered black soybeans. 

Why do we eat them on this occasion?

It's like a pun because the word "mame" means bean, but it also means dilligent."

"Mame(beans)" and "mame(diligent)" in Japanese have different written characters, but the same sound.  So people wish to be diligent and healthy throughout the year by eating "kuromame".

Cupnoodles Museum

 

Over this weekend while we were visiting Yokohama, 

I went to Cupnoodles Museum and made my only one in the world package. 

It was really fun. 

You design a cup, select your favorite soup and toppings. 

At the end , you put it into an air cushioned bag to make a special souvenir.

Everything was so cool there.

More than anything else,  I learned about ANDO Momofuku(1910-2007), 

who invented Chiken Ramen , the world's first instant ramen 

and later made  Cup Noodles which are now popular in many countries of the world.

His enthusiasm for creativity was really amazing and inspiring to me.

I liked his philosophy for a creative thinking.

I'd like to note his six key ideas about his creative process.

These are true not only to any inventors 

but also true to any one who is anxious to make his/her dream come true.

Six key ideas

1)Discover something completely new

2)Find hints in all sorts of places      

3)Nurturing an idea                       

4)Look at things from every angle    

5)Don't just go with the status quo  

6)Never give up                           

What shall I do?

This year, I enjoyed making summer tangerine peels more than I had expected. I wonder how many summer tangerines I used so far to make sugared peels.

Last year, at this time of the season, I spent more time visiting my elderly parents and my in-laws and I spent more time with them. I had hardly any time for myself. Eventually a lot of the fruit in our garden fell on the ground and spoiled. I feel guilty. I didn't want it to happen again this year. So I made a little bit of extra effort to pick the fruit when they were at their best.

I cooked many and decided to package them into little bags in a cute way. Aren't they nice?
Just looking at these home made sugared peels in cute bags made me so happy. How can I possibly spoil this sight? Now it seems to me that the idea of opening one of the bags is insane. 

Alas, I am at a loss. To eat or not to eat: that's another question. 

So what happened next ?

So,  as I described in my previous post,  after struggling with picking tangerines in the trees,  there I had the most delightful part of making use of them. Cooking!

Summer tangerine peels from our garden!

I made them twice.  And I learned that I could never have exactly the same result each time.
I followed the same recipe and I believed I did just the same as last time.

I liked the first peels better than the second ones.  They were softer. What brought this result?
That's what the cooking is fun all about.

 

My husband usually doesn't have anything sweets but surprisingly enough he likes its unique bitterness. He says it goes great with a glass of Scotch.
Very good for him.

Since I have still plenty of tangerines,  I'll try out for the third and maybe the fourth and until I feel I enjoy pretty much the seasonal blessing.

In the 7th morning of the new year

(image from Wikipedia)

Yesterday it was the 7th day of January 2012. It was the day for Japanese to have a traditional meal called　"seven-herb rice porridge." Seven days have passed since the beginning of the New Year and we've been enjoying eating and drinking quite a lot with families and friends. Now many people are back to our usual life after a long holiday. It's time to give our stomach a rest for something simple and good for digestion. So here what it is. "Seven-herb rice porridge."
Speaking of seven herb, if you ask your Japanese friends, they might not be able to name all of them. Some are not familiar to us any more. So for my own sake, here I wrote down the list below:
Seri (water dropwort, Oenanthe javanica)
Nazuna (shepherd's purse)
Gogyō (cudweed, gnaphalium affine)
Hakobera (chickweed, stellaria media)
Hotokenoza (nipplewort, lapsana apogonoides)
Suzuna (turnip)
Suzushiro (Japanese white radish)

While cooking rice porridge, I prepared all these vegetable cutting into slice or dice and just before rice porridge done, I put all of them onto rice in a pan and steamed for awhile. Done. Here you are.

I love this custom of eating this rice porridge with herbs in the 7th morning of the new year. It has been widely accepted as a good fortune as well. I learned that this custom begun way back about 1,200 years ago in the ancient aristocratic society to ward off the evils at the beginning of the year. Noways we have this meal wishing for our good health and longevity.

Yesterday I used brown rice for porridge and we had it along with several side dish to go along with plain taste of rice porridge such as "umeboshi" pickled plums, "tsukudani"fish boiled in soy sauce & sugar with ginger and other spices and other tasty local products.
Dig in before it gets cold!

Stereotyped or not?

Here are dozens of sliced rolled sushi called "makizushi" in Japanese. You may be quite familiar with sushi with a sliced piece of raw fish sitting on a top of a small piece of vinegar sensed rice as one of the typical Japanese cuisine.
Next to those sushi, this rolled sushi is very popular too. In my childhood, my mother used to make these for lunch box for a school one day trip or school sports day. So do I. It's one of typical cuisine every mother does here. This is a very popular lunch when you have some festive occasions besides school events such as family picnic at a zoo, at a park and at a cherry blossoms viewing in spring.

These rolled sushi in the pictures above were all made by a friend's husband, which is a kind of surprising for us her female friends. Aren't they nice and in fact they were SO good. This is something beyond my imagination that my husband would ever make it. Traditionally speaking, men were considered not to step into their house kitchen where women worked. We set a clear definition in terms of a man's roles and a woman's roles in a house. Along with the changes of our life style, it's not all true anymore. I see many couple especially young ones cook together or taking turns. It depends on each couple and family to share cooking, I presume. A stereo type of a man/husband is changing in many aspects.

Talking of rolled sushi then, there are two videos introducing how to make a roll sushi and an arranged one called "decoration sushi" or "art roll sushi." Be sure that both come along with music.



Enjoy the second video on how to make a carnation shushi roll.

Getting ready for the first day of 2011

The last several days before the New Year in Japan is super busy, non-stop and restless for every housewife to get prepared for the New Year's celebration. Every man, no matter what position he's in in his business world, is happy to help his wife at home, as far as I know.
Hope every one has a happy and peaceful New Year Eve tonight.

Lazy Dessert

Remember? I went to pick up strawberries at my friend's last month. I made bottles of jams and syrups out of them and there were still lots of fresh ones left -----mostly they were small. What I did was I kept them in the freezer so that we could enjoy them anytime after the season.

So just put some in a glass, pour a strawberry sauce and add mint leaves. Here you are!

Lazy Frozen Strawberries Dessert!

By the time you finish the meal, frozen strawberries are just about ready. There is no way I spoil dessert. Lazy indeed.

Good bye to Strawberry fields

I have a friend whose father has been running strawberry fields for decades. Now this season is going to be the last crop of his strawberries. He's going to retire from this business. He used to own another two strawberry vinyl houses beside this and now he's going to change this one into rice fields which is easier to take care of.
So here was our big surprise! We were invited to visit his strawberry fields and picked up as many as we could! Oh dear, it was endless and such a fun!

Blackberries in the same bowl

This year again, my husband's mother picked up a plenty of blackberries at the corner of our garden.

I took a picture for posting , but it seems that my taste of choosing a bowl is not very different every year.

This year too, I put blackberries in a glassware without considering what I used last year and look at the picture I posted last year. The same! Well then I don't have to write about my husband's mother, either.

Anyway picture wise, it may not be so exciting but fruit wise, it is so good to have something fresh from our garden every year. I made it into a blackberry sauce which goes so well with yogurt.

Cheers!

Lenorenevermore gave her readers such a great recipe for a watermelon cocktail　 in her "Americana" post.

As a matter of fact, when I read her post, I kept two watermelons in a refrigerator. (one I bought from the shop and the other my neighbor kindly brought me on the same day)

Wow, such a nice timing that I ran into Lenore's blog on a watermelon cocktail.

I wanted to make a watermelon cocktail out of simple drive that I wanted to get the space back from two large watermelons in the refrigerator. Following Lenorenevermore's recipe, I cut a watermelon into small pieces taking seeds away as many as possible then put them in freezer. Then put them into a Cuisinart to blaze and it did a beautiful job. I added lime juice, sparkling water and next I should add a shot of gin!!! I stopped. Where is it? It should be at home. Yap, I knew my husband kept "Tiny Ten" next to his "Balveney". I added a shot or two? or whatever into two glasses of ours. Done? Nope! Lenorenvermore said "add a fresh little mint". I ran to our garden to pick up some mint leaves and put it into each glass. Perfect, isn't it!

Mmm, it was tasty and refreshing. My husband was pleased to see what I brought to him.

Thank you Lenorenevermore for a great hint for my refrigerator being free from a large watermelon. I keep the rest in the freezer and I can make some more glasses of watermelon cocktail.

Lotus root chips

Enjoy lotus roots! A friend of mine gave me some fresh lotus roots and I made lotus root chips. They are very popular vegetable in Japan. You can't miss it at any grocery stores. They are sold fresh in mud or washed. I usually pick up ones in mud since they will stay fresh much longer. When I was a student in South Bend, Indiana, at a grocery store I found cannted lotus roots in slices, but its taste was terrible. They had lost a crunchy taste of its texture. There is nothing better than fresh.

The most popular way of cooking is boiled and sliced lotus roots in sweet vinegar. You see, its appearance is very decorative with many holes. From this shape, it has been said that we can prospect our future through these holes. Lotus roots are considered as one of the auspicious vegetable to eat on a happy occasion. In fact sliced lotus roots in sweet vinegar are must for the New Year dishes.

Other than this, we often boil or fry with other vegetables with soy sauce. They make good deep fried "tempura" as well. Children love this crispy "lotus root chips" so much and so do I.

Did you ever try lotus roots?

After the cherry blossoms

(click for a larger image)

The season of spring flowers are coming to the last step. The cherry blossoms are all gone now and our azalea flowers in the garden are going to fall on the ground being showered by the rain starting yesterday.

Here we have a special way to enjoy the last step of spring-----
sakura(cherry blossoms) tea!

It's not a leaf tea as you see it in a picture. We only enjoy a flavor of pickled cherry blossoms pouring hot water onto it in a tea bowl. I picked up some of blossoms from our garden and salted them for a few days, then drain and clean. After sitting them in a bit of special plum vinegar about a week, I make them dried. Well, some people may say it's just a cup of salted hot water but it is a matter of delicacy. Many people really love its cherry blossoms flavor and enjoy the last step of the season. It's certainly served in many Japanese style restaurants and inns when you sit at a table at this time of the season.

From our garden

It's the season of Chinese citrons in our garden.
We have two Chinese citron trees and every year they grow fruits.
I wrote the post on this topic last year and the year before the last as well.
It's been repeated and here is my post on Chinese citrons fruits for the year of 2009!
As I usually do (see my previous post), I picked up as many as 150 fruits!
I gave about a half of them to our neighbors.
And for the rest, I enjoy making marmalade, juice and jelly.
Making them to marmalade takes many steps peeling, slicing and cooking.

It'll take some time to make them to marmalade.
So I've decided to start from jelly this year.
Maybe I prefer jelly to marmalade since it has less sugar in it,

and, I suppose, so do the rest of my family.

Blackberries

I lived with my husband's mother who is 92 years old. She is generally in good shape and enjoys taking care of the house garden. She had quite an amount of blackberries this year. She seems to enjoy picking them up every morning and she comes back in the kitchen with a basketful of berries. Now it' my turn to make them to jam and syrup. I prefer syrup to jam. Syrup makes a cold beverage with soda or a topping for yogurt. I can use it in anyway I like. Anyway it's such a treat from our garden.

Such a treat!

A friend of mine's family rase strawberries and get them on the market every year. By the time they get ready for dressing the field for the nest planting, they have to put away all the strawberries from their field of 10 acre. Of course there are still lots of ripe berries in good shape. So he called me and some other friends of him to pick up strawberries before they were thrown away. Mmmmm, when you got inside the house, I smell strawberries. Once we start picking them, gee, there were too many and it didn't take long for us to make each box full of berries. Picking up strawberries while eating was such a happiness.

We brought home boxes of strawberries and I made my famly all suprised. I also dropped by with some small packages of strawberries at my neighboring families as a suprise. We had enough fresh berries. I also made jam and syrup out of them so that we could enjoy it for the time being.