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Japanese Cooking: Bento Love

With less than a month left to go in Japan, I've been Japanese-mook shopping, as my past few posts have shown.  We pack out tomorrow (great reason for me to be blogging right now, huh?!), but I wanted to show off one of my recent purchases.  Enjoy!

 

Actually, I've never gotten very good at bento preparation, but I plan to keep learning and trying!  Incidentally, if you can get ahold of any of the titles in this Orange Page series, I recommend them highly.  They're inexpensive but have wonderful photos of recipe prep and all the finished products, presented in a lovely, quirky manner.

Now, back to cleaning...

Eco Chopsticks

Well--sort of.  They're plastic.  But if I can remember to keep them in my bag and use them when I'm out and am offered those horrible disposable wooden chopsticks I never can break right, that'll be good for the environment, right?

I especially like this set because you can put together not only chopsticks, but a fork and spoon. Good for upcoming impromptu picnics in Germany, I'm thinking!

Here's a site where you can buy To-Go Ware's reusable bamboo utensil set along with a great little stainless steel tiffin--perfect for a cold meal or one you can reheat on a hot plate or the stovetop. 

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• Kwytza Kraft: Products Made from Recycled Chopsticks (apartmenttherapy.com)

I Heart the Farm Chicks

I waited a while for this book to come out, then I snapped up a copy in its first week on Amazon.  I've followed the Farm Chicks for several years, especially their features in Country Living magazine.  So I knew that a cookbook by Serena and Teri would be something special, and I certainly wasn't disappointed.  In fact, after having the book just a few weeks, I've already managed to make six of the recipes!  That's right, I haven't just been ogling the photos!  But speaking of photos, here's a handful:





I can personally vouch for this Cherry Crumble Pie (though mine did not look this pretty!), as well as the Pumpkin Waffles, Roasted Chicken and Pesto Hoagies, a slightly altered Pesto Pasta Salad, Dark Chocolate Butter Cake, and--okay, maybe I've made five of the recipes, not six.  Well, I'm trying the Cherry Breakfast Swirl next weekend for sure...

I should probably mention that this is more than a cookbook, with recipes for breakfast, appetizers, lunch, and dessert (my only question: doesn't dinner feel left out?).  It's really a lifestyle book, with Serena and Teri's own "stories," decorating/craft ideas, and even a free apron stencil and free-subscription card to Country Living!  Gosh, you can hardly afford not to buy this book!

Now, in addition to buying the book, head over to their adorable blog.  I must try the breakfast scones soon, very soon!

The Crazy Cookbook Lady

Here is a very small percentage of my cooking literature (the one on the bottom isn't quite a cookbook, but it was sitting there, so I let it stay for the photo).  I may be just a wee bit compulsive about cookbooks.  I love to buy them, for sure, but I don't exactly go for quantity--meaning I won't buy just any cookbook, regardless of how cheap it is, though goodness knows cheapness is a big draw for me.  The cookbooks I buy must be beautiful.  But while I love the appearance of my cookbooks and often treat them as totally fit for coffee-table perusal, I do indeed use them.  It just takes me a while. 

Sometimes I go months before I actually drag a book to the kitchen for the first time.  But by that time, I have had months of enjoyment from simply looking at the books' covers, touching them lovingly, and flipping through them (possibly while salivating).  So yes, I'm a bit weird.  And yes, I'm thinking about how many I'll have in twenty years.  Someday someone will likely have to dig me out. 

Seriously Good Scones

We really love these--for afternoon tea, dessert, breakfast when there's no time for anything else--pretty much anytime we want something with a bit of heft and a touch of sweetness.  Second Child was game to help me put together a batch the other day.  Here he is getting started:

Just look at him goin' to town with that spoon!  Dry ingredients stirred together--check!  Next came incorporating the butter; a bit of assistance was necessary with the pastry blender, as our junior baker's hand gave out after a bit.  Now for adding the wet stuff and the best part, the chocolate chips:

Then the trickiest part: mixing the dough together, but not too much, just so it holds together--forgot to get a photo of that.  But here's the finished product, right out of the oven.

 

And now for the (easy!) recipe:

Chocolate Chip Scones

2 1/2 c. flour

1 T. baking powder

1 stick unsalted butter, cut into pieces

1/4 c. sugar

2 large eggs

1/3 c. milk

2/3 c. (more, if you like--we do!) chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 425.  In a large bowl, mix flour, sugar, and baking powder thoroughly.  Cut in butter until mixture is crumbly.  Add remaining ingredients and stir only till combined.  Form into a ball and place on lightly-floured board.  Roll out into a 16-inch loaf and cut into 16 pieces.  Place on greased cookie sheet and brush tops with milk, if you like.  Bake 15 minutes. 

*To rewarm later, pop in the oven briefly.

Using it Up

 

For lunch today, I'm eating some of the most delicious fried rice, if I do say so myself (I made it).  If you live in Asia--or if you live anywhere else in the world but happen to eat a lot of rice--it becomes necessary to find a way to deal with the inevitable leftovers.  I always get overzealous and make too much rice, but usually I don't have enough left to do much with, so I just stick it in Husband's lunch the next day as a side item.  Occasionally, though, I am over-overzealous or else the fam is under-hungry at dinnertime.  That's when I am thankful to past generations of Chinese, Japanese, and other Asians for thinking of frying up already-cooked rice.

These days, most of us are trying particularly hard to trim our budgets and keep spending in check, and what better way to do this than by making creative use of leftover food?  And what's not to like, when it tastes this good?

Today's "recipe" used whatever I could find: my leftover short-grain sticky rice, enough peanut oil to get all the grains well-coated, drizzles of shoyu (soy sauce) and a yuzu-infused soy sauce called ponzu, cooked chicken, a handful of shredded cabbage, a scrambled egg, and bit of kimchi for added color and spice.  If I'd wanted to get all fancy and make it even heartier and prettier, I could have added some chopped carrot, onion, garlic, and maybe yellow bell pepper (but no green peas, as I didn't have any because the rest of my family prefers our home to be a pea-free zone).  But I knew that what I already had would be more than enough for my lunch, and anyway, I didn't really want to go to too much trouble with prep.

It's not gorgeous, but again--it was good.  I do love being creative while also saving my family money, and I'm betting you do, too!

The Last Person on Earth to Bake No-Knead Bread

Exactly why did it take me so long to try this easy-peasy recipe that's been floating around the web for two years?  I haven't known about it for that long, but it must have been a year or so since I first saw it mentioned in a few of my favorite blogs.  But I am notorious for collecting recipes from print magazines and online sources (not to mention my stacks and stacks of cookbooks) and then setting them aside for "later." 

I do, surprisingly, eventually get around to making many of them.  In this case, though, a properly-baked loaf of bread required a particular piece of cookware I didn't own: a 2 3/4-quart round Le Creuset cast-iron dutch oven.  Yes, I know that the bread can be baked in Pyrex (just heard that recently), but come on-here was the perfect excuse to buy a new piece of Le Creuset. 

So I did.  I picked out an apple-green ("lemongrass") beauty to add to our collection, and several months (ahem) later, I baked no-knead bread for the first time.  And it's every bit as tasty and easy as all the other people in the world who have made it say. Four words: do believe the hype.

For an astounding repository of baking videos, supplies, and various bits of information, visit Breadtopia.

Cozy Coffee

Coffee and tiramisu on a Sunday afternoon: a mini-date with Husband at the new downtown coffee shop.  The decor isn't much to speak of, but the presentation?  Definitely something special there!  Isn't the frothed-milk bunny the cutest thing? I almost hated to have to drink it!