From Last week

My resent breakfast was always one plate Macrobiotic breakfast. It is very famous in Japan, and many of restaurants have macrobiotic lunch set meals in their menu. In my plate, there is one of the carb dish and 3 other condiments including veggies and egg. The picture below is one of my favorite set with brown rice grilled rice ball (Yaki onigiri), Shira-ae, Kinpira, and plum and seaweed egg role. 

最近、私は朝食にワンプレートのマクロバイオスタイルのご飯を食べています。カナダでは、日本のようにマクロバイオが有名ではないので家で作って楽しんでいます。上の写真は玄米の焼きおにぎり、白和え、きんぴら、梅とわかめの卵焼きです。

This is one of the easiest Japanese style pasta. Ingredients are tuna can, butter, sesame oil, mentsuyu, pepper and green onion for topping.

これは、一番簡単な和風パスタです。シーチキン、バター、ごま油、塩こしょう、麺つゆをボールに混ぜて和えるだけ♪ 

Kinpira Oyako don

きんぴら親子丼

Natto role, grilled saba, kinpira, radish and fish sausage mayo

納豆巻き、焼き鯖、きんぴら、大根と魚肉ソーセージのマヨ和え

Kinpira Soba

きんぴらそば

Looks like I had a lot of Kinpira this week. I made a lot of kinpira and kept in my fridge so I could use it in many ways as you see my meals from last week =)

Gardening '13

Vancouver is finally getting warm so I began my Gardening. It is more Harvesting than Gardening at the end because I only plant the Veggies, not the flowers =) I got seeds from Canadian Tire and other equipments/ accessaries from Japanese dollar store called "Yokoyaya"♥

Vancouverも徐々に暖かくなってきたので、毎年恒例の種まきをしました。私は観葉植物より、野菜の方が大好きなので春から秋にかけてたくさんの野菜を育てています♥ 種はCanadian Tireというホームセンターで買いました。道具や飾りは、１００均で購入しました！

Day 1: Getting ready Soil

土の準備

Added Organic fertilizer to the Soil.

オーガニックの肥料をならします。

Day 2: Sowing Seed

種まき

This year I snowed Grape tomato, Micro Tomato, Baby Zucchini, Baby Carrot, Baby Radish, Baby rounded radish, Strawberry, Green Onion, Vitamin leaves, Baby lettuce, Sweet Basil♥

今年は、ミニトマト、マイクロトマト、ミニズッキーニ、ミニ人参、ミニ大根、ミニカブ、イチゴ、青ネギ、ビタミン菜、ベービーリーフレタス、バジルの種をまきました♥

After the snowing seeds, the sky was already dark and the sunset was just so beautiful☆

種まきを終える頃には、暗くなっていて最高の夕日が見えました☆

 After hard working, I had my special apple vinegar drink to refresh my body. Vinegar will help you to recover from tired body after hard work♥ 

種まきが終わったら、韓国の林檎酢で作った自家製お酢ジュースを飲みました。疲労回復にお酢は最高だそうです♥

I'm so excited to see my babies again this summer =)

My Meals

Here is my meals from last week! A lot of them are simple and easy because I began my exercise and I was extremely tired from jogging and work out... but I feel so fresh and my dishes taste even better after exercises♥

私の先週のご飯の写真です！最近ジョッギングやワークアウトの時間を増やしたので、簡単でシンプルな料理ばかりになってしまいました。でも気分がすっきりして、食事がより美味しく感じるので毎日充実しています♥ 

Japanese style Macrobiotic breakfast on Wednesday 

水曜日のマクロバイオスタイルの朝食

Chinese fried Egg and Tomato (Sweet and Sour style)

トマトと卵の中華風炒め

Tan-tan style Vermicelli soup

担々麺風春雨スープ

Sweet Chili Chicken and Tofu

エビチリ風の鶏とお豆腐

Tomato and Cucumber salad with home made dijon honey mustard dressing

自家製Dijon Honey Mustardドレッシングのサラダ

My best friend Mark gave me 2 kinds of Indonesian chili sauce "Sambal"♥ I really love spicy sauce!! I tried both chili. One on the left is Mark's mother Rina's favorite chili!! It was more spicy and have strong flavor. One on the right is Mark's favorite chilii sauce. It was less spicy but have sweetness and have umami in it♪ I like both sauce but the right one a bit more =)

親友マークからインドネシアのサンバルというチリソースをいただきました♥　私はチリソースが大好きです！左がマークのママ、リナのお気に入りで右よりも辛くスパイスの香りがすごく良かったです。左はマークのお気に入りで、辛味は弱めですが甘みと深みがありました♪　どちらも気に入りましたが、右の方が好みです =)

Fridge Art

I've been living in the current place for almost 4 years already. And I got a bit bored of my room and the kitchen, so I decided to make an magnetic art on my fridge to make a little change. I made an eiffe tower few month ago and it took about 2 hours. I made a chandelier one this time with a magnetic board from Japanese a dollar store "Yokoyaya" in Tinsel town (china town). The cost of making the chandelier was $2 and 4 hours =) Good stress relief♥ 

ここ最近、マグネットアートにはまっています。マグネットでキッチンの飾りを作る事が日々のストレス発散に最高です！何ヶ月前にエッフェル塔を作ったので、今回は１００均の黒のマグネットボードを使ってシャンデリアを作りました。１００均といっても、バンクーバーのDaisoでは１品が$2（だいたい200円）ですが。

The Eiffel Tower that I made few months ago =)

The good thing about the Magnetic art is that I can remove easily from the fridge. Unlike Spray painting, the art doesn't have chemical smells as well =) I recommend people to start with simple shape like harts♥, stars☆, or words♪

マグネットアートの良い所は、外すのが簡単で冷蔵庫が汚れないことです。また、スプレーペイントのように科学的な臭いもしません♪初めは、♥や☆ など簡単なものから始めるのをおすすめします♪

Make sure to put the thick used books or magazines underneath the magnet board to protect your table from cutter. Your Kitchen will look totally different with the magnet and feels fresh to stand in your kitchen♥

必ずマグネットボードの下に厚手のいらない本や雑誌を敷いてください。大切なテーブルに傷がついてしまいます。マグネットアートのおかげで、キッチンが新しい雰囲気になり気分もあがります♥

冷蔵庫用のオリジナル写真フレームなどを作るのもいいですんね♪

You can make your original photo flames for your fridge too =)

Enjoy your daily kitchen life♥

Gyoza Lesson

Last night, I taught my best friend Mark how to make Japanese style dumplings called "Gyoza". My parents love Gyoza so much so I learned this Gyoza recipe when I was still in elementary school. I used to make plenty of Gyoza with my family and had a Gyoza Party when I was still in Japan. So Gyoza is one of the home cooking taste in my sweet memories♥

昨日は、毎週土曜日に行っている親友マークとのお料理ワークショップの日だったのでマークに私の餃子レシピを教えてあげました。私の家族は餃子が大好きで、私がまだ日本にいた頃に家族で餃子パーティーをしていました♪　餃子には、私のsweet memoryがたくさん詰まっています♥ 小学生の頃から作っていたので餃子は得意料理の一つでもあります！

My friend Momoko gave me this cute Apron from London♥　キャビンアテンダントのお友達のMomoちゃんから、可愛いエプロンを頂きました♥

 

While we make make Gyoza, we had conversation about food, restaurants, and recipes... as usual =) 具を包んでいる時は、いつものように新しいレストランや料理のお話で盛り上がりました！

I've trying to adjust my Gyoza recipe to make perfect Gyoza (for me) for almost 5 years already. I really liked the Gyoza with wings (with the crispy edge) as a picture above! ５年くらい私の好きな餃子を求めて研究していますが、やはり羽根つき餃子が一番好きです！ 

I made a Chinese spicy noodle soup called "Tan-tan style noodle". It was perfect match with Gyoza!　〆に坦々麺風の春雨スープを作りました！ダイエット中のマークも大喜び♪

最高の週末の過ごし方でした♪

 It was a perfect way to spend my saturday night again with Mark!! 

Stewed Pumpkin

I got a comment last week which was asking about my Stewed Pumpkin recipe, so I will post the recipe today. 先週に、かぼちゃのひき肉あんかけ煮のレシピを知りたいとのコメントをいただいたため載せておきます。

Ingredients :

Pumpkin 南瓜       1/4
Grounded Pork  豚ひき肉     50g

☆Water  水     1.5 cup
☆Mirin  みりん      3 table spoon
☆Cooking Sake    酒　  3 table spoon
☆Soy sauce    醤油　 3 table spoon
☆Sugar  　砂糖　 1 tea spoon
☆Grated Ginger  おろし生姜    1/2 tea spoon

Katakuriko Starch  1 table spoon (mix with 2 table spoon of water)

Step 1: Clean the pumpkin, and cut into about 1 inch cube. かぼちゃを２センチくらいに切っていきます．

Step 2: Cook the Grounded pork in a small pot with medium-high heat, and add the ☆ingredients into the pot. 小さな鍋で、中火で豚ひき肉を炒めていきます。火が通ったら、☆の調味料をいれます。

Step 3:Add pumpkin, and stew it for 10-12 min. skim the scum from the pot for all time.　南瓜を投入して、中火で10-12分煮つめます。

Step 4: Remove from heat, and add Starch mix little by little to make the sauce thick (try to adjust the thickness with the amount of the starch mix).  火をとめて、水とき片栗粉を入れ、とろみをだして完成です。

Any question, Please ask me=)

Diet Sukiyaki

Sukiyaki is one of the most famous Japanese food in North America. It is one kind of Japanese hotpot, yet you can make many of original dish from the sukiyaki flavor. It is one of my best friend Mark's favorite food as well. So today I made a diet dish with that style since many of my friends are on diet including mark. It is very easy, tasty, and cost efficient as usual =) 

今日は、すき焼き風ダイエットメニューを紹介します。North Americaでも、すき焼きは大人気なのでダイエット中の親友Markのためにも作ってみました♪レシピを載せます。

Konjac with Sukiyaki style

Ingredients (for 1 serving):

Beef  牛肉   50g  

Spinach ほうれん草    1/4 or less

Konjac noodle  しらたき  200g package

Mirin みりん    2 table spoon

Soy sauce 醤油    2 table spoon

Sugar  砂糖   1 1/2 table spoon

Water  水   3 table spoon

※table spoon= 大さじ

Egg york and white sesame for topping

黄身と白ごまをトッピングに。

 Cut the beef into thin and long pieces. (or you can use sliced beef). Cook the beef with a bit of oil on a frying pan. Keep the heat to medium. 牛肉を上のように千切りにして、油をひいたフライパンで焼いていきます。薄切り肉でも大丈夫です。

 Add Mirin, Soy sauce, Sugar, and Water. Mix well, and add spinach.　中火で、みりん・醤油・砂糖・水を入れます。よく混ぜたら、ほうれん草を投入します。

 When the spinach is cooked, add Konjac noodle and cook till the sauce reduced to half. 最後にしらたきを入れ、水分が半分くらいに減ったら完成です。

Serve it as the picture above!!

このように盛りつけてください。

Enjoy your diet with Traditional Japanese =)

Rilakkuma X Hello Kitty

I believe having an edible characters for lunch will makes people happy and encourage us to work or study harder after lunch. I've made a lot of those cute Bento Boxes, and I made a Rilakkuma with Inari sushi.

今日はお昼ご飯にリラックマのお稲荷さんを作りました。ランチにかわいいキャラクターのお弁当が待っていると、お勉強もお仕事もはかどりますね！ただ、早起きは大変です。。。

Rilakkuma (name after Relaxing Kuma=Bear) is a very famous character among kids and young women in Japan. The best part of making an edible character is that you can combined any characters together to make a dream collaboration in my lunch!! So this time, I made Hello Kitty with Rilakuma Hat♥ The Hallo Kitty looks so adorable and it was really hard for me to put her in my mouth... well... my appetite exceeded her cuteness so I enjoyed her taste right away =( 

食べれるキャラクターのいい所は、お弁当箱の中に自分の好きな世界を作れることです。今回、大好きなキティーちゃんにリラックマの帽子をかぶせてあげることで夢のコラボを実現させました。次回は、One Pieceのチョッパーにキティーちゃんをかぶせたいです。

It is not too difficult to make these sushi and I'm sure people will love it if you bring it for your potluck party! Especially if you make a lot of Rilakkuma Inari shushi and put them in a box, they will look so adorable! When you look into the box, you will feel like they are looking at you as if they are looking at their mother♥ awwww...

Canadaでは、Potluck(ポットラック)のpartyがよくあります。potluckとは、参加する人それぞれが何か１品持ち寄ってpartyをするイベントです。誕生日会や懐妊お祝いのbaby showerなど、ほとんどのhome partyがpotluckです。次にpotluckに参加する時には、箱にリラックマを敷き詰めて持っていきたいと思います♪

I used 2 kinds of tofu cheese and dried seaweed sheet (Nori) to make their face. I cut the cheese with my small knife and seaweed with my cooking scissors. It is so much easier if you pile up the ingredients and cut them together because you can make the identical parts at once if do so.

お顔のパーツは、今マイブームのTofu cheeseを２種類と海苔で作りました。Tofu cheeseは、カロリーも値段もリーズナブル！最高のアイテムです。

Hopefully you liked my Cute lunch =)

Konjac Diet

Here is the recipe for Korean Chap chae made with Konjac noodle. By using the Konjac noodle, you are cutting down a lot of calories!! About Konjac noodle, click HERE♥ 

こんにゃくチャプチェのレシピです。親友マークも、私の彼も夏に向けてダイエット中という事で、彼らのためにもダイエットレシピを載せていきます！

Konjac chap chae

Ingredients ( for 1 dish) :

Ito-Konjac 糸こんにゃく:   200g pack 　

(it has only 10 calories!!)

Beef 牛肉:   50g or less　

Bell pepper 赤ピーマン:   Half　半分

Onion　玉ねぎ:  1

Green onion　長ネギ:   3-4

Carrot　人参:   1/4 

White sesame for topping　白ごま

※You can use spinach, Green pepper, Shitake mushroons, Zuccini, and Hard tofu instead.ほうれん草、ピーマン、椎茸、ズッキーニ、固めの豆腐を入れても美味しいです。

Cut all the ingredients into long and thin pieces like picture above

全ての材料を千切りしてください。

Chap chae Sauce　たれ:

Grated Garlic　おろしニンニク:   1-2 tea spoon 

Soy sauce　醤油:    3 table spoon　

Sugar/ Honey　砂糖／蜂蜜:    2 table spoon　

Cooking Sake　酒:    1 table spoon　

Chopped green onion　きざみネギ:  1 table spoon

Sesame oil　胡麻油:   1 tea spoon

Black pepper　胡椒:  as much as you like  適量

※ Tea spoon=小さじ　Table spoon=大さじ

Marinate the Beef with a table spoon of chap chae sauce first.

牛肉にスプーン１杯のたれを混ぜ、ねかせます

Boil the Konjac noodle for 3-5 min. Drain the water after.

こんにゃくを３−５分茹でます

Pan fry the meat with medium-high heat, and add veggies when the meat is cooked.お肉を炒め、火が通ったら野菜を入れます

When these veggies get softer, add the Konjac and mix well. 野菜に火が通ったら、水をしっかり切ったこんにゃくを投入します。

Add chap chae sauce and mix well. Cook it till the noodle absorb the sauce.よく混ぜながらたれを入れ、汁気がなくなったらできあがり

Serve it with white sesame =)

白ごまをふりかけて、完成です

It doesn't looks like a diet meal eh?

Follow my Stress Free Diet Recipe♥

Hokkaido Local

Here is my Recipe of "Chan-chan Yaki". It is the local food in Hokkaido (Northern island in Japan). Hokkaido is very famous for Fresh seafood since their weather is very chilly and surrounded by ocean. I'm posting this recipe because it is perfect for Diet meal. I see a lot of people jogging and trying to lose their weight for summer season. So hopefully My recipe will support your diet =)

Chan-chan Yaki 

Ingredients (for 4 serving): 

Cabbage   Half 

Onion   1-2 (thinly sliced)

Carrot   Half or less (thinly sliced)

Japanese Green Onion/ leek   1 

Bean sprouts   200g                            

Salmon   200-300g     

Salt and Pepper   few pinches                    

Butter     1-2 table spoon 

(not necessary, but taste better with it)

Green onion and white sesame for topping

Miso mixture: 

Miso    4 table spoon   

Mirin    4 table spoon

Sake    2 table spoon

Water    3 table spoon

Sugar    3-4 table spoon 

(depend on how sweet you want)

Grated Ginger      1 tea spoon

                                           

Bean Sprout is very cheap if you purchase at an Asian supermarket like T&T. It was only $0.35 for the amount above!! =) 

In a bowl, mix the Miso Mixture well, and Microwave for 30 sec to melt the Miso into the mixture. (Do not microwave the iron bowl as you know)

On a large pan, add a bit of oil and pan fry cabbage, onion, and carrot (High heat). Add salt and pepper, and mix well. Put bean sprout on top on the soften veggies. (do not mix, because bean sprout will act as a bed for the salmon)

Change the heat to medium heat, and Let salmons sleep on the bean sprout=) Add the Miso mixture on top of the salmon,  then add butter on top (Not for people on the Diet!!) 

Close the lid, and wait for 3-5 min. Try not to over cook because salmon will be too dry.

Top with chopped green onion and white sesame. Serve with the Pan!! DO NOT Forget to use a pot stand!!

I recommend people to use these kind of cute classic pan so it looks better!! I'm getting one soon=)

 This recipe is Low in price and calories, 

but High in Nutrients and Love♥  

Enjoy My Recipe =)