Edible Toy

During the Christmas Holiday,  I had fun with making cute fancy food. When I have plenty of time in my off day, I often draw a picture of the dish I wanted to make, then I make the dish. Cooking food is just like playing with lego blocks for me. Yes, it is my edible legos =) 

This is a dish I made last year. I found this cute Japanese snack called "Cheeza".

then I got an idea of using this snacks to make a Caprese dish =) 

Here is another example of my edible toy. Just by using heart pasta, it will make a dish x100 cuter!!!

This is a Japanese style food art. 

In this lunch plate, I used the bicycle Pasta!! I love collecting cute pasta now =)

Enjoy your food with your eyes before tasting it!!

Enjoy your day =)  

Chicken Mayo

I had Spicy Chicken Mayo last week. Do you know Ebi Mayo? It is one of the famous Izakaya food in Vancouver. Ebimayo literary means Shrimp/Prawn Mayo. It is fried shrimp/prawn marinated in spicy mayo sauce. I used chicken instead of shrimps because it is so much cheaper and easier to cook. This is one of a cheap and good recipe =)

Spicy Chicken Mayo

Ingredients: Chicken                     100-200g

                 Corn starch or Flour          1 cup

                 (add Baking powder 1/2 tea spoon in the starch)

                 Salt and Pepper               a pinch

                 Lettuce 

　　     ☆Mayo             3-4 table spoon

                 Ketchup           2 table spoon 

                 Whipping cream or milk         1 tea spoon

                 Sriracha chili sauce          1/2 tea spoon or less

 ※ Don't need to add chili sauce if you don't like it spicy, or cooking for children. Add lemon juice instead

Cut chicken and add salt, pepper, and flour mix

Mix ☆ingredients well

Pan-fry chicken with a bit more oil than usual 

Mix with the chili mayo sauce

I really like the spicy food!!

You will be addicted to this recipe if you like spicy food =)

Miso Pasta

One of my original wafu pasta is Negi Miso Butter Pasta. It is very different from other pasta!! Cheap, simple, and easy recipe for everyone so I hope you will like my recipe =)

Negi Miso Butter Pasta

Ingredients ( 2 servings): Pasta for two

                                     Negi (Green onion)    a half 

                                     Sliced pork/ chicken     100g 

                    ☆  Butter             1 table spoon

                          Miso               1 table spoon 

                          grated Ginger    a bit

                          (do not add ginger if you don't like the strong taste) 

                          Honey           1/2 tea spoon

                          (you can use sugar instead)

                          Mirin             1 table spoon

                          Sake                 1 tea spoon

                          Shichimi for condiments

Add all the ☆ingredients in a small bowl, and microwave for 20 sec

Mix them well.

Stir fry the green onion and pork

Add boiled pasta, and seasoning mix

Add on Shichimi if you like it spicy =)

Enjoy my recipe!! 

Love Pasta

I love Pasta!! The dish is Fast, Easy, and Tasty as well. I like to create my own Wafu Pasta  ("Wafu" = Japanese Style). Here are some pictures of my Italian and Wafu Pasta that I made last month.  All of my pasta dishes are cheap, simple, and tasty =)  

Bacon and Asparagus soy sauce based pasta topped with Shiso and Oroshi Daikon (=grated Daikon)

Salmon and mushroom pasta with rose sauce

Meat sauce pasta with a pouched egg

Creamy Morel mushroom pasta

Bacon and Shimeji soy sauce based pasta

Mentaiko cream pasta topped with Okra and Shiso

Mentaiko Pasta is one of a famous wafu pasta in Japan =)
I'll post some of my wafu pasta recipe soon!!

3 Steps Cooking

I had a wonderful week last week because my friends from Montreal were visiting Vancouver! We had a reunion dinner at Gyukaku Japanese BBQ restaurant. Gyukaku is a famous BBQ franchised restaurant in Japan. They sell many kinds of meat and other tapas food with reasonable price, and you can grill them by yourself at your table. My best friend Mark really liked one of the tapas food called "Shio Cabbage" meaning salt cabbage, and he asked me for the recipe. So I'm gonna post my original Shio Cabbage recipe which is similar to the one at Gyukaku.

Umami Shio Cabbage

 Ingredients: Cabbage      1/4 tea spoon

                  Salt              1/4 tea spoon or More

                  Grated Garlic         1/3 tea spoon 

                    (I used Garlice tube. You can use Garlic powder instead)

                  Kobucha (Kelp tea)       1/3 tea spoon

                    (you can use Chicken Powder instead)

                  Sesame Oil       2 table spoon 

                  Black Pepper        a pinch 

*Add Lemon juice if you feel the dish is too oily or salty

 This is the Chicken powder I use. You can find it at T&T, H-mart, and other Asian store.

First, Cut off and remove the core from the Cabbage. I often use the core part for coleslaw later.  

Cut the 1/4 of Cabbage like picture above, wash and dry with kitchen paper.  

Mix all the ingredients in a small bowl, and add it to the cabbage. Mix well with cabbage with your hand.

It goes well with beer and sake, or you can have it as a salad as well.

Enjoy my recipe=)

Sauce Bechamel

We had beautiful weather in Vancouver for couple days!! yet because of the weather, wind was icy cold =( So I made Porcini Gratin for my supper. I seriously love the Porcini Mushroom because it is flavorful and matches perfectly with cream sauce! 

Ingredients (2 serving) : Milk 250ml

                    Flour about 20g

                    Salt less butter 25g

                    Salt 1pinch

                    Nutmeg 1/2 tea spoon

Slowly mix the butter and flour until they become paste, and mix well until the bubbles come out from the paste

Slowly add Warm milk little by little 

I add Nutmeg to my Bechamel because it brights up the creamy taste 

When I made the Porcini Gratin, I added Dried porcini and the accompanied water at the end

NO to the winter weather!!

YES to the winter food =) 

Healthy and Cheap

My herbs hate cold winter in Vancouver as I do, so I made green houses with cardboard and bubble wrap to keep them warm!  Hopefully I can find a real mini green house for my Veggies next year =) 

Shiso leaves are happy even its snowing outside! Awesome =)

Recently I'm cooking healthy diet recipes for my boyfriend because he is becoming baby piggy!! I recommend you to try this recipe even you are not on diet, because it is healthy and cheap, AND actually taste pretty good! 

Here is Japanese instant soup powder that I use when I'm lazy to make broth. One on the Left is Ramen Soup powder which I use for my healthy noodle recipe. Right one is the Udon soup powder, and I often use for a normal udon cooking. You can find this soup base at T&T, H-mart, Fujiya, Izumiya, or Konbiniya in Vancouver area.

The healthy noodle soup recipe is very simple and easy. Use Ito-Konjac (Konjac noodle) instead of any noodles like udon, ramen, and soba. Japanese Konjac is made by mixing konjac (kind of potato) flour with water and limewater, thus it has only 10 calories per 200g bag, and usually the price is in between $1.50 to $2.50. It is usually sold in plastic bags with accompanying water, and it has 2 colors (picture below).

3 steps recipe for Healthy Konjac Ramen:

Step 1: Boil the Konjac noodle

Step 2: Make Soup base with water, and add noodle.

Step 3: Serve in a bowl, and add toppings just like a Ramen 

(eg. Seaweed, Boiled egg, Naruto, Bamboo shoot etc...) 

This is a Konjac Ramen Recipe, but you can use Konjac noodle to make any kind of healthy noodle such as Konjac Udon, Konjac Korean chapchae, Konjac Pasta!!

This Konjac diet is very famous in Japan! 
Eat more, Save more, and get a slender body =)

X'mas + New Year

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!! I could not update my post for while because it was my Busiest time in a year, so I will try my best to post my recipes and upload lots of pictures to entertain my readers this year!! =)

X'mas Eve's Appes: Crab meat and apple mix on endives, cocktail shrimps, Weisswurst sausage with four types of mustard (Birthday gift from my good friend), oysters marinated in grape seed oil, extra creamy brie

Roasted Chicken and Grilled Veggies: Marinate the Chicken with Soy sauce, white wine, honey, minced garlic and ginger, bay leaf for 1-2 days!! Easy and Simple 

Home made corn soup w/ red pepper olive oil

Christmas Dinner

Loving professional pan designed by Jamie Oliver from My Best Friend

I made Pumpkin and Permasan Gnocchi =)

 I wanted to make something other than the traditional brown butter sauce that i learned from my best friend Mark, so I made this Pumpkin puree and sage sauce.

Enjoy your winter with home made food =)