Is that Dinner?

Yes, your eyes do not deceive you.  It is a dinner post.  Amazing I know but true.  I am back.

Yesterday the delivery man made a stop at our house and dropped off our latest purchases from the foreign buyers club.  So we are back in the basics.  Yes, nacho chips, granola and lasagna noodles are the staples of my life.  6 bags of nachos, 8 packages of granola and 4 boxes of lasagna.  We also got some garlic powder, bay leaves, pickled jalapeno slices and olives.  Basically it is all stuff we cannot find here or we cannot find it at a reasonable price.  The chips won't last but the pasta should go a couple of months and the cereal should see us through the new year.

 So with all that handsome goodness on hand I figured it was time for me to whip up some dinner.  I am usually good for at least one dish every other night but tonight I took on the whole task.  First I made the Dunnet style guacamole.  I think I over did the yogurt but it was still good.  The avocadoness was very mild which was a small shame.  The salsa was pretty good and though it was a little spicy (very nice) the kids still  managed to eat some.  The best was when the guac and salsa were mixed together.  Freak-tastic ©.  The other finger food was the satsuma imo fries.  Satsuma imo are the purple sweet potatoes favoured in this part of Japan.  Sliced, oiled, and seasoned they were baked for about 40 minutes.  Awesome.  Next up was some Nasu Miso.  Now I know that I should have just done the nasu in the miso and been satisfied with what looked to be a glorious dish.  However, I had to go the extra yard and add some cubed fried tofu and some moyashi.  Unfortunately, I didn't scale up the sauce ingredients so though the nasu was flavourful the tofu was pretty mild.  The kids still gobbled it up.  This evenings main dish was hamburg steak.  Basically hamburgers without the buns.  Even I was impressed with the overall flavour of this evening burgers.  Minced onions and mushrooms along with pepper, salt, cumin, coriander, the previously mentioned just arrived garlic powder, three eggs and bread crumbs came together very nicely with the mixed ground pork/beef we had.  Fried in a non stick frying pan then ended with the nice crispy outsides and juicy rich insides that burgers so richly deserve.  I feasted on chips and dip and sweet potatoes before the burgers had even started frying so you can imagine how stuffed I was when all was said and done.  Haven't been on the scale this morning. 

Finally here is a shot of Yoshiteru watching some TV while I make dinner.  He enjoyed the snack food but in the end Junko had a fish dish ready to add to his dinner.  When you reach seventy you are allowed to be a little set in your ways.

Love out.

Busy Burger Day

So we had burgers with fries this evening. The wife was in bread mode today and with the little bit of leftover dough she made hamburger buns. These were some filling quality hamburger buns so it made for a real meal. The burgers were grilled outside and they turned out perfectly. You acna see the stripes on the bad boy above. I did the fries in the oven with some salt, pepper and basil. Then wife-ola squashed up some avocados and made guacamole. With a bottle of Ma's 2009 Valpolicella it was a little piece of heaven here tonight. The con-noise-uers can snub their noses but for us simple folk it works just fine. And as with everything else in life the price was right. Below we have some reviews of this evenings meal.


The son is just loving that line. I don't know where he picked up sweet momma but it is coming out of his mouth left right and center. Oh I finally figured out where the "you're going to make me pee," line has come from. Po says it in Kung Fu Panda. Well there is a storm brewing in bathroom. I gotta get on it.

Later

Tough Times.

Well we have been off line for the last two days. Still eating well but just busy and the blog has taken a bit of a hit. First off we were dealing with this.If you go back a couple of days you can actually see the celery seeds that were used to season the chicken. It is now my belief that what we have here is an allergic reaction to celery seeds. It seems like an obvious choice because he ate a bunch of the chicken and we haven't had anything else out of the ordinary recently. He is feeling a whole lot better today and all the hives are gone. In a few more day I plan to do my own scratch test with some celery seeds to see if it was indeed the culprit.This is us enjoying dinner tonight. Kids are currently outside playing as the light slowly settles into a warm late summer dusk.This evening was barbecue pork with rice and finger food. The pork was done in a miso garlic paste and turned out very well. The salsa was made with store bought garlic so it was a little spicy. It also took up all of the lemon so the veggie dip was without. Both were noted by our oldest and it was a cause of some gustatory friction. However, with a little vinegar and some sweet talking a catastrophe was avoided and the kids are both now crunching on mint chocolate chip ice cream cones while the wife eats toblerone in the kitchen. My treat was beer.

Finally we have a little gaffer who can now play on his own. I am sure he is saying something really important. Just haven't decoded it yet.

Sorry the video never loaded. It is up on youtube however, check it out. Very cute.

A quick visit.

Well we fired up the cue again tonight. After managing to get my mom to stay for dinner I got adventurous and made my own honey garlic glaze. To speed up the process I nuked the bowl full of sauce covered chicken on medium fir 7 minutes. The bbqing still took a while. However the mumma stuck it out and had a couple of drumsticksbefore she flew the coop. See what I did there. Huh, huh .. nice eh?
Currently the two oldest are off with mom at the park while I type one handed and try to entertain with my left. Note to sisters, it is possible but not fun.

Garden Update.

So I here is the long awaited (at least by me) garden update.Above you can see from left to right. Lettuce that has gone to seed, see you next year, tomatoes that didn't find a spot on the drip line and on the right, foreground banana pepper and eggplant in the back.
This is the daughters sole surviving sunflower. Doing pretty well eh?

In the front are the recently planted carrots. I am hoping that they have a little size by september. I rolled back the weed matting and then replaced the poorly producing hot peppers with these guys. Further down the line you can see the tomatoes starting to really climb the twine. Everything in that grassy area in the middle is weeds weeds weeds. Oh bother.

For dinner this evening the wife decided to make her japanese potato croquettes or Korokke. Fabulous. She didn't deep fry them this evening she just pan fried them. I don't think she even used oil. So fabulous and not horrible for you. Double happiness.

The rest of dinner consisted of guacamole with tomato chunks and rice wrapped in nori. They were not photographed as I was busy consuming.

For lunch we had a nice vegetable soup and broth. Ask my daughter about it. She made it. I'm impressed.

Easy Party

Usually when we have people over for dinner we snow ourselves under with the entree. We make something that is time consuming and tricky and spend a lot of time after the guests arrive cooking. Last night we made the smart choice of having hot dogs and smokies as our main course. On the side we had a caesar salad, a bean salad, veggies and dip, nachos and guacamole. We accompanied our home made buns/mini loaves with some store bought buns and that definitely kept the younger set satisfied. We also barbecued some yam fries, onions and mushrooms to go with the smokies.The caesar salad was made from a recipe I picked up on the net and it was good. The bean salad with mint was great as usual. We had real sour cream in the veggie dip and that was tasty.

As well as a lovely meal we also had a great time with the people who came over. The kids played from 3:00 to 9:00 and were just awesome. They played outside and down stairs and for the most part we didn't even notice them as we chatted upstairs. Yes, other kids makes for a good time.

Here is the picture of me making hot dog buns last night. To my family I have to say, whoa. For the first time I see it. I do bear an uncanny resemblance to my father. To me it looks like someone has pasted his face onto my body.
I must be getting old.

Fish on the cob.

For my Japanese readers.

Nihon Jin ga kono blog wo yonde imasu. Dare desu ka. Comment ni namae kaitte kudasai.
So it was corn and fish for our evening feed. The fish was lightly battered , (the wife had a rough day and couldn't take it out on the kids) and then pan fried. The corn was very gently boiled (still crunchy but the kids loved it). Also there was a risotto-esque stir fried rice and veggies dish. Not quite as smooth as risotto but definitely a few steps beyond cha-han. I put together another bowl of guacamole. This evening I added in the kids salsa, no yogurt, no vinegar. Currently the daughter is finishing off the dip and the chips while watching Oliver (animated) behind me. In other news the son dropped out of swimming lessons today. He was in the pre school level one and they are learning to blow bubbles and slip into the pool holding the instructors hands. I think he was just super bored because he likes diving for rings and jumping head first into the deep end. I sat with him watching the lesson for about twenty minutes thinking he might crack and want to join but to no avail. So we walked home. The lady from the pool called us up after dinner. After talking to his teacher she offered to put him into the level 5,6,7 class. So if things line up we may give that a shot on Wednesday. However, I am feeling like we might do just as well going and challenging ourselves at public swim. With his sister around he has all the motivation one could ask for. That with the fact he has no fear and really what else do you need. Wait till he's six and sign him up for the swim team.

Is it the weekend?

I mean when you have three options for your wrap filling things are looking pretty good. Orginally I was just planning to make a tuna salad and a salmon salad option for this evenings wraps. However, the daughter mentioned she would not eat either so I threw in a chick pea and green pea curry as a third option. The fish salads were made from canned tuna and salmon. I minced some onion and soaked it in vinegar to start off both salads. The tuna then had minced carrot and celery added with some mayonaise, salt and pepper. The salmon salad was minced red pepper with our home made yogurt. I also whipped up some guacamole to go along with the shredded romaine lettuce and the left over rice. I had three wraps and feel great about it. This is the kidlet and he looks like he is waving. He is sitting beside the home made bear he got yesterday. Gotta love people who go the extra distance.This is a story of fatigue. I managed to get some quality conk out time with the youngster too. All in all another great day.

Double Trouble

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh..... That is the sound of first semester ending. Sure I still have three exams to prepare, invigilate and mark but that is peanuts. Sure we are down at the coast next weekend. Meh.. Its done. I get my preparatory block back this semester. I get to do Calculus this semester. Weeeee...Three levels of concious. Un, barely, overly. Which is who? You decide.

In celebration of this momentous day, I decided last night I would make dinner. I told the wife we would be having wraps with two types of filling. One was mexican style, just ground beef, onions, garlic and red pepper fried up with chilli powder, salt, pepper, garlic powder, some vinegar and ketchup. The other filling was a chick pea, tofu, coconut curry mixture. It had onions, garlic, mushrooms and some frozen corn added to it. Usually I mess up one of the fillings and dinner is a lop sided affair but this evening they both turned out. I like the anticipation of working without a recipe. Its kind of like the trapeeze without a net. Only I am starting to take my failures harder. Maybe I should be writing these down so that when they turn out I can duplicate them. Nah, lets face it. I would never even read the recipe the next time. I guess it will just always be an adventure.

To fill up the wraps we also laid out, rice, shredded lettuce, grated cheese, guacamole, salsa, home made hot pickles, and some french fries but they didn't show up until after the picture was taken. I had two wraps, a tonne of french fries and a left over pop from Christmas. Uncomfortable would be an apt adjective for my bodies condition right now. Only, when one feels uncomfortable is it an adverb because it is a way of feeling. Probably not. If it were uncomfortably maybe but I am sure someone wiser than myself has the answer to this one.

As you can see from the top picture, the son crashed out early this evening. He is currently sawing logs. The wife and daughter just had their bath and apparently the daughter was doing lengths in the tub. Where does she get the energy? Well that is all for tonight. Hopefully we will have some guests and a real feast to show you tomorrow.

Later

Ps. On further reflection, I had three wraps. That might have been the tipping point.

Everyone's Doing It.

Well it is Thursday night so we are all geared up for a snack fest followed by some movie watching. Only one week left in this semester. (Deep sigh of relief and fatigue) We also had a landmark day. The daughter got her ears pierced. Six to eight months ago when the mom in this family got her ears re-pierced the daughter was totally excited to get hers done until we got to the store. Then she chickened out. Well with "All" of her friends at school having their ears pierced she wanted to join the gang. So today she did.
I think they are slightly lopsided but no one ever really looks that closely at both ears at the same time anyways, right? Come on help me here. I know there is no way to fix it so just play along and make me feel better. Remember, it is all about me. Not unlike tonights dinner. It was guacamole with salsa and last nights curry. Couldn't have picked a better dinner if I tried. Not to mention the daughter managed to pick Ketchup flavoured Pringles as her choice of snack. Sweet. So now were are settling in for a nice busy weekend. Contracts to be read for the union, basketball games to be reffed on Saturday. Tonnes of time spent getting exams ready and setting things up for next semester's courses. Yes, life is good and busy. With any luck we will manage to get a play day and some outside skating in as well. Got another couple of layers on last night as it was cold and clear. Nice.

Breathe Out

We made it. Its Thursday evening which means I safely navigated another week. Only two weeks left in this semester. After school the kids sledded a little and then we all came home. Some snow shoveling later and I was back to school for a little basketball. Meanwhile, back at the ranch they were eating guacamole and yaki soba. The soba was so delicious that they didn't finish the guac so I managed to get some when I arrived back home with a really sore elbow. There must be a cure for tennis elbow but it probably involves slowly getting back into the exercise you like doing and building up the muscles and tendons along the way. This sort of clashes with the do nothing and then go all out philosophy that I follow. Rats.

Anyways, after arriving home from b-ball I found the familiy in the midst of watching Kung-Fu Panda. I watched the last half and then we watched it again so I could see the whole thing. Nice movie. This is how the family looked by the end of the movie.All settled in for one of those long winter naps. Some tooth brushing and a phone call from Grandma later it is now time for bed. Yosh. The pass is open and the midwife is coming to see us tomorrow. Gotta love getting good service.

Best line from the kung-fu panda movie,

"Yesterday is History, Tomorrow is a mystery, Today is a gift and that is why we call it the present."

Some real truth in that. Hard to stay focussed on but some real truth there.