Thorough Cleaning 2013

New Year is one of the most elaborate annual events in Japan. Before the New Year, homes are cleaned, debts are paid off and osechi (Traditional Japanese New Year's meal) is prepared. I also enjoy the Japanese Traditional New Year and still keeping the tradition in Vancouver. I cleaned whole walls, windows, and Carpet in my house. All the dirt from 2013 must go before the new year comes. My favourite place to clean is obviously my Petite Kitchen♡ I hope you can get some ideas of organizing your kitchen from my pictures below.

I like to organize my fridge with many kinds of containers from Japanese dollar store like Yokoyaya in Downtown or Daiso in Richmond. I use white containers to maintain clean fridge because white colour containers can easily see the dirt and the colour makes my fridge even more pure and clean. I use Sauce containers from Daiso for Ketchup, Mayo, BBQ sauce, Mustard and other Asian sauce to organize the door pocket. The White Containers on the shelf is form Ikea and it is perfect for organizing sauces or pastes in a Jar! The containers prevent from dropping Jars, getting dirt on the shelf and it helps reaching ingredients in the inner side of the fridge by pulling out the containers.     

I always wanted to make my mini bar in the living room and I found a perfect box for the mini bar. Now I can enjoy making my Martinis with this mini bar =) 

I polished my oven for a half an hour! When my oven shines, I really feel so good to stand in my Kitchen =)

These clear containers are from Yokoyaya and Daiso. They come with 3 sizes and it can easily open by pushing an edge of the container. It helps organize dried ingredients and Spices. The Containers are perfect size for the space under my oven.   

Organize Your Kitchen and prepare for the Year 2014!!

Healthy Wealthy

After I started my office Job, I gained weight and suffered from backache and many other health problems. It is because my life cycle changed 180 degree. I used to go out for jogging 2-3 times a week and cook healthy food every meal. Last couple month, I sit on the chair 8h per day at work and I was cooking easy and heavy food like Noodle with soup, Pasta, or Donburi style (a dish with rice in a bowl) for Lunch and Dinner. After I gained 2-3 kg… Now I'm trying to get back to my shape and life cycle just like I had before my job begins. Here is some of my dishes that are cheap and healthy but also easy. I hope you can get some ideas for your healthy life =)

   

 

Tofu skin Salad with sesame dressing. Tofu skin, also called "Yuba" in Japanese, has very low calories but protein and lots of other nutrients. You can purchase Dried Tofu Skin at T&T in Vancouver Area and it's one of the best ingredients of Cheap and Healthy meal.

My Favourite Veggie of the year 2013 is the Kale!! Vancouver rites are famous for health freak and Kale was one of the biggest topic for people in Vancouver this year. All of my yogi friends and I become Kale-holic. I often make the dish above "Sautéed Kale with Roasted tomato, Roasted pine nuts  and pecorino romano cheese. It is one of my favourite warm salad. 

I take a shots of morning smoothie everyday. I said "take" because it is the best neutral medicine for most kinds of my sickness. I was suffering from sore throat, skin problems, and constipation a month after I got my job. So I took this Veggie/Fruits/ Yogurt drink shots every morning after breakfast and healed most of my problems in a week. It also prevent you from getting cold/flu.  

I add yogurt and 1-2 table spoon of Honey or Maple syrup to the milk or orange juice base. For Fruits, I use Strawberries/ Apple/ Blue Berries/ Kiwi/ Mango/ Pom. For Veggies, I use grated carrot (Must have) and Celery/ Spinach/ Kale/ Water cross. I pick fruits and veggies from grocery store (mostly getting veggie/fruits with weekly sale price) and freeze fruits in a parasitic bag. Mix / Much in the morning to make the fast and costless smoothie =)     

Simple Japanese style soup is also cheap and healthy. Our soup is mostly with Fish base (called "dashi") and using no oily ingredients at all. To fill your stomach, you can add Konjac noodle like my soup above.  

Salad noodle is a perfect dish for dinner after jogging =) I cook half portion of somen noodle and top with many kinds of my favourite veggies and seaweeds. Using sesame dressing for taste.  

Just like Kale, Coconut Water is a huge topic among health freak friends around me now. It hydrate your body so much  more than water and contains many kinds of nutrients. I'm in love with coconut water now =) 

It is very expensive to make you look beautiful,

yet it is very cheap to make your self beautiful =)

Let's get an inner beauty♡ 

Winter Wonder Soup

 I love making tasty soup in the sunday morning especially in the winter time. One thing I love about making soup is that you don't really have to stay in the kitchen and focus on my heat so it's perfect for my lazy sunday morning. My favorite style of the soup is the creamy soup style just like creamy mushroom, clam chowder and corn cream soup. My favorite is corn cream soup recipe because it is very simple, tasty and costless. Easy to make as well so please try my Recipe below =)

まだカナダに来たばかりの高校時代、ホームステイの家族と日曜の朝食に暖かいスープを飲むのが冬の楽しみでした。あれから十数年、相変わらず自家製スープを作るのが日曜日の楽しみです。今日はその中でも、私が一番大好きなコーンスープを紹介します。私の料理のテーマ、『美味しい　健康　安い　簡単』を取り入れられたレシピだと思うので、試してみてください。

FYI: I learned photoshops and illustrator at work so I will be putting some words like "La petite Kitchen"on my pictures. I hope it doesn't bother you!!

PS. 仕事でフォトショップやイラストレーターをならったので、せっかくなのでブログの写真

にも少し文字やイラストを入れていこうと思います。可愛いく仕上がるといいなぁ

Corn Cream Soup

Ingredients (for 3-4 servings) :

Onion        1 (Medium size)
Butter         2  tbl  spoon
Whipping Cream        150-170 ml
Milk            100-120 ml
Canned Corn    7 tbl spoon (5 for soup base, 2 for adding texture)
Consommé/ Veggie Bullion 1 cube
Salt and Pepper
Parsley  as you like

材料：

玉ねぎ（中）　１つ
バター　　　　大さじ２
生クリーム　　　１５０−１７０ml
牛乳　　　　　　１００−１２０ml
缶コーン　　　大さじ７　（大５をスープ用、大２をつぶつぶ用に）
コンソメ　　　１キューブ
塩こしょう、パセリはお好みで
　　　

Saute sliced Onion with butter with mid to low heat. Slowly sauté onion till soften, brown, and caramelized. 玉ねぎをバターでゆっくり弱ー中火で炒めます。焦がさないように柔らかく茶色になるまで炒めてください。

Add Cream, Milk, 5 tbl spoon of corn and Consommé cube to the Pan and mix well with low heat. DO NOT BOIL the soup!!　生クリーム、牛乳、コーン大５、コンソメキューブを玉ねぎの鍋に足します。中火でゆっくり混ぜてください。絶対に沸騰させないでください。

Move the soup base to blender and blend well.　ミキサーにスープを移動して、しっかりとブレンドしてください。

Make sure to blend the soup base well so the corn skin will not gonna bother you while you enjoy this soup.　しっかりとまわさないと、コーンの皮が残ってしまいます。

Move back the soup base to the pot and add 2 tbls spoon of corn for texture (just like Orange juice with pulp). スープをミキサーから鍋に戻して、コーンの残り大２を混ぜます。

Cook the soup again with mid to low heat for other 5 min (do not boil the soup) and add salt/pepper and parsley as you like.　もう一度、沸騰させないように中火で暖めて完成です。塩こしょう、パセリはお好みで。

You can enjoy the soup it self, or with pancakes and toasts as well.  Please enjoy my simple and easy recipe in the beautiful sunday morning with your family =)

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Winter Dishes

Vancouver's weather is crazy this week. When the weather is very Cold, the first thing I do in the morning is to enjoy a cup of hot coffee. After work, cook some winter dishes and warm up my body and fulfill my heart =) These are all my favorite things to do during the winter time. My winter dishes are mostly soup style or spicy food.  

Tan Tan style Udon noodle: Using ingredients that makes you feel warm include: Toban djan (Chinese chilli sauce), Rayou (Chinese spicy oil), Ginger and Garlic.   

Ton jiru (Pork miso soup): Adding a bit of ginger 

Spicy Tomato hot pot w/ Hot sake: Using Kochi djian (Korean spicy paste) and ginger. Hot sake is absolutely perfect for winter as well as winter dishes. 

Kinoko ankake Udon (Udon with mushrooms and thick sauce)

Flat fish Nitsuke style: Japanese style Stewed fish with lots of sliced ginger will make you sweat!!

My favorite mushroom rice 

Warmth from the wooden dishes will add extra- warmth in my supper =)

Winter is there for you to feel the warms of your friends, family and your partner. But also to appreciate the blessing of nature for incredible ingredients♡  

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Christmas Tree Lightning Ceremony

It's December already! My Christmas Tree Lightning Ceremony was held again in my house. I spent my Dec 1st lightning ceremony dinner with my prince charming every year, but sadly I don't have anyone for now. So I invited my friends over to my house to share my winter dishes. The Dec 1st this year was a lot harder for me to cook lots of huge dishes for the party, but it was a lot more fun to have dinner with many friends. 

My Christmas Tree decoration theme is "the "sweets-est"memory of the year" as usual ♡ So you can see a lot of cup cakes and candies on my warm hearted pink tree =) I got ice cream shaped candle with vanilla flavor (not edible)  from Japan so I lighted up to enjoy some sweet scent.

Menu: Beef/Tofu meat ball stew, Caesar  salad with soft boiled egg, shrimp gratin with fried rice, prosciutto arugula and seafood paella.  

My cheese plate looked awesome =) I was thinking of this decoration plate design for almost a week. The cute tiny smilie spoons/ forks are from a Japanese dollar store called Yokoyaya.

Simply flavoured with extra-vergin olive oil, pink salt, fresh grinned black pepper and Pecorino Romano  cheese.

Soft boiled egg will give some richness into the salad. It is one of my favourite salad.

It was my fast time making paella with huge pan and the taste was amazing!! But I forgot to put lemon slices on… so the colour of this dish is soooo unbalanced =(

It was my Pre-Christmas Party dishes!

Any idea for the Real one ?? =)