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.

Hey, its Tofu-esday

That is what I just said to my wife as I sat down to write this blog. Man is she ever on the ball. I of course did not notice the connection between dinner and day until just now. It was a busy evening so I was not involved in the sauce or the cooking. However, I did get my share of the eatin done. The purple cabbage colelslaw came up to its usual standard but I have to give highest praise to the soup. It was a turnip and squash soup. It started with some sauteed mushrooms and onions and grew from there. There were a few small chunks on turnip and some corn nibblets but mostly it was just thick bisquey goodness.

Well here at hump day I am looking forward to getting through the back end of this week and on to the weekend where the real work awaits.

Tofuesday again.

well we managed tyo get bsack on the tofu wagon today. the mrs also made her mint bean salad. with a little miso soup on the side it was great. love out.

Mmmm Steak.

Tofu steak that is. Once again the peanut sauce variety. I didn't get around to pressing it tonight and that really did make a huge difference. Didn't fry up anywhere near as nicely. So yeah, not pressing out the moisture made for more of a steamed and less of a fried feel. Still very good but not quite the same. The wife fried up the other eggplant I received and we had some nice white rice. This plate is missing the fried zucchini and onions that I was too hungry to wait for. They were well sauteed and dipped in the peanut sauce were, if not other worldly, then at least stratospheric.

In other news we are thinking about enrolling the daughter in the local kids theatre program. This year they are doing Annie so we are going to watch the movie. The daughter is figuring herself as the lead. Seeing as the age range is from 7 to high school I am trying to say maybe a nice spot in the chorus. Time will tell.

Chicken say "What?"

So we may have had home made ramen tonight or we may have had chicken noodle soup. I say this because though we were shooting for ramen and the noodles were not your standard chicken noodle soup noodles the broth was right on the money. We used the last of the stock from the last time we made chicken salad and man was that some tasty soup. Clear and refreshing with some green peas, diced onion and celery.

I was in charge of the tofu and went with tofu steaks in peanut sauce again. I am going to try and take down the number of ingrediants in the sauce. I think I may be able to get away with peanut butter, cooking sake, vinegar, garlic and pepper. The peanuts have enough oil and salt to get away with not adding any soy sauce, salt or sesame oil. The sesame oil does have something extra but may not be necessary. I did not put in fresh ginger tonight which is definitely a mistake. However, it was still super yummy and both kids powered theirs back. The Mrs and I also partook of some home grown ggplant fried up in the pan with the tofu. So good. Anytime you are frying eggplant make sure you have the right amount of oil. Too little and things go horribly awry. Too much and things get very sloppy. Delicate balance there.

So the real question for this evening; Was this meal vegetarian?

Endless Play

Well the kids had a great day today. The son and daughter played and played and played. The played outside and inside. Upstairs and down. I was tired just listening to them play. They are still at it. As for dinner we had mabo dofu. Ground beef, tofu, onions, garlic all fried up with some soy sauce and spices. It was great over a bowl of rice. The wife also sliced up a bunch of watermelon. Good stuff. Even the youngest got in on the watermelon act. Man was he lovin it.
I am currently watching Tropic Thunder. It is pretty good so far. We plan to go camping tomorrow. Should be good.

What day is it?

This is the question I was posed as my enlisted help got down to business chopping. Why the day of the week was important I did not know. I puzzled for a second and the realised I should just give up the answer so I replied, "Saturday." To which my daughter replied, "but we are having tofu, its not tofuesday." Talk about starting something without even realising. So Tuesday has officially crossed over. I think that is kind of cool. Anyways I explained how we can have tofu on other nights as well. And then we got down to making dinner. The Mrs. made a greek salad. She went a little light on the cheese and vinegar (her call) but it was still delish and having our own cukes in the mix was nice.

I made a squash and basil soup. The squash was boiled in 4 cups of water with onion, celery, salt and pepper. Then it was pureed in the food processor with some fresh basil. This puree was added back to the remaining water and then we put in some broccoli and frozen corn. Next I added cumin and half a cube of vegetable stock. This was simmered until the broccoli had softened. Finally I threw in another handful of fresh basil leaves. I turned off the heat and let it sit for a bit before serving.

The stir fry was our now classic tofu in peanut sauce number. The vegetables included zuchinni and beans from our garden. It was great. (I used the bowl which held the tofu while the veggies were stir fried, don't tell anyone but you get extra sauce that way)

On a non food note the room was painted today. Tomorrow is for trim and the closet door. Pretty happy with how things have gone so far. Some small touch ups will be necessary but overall I think not a bad job.

Ferocious Corn

She really looks like she is attacking that corn there doesn't she. I told her she looked like she was almost crying in the picture but she was having a great time while taking it. Along with corn we also had a tofu peanut sauce stir fry. Hey its Tofuesday. I used a whole packet of bean sprouts in the stir fry. I didn't want to but the wife cajoled me into it. I was using like two thirds and she gave me the stern look with a sharp verbal jab and I poured the rest in. Something about them not keeping well.

They sure did make for some good eatin though. You will notice that my dinner was served in the temporary holding bowl for sauced up tofu. I took it out of the wok while frying the vegetables and then returned it when the veggies were ready. Messy bowl. Yummy food. I think you know which matters to me.

We have a little g-ma action here for the next twenty four to thirty two hours. Need to change batteries in camera.

We killed it.

So, in spite of the gruesomeness of this evenings pictures I can honestly tell you that there were no animals harmed to make this evenings meal. I decided to make raspberry infused tofu steaks for dinner. The sauce was a blend of raspberrys, vinegar, cooking sake, olive oil, ginger powder, salt, soy sauce and sugar. I pressed the tofu and then covered it as the picture below demonstrates.
My raspberry mixture was quite thick and the tofu didn't take it up as well as it normally does. However, after microwaving the leftover marinade for a minute and a half the raspberry flavour came blasting out. Honestly, you could have poured it over some vanilla ice cream.

We also stirfried up some vegetables with some minced fresh ginger and garlic, some salt and pepper and a little vinegar. Crisp, fresh and delish. To start dinner off we had some chips and dips. The dips being kids salsa and dilly yogurt ranch dip. I am totally stuffed. Lets hope for an early night.

Tofu-esday comes early.

Really we did have a plan. The plan included meals that ran from Monday to Thursday. Then we realised that it was our daughter's true birthday on Tuesday. Which meant we couldn't have a tofu-esday as usual. Under intense interogation she cracked and let slip that she wanted gyoza. It was tough getting it out of her but if the Bush administration can use water boarding, we ... well you know what I mean.

So that is tomorrow all sewn up but left us a little short for this evening. When we suddenly realised we could use tomorrows original plan for tonight. Thus the tofu monday.

As I sat reading my current novel the mrs boiled some water. As I walked around with book in one arm and fussy baby in the other the Mrs. diced vegetables and boiled up a pot of rice noodles. As I sat reading with a contented baby in my arms the Mrs. sat patiently waiting for my portion of the meal to get made. I eventually got the hint and put the book down. Within half an hour I had whipped up the tofu stir fry pictured above and we were all eating. All of us but the daughter who had fallen asleep watching a movie and waiting for dinner. She ate later.

Now everyone is asleep and I need to make some birthday coupons for buying a fish and all the accompanying accesories to lay out or possibly hang from the ceiling for tomorrows wake up. We were going to do the surprise you have a fish thing but couldn't find a time to buy it or decide were we would have kept it until nine o'clock this evening. So now I will help my son get to sleep as a thunder storm rolls in and hopefully reawaken to get the coupons all made.

It ain't so bad. I had a nap this afternoon. Or was that before lunch.

Tofuesday. Again

Shout out to my sisters with a self portrait of the wife, the youngest and I. Well low and behold it is Tuesday and we are eating Tofu again. A lovely peanut marinade infused the fried tofu steaks with a lovely flavour. Then the left over marinade had a little more soy sauce and vinegar added to it and after microwaving became the sauce. This is definitely something to love about vegetarian. The marinade becomes the sauce. I am pretty sure I have learned over the years that beef, chicken, pork and fish marinades are supposed to be tossed out. Not so with the tofu steaks.

The daughter was on wok duty tonight and stir fried us up some lovely veggies. I think the second shot shows them off in a more realistic light but the daughter likes the first shot done with the flash. In other news, I was requested for a picture of the daily schedule that has been posted on the wall of our dining room. Here it is with two dripping kids standing beside it. That is because I am blogging and not getting involved in their bath time. So they are not being overly involved with the bath.
Well duty calls. Happy Early birthday Canada. You rock.

Veggie Sea Cakes.

F
A few days back the Mrs. mentioned to me that we should take a trip, back in time. So off we went and checked out June 08, just to see what we were eating then. It was kind of neat to reminisce and see what we were up to last year. It also gave us some ideas for things we hadn't eaten in a while. One notable was fish cakes. So that is what we had.

Now tonight the wife put a notable spin on fish cakes. She made them with tofu. And egg. For those who like to partake of the middle kingdoms food I would equate it too a foo yung type dish. There was salmon in it as well so it did technically qualify as a fish cake. Neither of the kids were all that chuffed over it but I think the nice rice noodles had something to do with that. They both packed away a couple of helpings a piece. The salad portion of this evenings meal was some stir fried veggies. Bok choy was the big hero, coming through with a strong clear taste that was balanced by his other garden buddies.

After dinner we made cup cakes, (pup cakes according to the son) for the daughter's bday tomorrow. Apparently when you are a summer birthday they choose some other day within the school year and that becomes your special day. So tomorrow she goes to school with 22 cupcakes. We only made 24 and the daughter and son both had to have one before brushing their teeth tonight. You do the math. I'm going to drown my sorrows in a beer.

Where you been?

I mean it has been almost a week and you haven't even been on vacation. Long story short, heck of a busy week. Finally have a chance to catch my breath.

We had meetings, pension seminars, running sessions, and a dance recital this week. I have been ordered to buy the video of the dance recital. I am working on it. Here is a pic of the kid dressed for the show. She was great.

As for dinner this week we had a wide variety none of which was cooked by yours truly. Here on Friday night we had a tofu casserole and te-maki sushi. I did do some work today so dinner was eaten after mowing the lawn, running 13 k and taking the two oldest swimming. If I manage to make it through the long weekend I am going to need a couple of days rest.

Oh, by the way. I love that fact that my slack siblings can't complain about a lack of blogs because they themselves are so farin arrears. For my other readers sorry about being away so long. It really was a very busy week.

Tofuesday.

I definitely get the feeling I should copyright that one. I think its a winner. Anyways we had our tofu steak this evening. Unfortunately we didn't have either fresh or powdered ginger. It was still good but was definitely missing that little something. The veggie stir fry over rice was nicely complimented by the tofu sauce. We didn't have any dessert tonight and that was a bit of a bone of contention. However, we can last till Thursday night.

Try tofu.

Tonight we made fried tofu and it was really so great. The kids were raving and vacuumed it down. I think you should all try it. I am sure some of you already enjoy the other non white meat but here is my recommendation.

You will need.

2 blocks of medium tofu (makes four steaks, feeds four)
4 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp vinegar
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp honey
2 tbsp fresh ground ginger (a chunk the size of your thumb should work)
1 tbsp cooking wine (white wine, japanese sake, whatever you want)
1 clove of crushed garlic. ( actually used a bunch of garlic powder but its up to you)

1. Start by pressing the tofu. In a nine by nine casserole or square pyrex cake pan lay the tofu flat side by side. Put a big dinner plate on top of them and a big can (16 oz or 800ml) on top of the plate. Let this sit for as long as you can (2 hours would be great). This squeezes out the water and helps it soak up the sauce.

2. Keeping the honey aside, put together the rest of the ingredients in a microwaveable mixing bowl. Mix it around enough for the sugar to dissolve.

3. Take the now pressed blocks out of the nine by nine dish and get rid of the water. Now with the steaks laying on a cutting board cut them as if you were slicing through the peanut butter part of a sandwich. You aren't cutting the bread. You are just moving the knife between the two pieces of bread. You want to make thinner versions of the tofu block. Same width and length. Just not as tall. I sure hope I have explained this part well.

4. Put the steaks back in the nine by nine dish. If you arrange them properly they will fit just snuggly with a little empty space in the middle.

5. Pour the sauce over the steaks and let them soak it up for about five to ten minutes.

6. Take the steaks out of the dish and fry on 6 (just over medium ) in a fry pan with a little vegetable or olive oil about 5 minutes a side. While cooking the second side I cover the dish with a lid.

7. Take the sauce remaining in the dish and put it back in the microwaveable bowl. Add the honey. Microwave it for one minute.

8. Serve the steaks with a spoonful or two of the sauce on top.

9. Add side dishes as necessary. Just don't bring the meat. It is a wonderful vegetarian main dish.

We had ours this evening with rice (left over sauce was used to flavour the rice), spinach salad leftovers and squash and brussel sprout soup. I used nutmeg and curry powder to flavour the soup along with some chicken stock cubes. I also used some "many bean soup mix". Our local gardening place imports all kinds of Indian food and I picked up the bean mix for soups. Just great. And the brussel sprouts were like little prizes in the soup. Fabulous.

On a totally different point I have found the runner's crack. Better than steriods. I went running with my daughter's Ipod and a bunch of up beat songs. I ran like the wind. It was like I was in a race but there was no one else around. At some point in the distant past I must have run with a mixed tape or Ipod before but for some reason this evening it just totally worked. I can see the whole runners Ipod fascination now. Up to this point I have been a staunch believer in using the run as time to think over the various things that go on in my life. But I have to face facts. I spend too much time thinking about stuff as it is. May just have to pick up one of those running sets for me and the mrs. We can share it and have different play lists for each of us. Yes I am loving that idea. Can't wait to run it by the wife. Get it, run it by the wife, run. Oh whatever I thought it was clever.

Have a good week everyone. Night.

Tofruity.

I started making this evenings dinner at 7:45 this morning. I set out the tofu blocks between two dinner plates to squeeze out some of the liquid content. By 10:45 they were ready to be marinated in a mixture of fresh squeezed orange juice (we didn't have any from concentrate but we did have oranges) soy sauce, garlic, sugar, and coriander (we didn't have the fresh ginger either). First I sliced them into thinner slabs so we now had four steaks ready to go. These were marinated until dinner time. I started with some sliced onions, mushrooms and red peppers and sauteed them. I set them aside and in the same pan on pretty high heat I cooked the tofu steaks. About three minutes a side. I made the mistake of adding in the leftover marinade well before they were done and this really cooled down the pan. Next time I will wait to add in the marinade until everything is really cooked. In the end it all thickened up nicely and after putting the sauteed veggies on top of the steaks I ladled it over. With some peas, corn and rice on the side it was a fabulous and vegan meal. Who knew.

Wow did I ever get that rice overexposed. Good thing it wasn't over cooked.

Its ocean faring.

Well here is our little jelly fish ready for her first ice show dress rehearsal. No she is not a mermaid like all her classmates who have been in skating for more than 3 months. Yes she is disappointed about this. However, she is a wicked awesome jelly fish. Video will be shot on Friday. I am working on finding the best vantage point.
As for dinner I started pressing the tofu just after lunch. With most of the moisture gone I then set it in the peanut style sauce to soak up the goodness. Sauce: Peanut butter, vinegar, cooking wine, fresh grated ginger, salt, pepper, soy sauce and honey. Post rehearsal, which by the way took forever, we zipped home chopped up some veggies and got our stir fry on. I was very happy with the result and as usual the kids chowed down on the tofu.

Here are some pictures of the newest. One is a comparison shot of finger sizes, mine and his. The other is a comparison of head sizes/cuteness. I think I hold my own thank you.

Ta Daaaaa!

You should see some of the dinners I have made recently. Let me start with... Okay the kid pictures come at the end but I do have expectations about this blog so I will start with dinner. On Friday evening I made breakfast for dinner. Or more correctly I thought of the idea and the wife put it into practice. By the time the daughter and I arrived home she and the son were no where to be found but this is the dinner we got. I kind of like breakfast for dinner. However, I am a once every four years kind of guy. Definitely couldn't do this even once a month.

Then some stuff happened on the weekend (more down below) and we came home from our adventure and I made this for dinner. Mashed potatoes, tofu bean stew (not chili in even a broad sense) and some peas and corn. The tofu bean stew was the usual sauteed onions, mushrooms and garlic. Diced medium tofu and small zucchini chunks were added in after the seasonings. A can of crushed tomatoes with some vinegar and molasses and a final salt and pepper splash finished the deal. I was worried it would be flavour poor but the kids were starving for anything home cooked after three days on the road and they both came back for seconds. I will have it noted for posterity that I had a load of laundry in the washer and had just taken the daughter to, and picked her up from, ice skating practice. I even managed to squeeze a grocery shop in there somewhere. Now to be at the point where I can be blogging, I have put the first and a second load through the dryer, given the kids baths, put away the leftovers and read books for bedtime. I realise I am not pacing myself but holy crap. This housewife gig is for the birds. Have I really signed on for five weeks of this. The real bummer is I still have marking to get done for a test I gave last week.

Okay here is the gravy. This first picture is of the mom tummy mountain two days before delivery.Here is the boy about 3 minutes after birth. You will note the mother is still wearing her regular clothes. That is the speed with which the actual labour came on. No time to change into a hospital gown.Here is the boy just after being scrubbed clean.
First family four shot.First all kids triple shot. I really like this one.Do you think the wife looks tired in this next picture? I can't imagine why. I mean lets face, when real labour is only twenty minutes long you should be up for a little doubles. Uh oh, I can hear you all pulling out your daggers. I was just kidding.I guess I cut the daughter out of this picture. Although it turned into a nice picture of the little guy. The rest of the pictures are not really up to grade. You will have to forgive me. I was running on two hours sleep and had a pretty high fever. It was tough to get any sympathy though. However, I didn't take any grief over my inability to perform so that says something. The video is still in the camera and will probably not make it to the blog.

Bedraggled.

That is how I felt today at by 4:00. My head was nodding at my desk and I need a change. So I came home. But no one was hear. Had I missed them in passing. Was the wife searching for me with contractions only two minutes apart. My mind raced. And then I got over it. I was so ready for a birth this weekend that now that it has passed I have the feeling that its never going to happen. I am resigned to working up to the beginning of spring break. Of course now I am going to be caught unawares with nothing prepared for the next day of school and a pile of marking waiting to be done. But that is neither here nor there. You, careful reader, want to know about dinner.

I mean if you don't want to know about dinner then you may be in the wrong spot. Not that I question why you're here. Okay, dinner.
. When I awoke from my afternoon nap, its a good life sometimes. I found everyone else was fed and messing around post dinner. There were fish and faux chicken (tofu based) sticks in the fry pan and rice in a bowl. The miso soup was still warm and the salad still fresh. I served me up this picture you see in front of you and sat down to tuck in. Then I am hit with a "sorry about dinner," from the wife. She thought chicken and fish sticks was a little paltry for an evening meal. I of course pointed out that rice, miso soup and salad can be accompanied by anything, and I mean anything (examples: apple slices, box of raisons, leftover mac and cheese) and be one heck of a meal. Especially after the wicked boxed lunch I had today. Did I mention my wife is like 8.75 months pregnant. She is a trooper. Well back to marking papers.

Sick Day

Well I stayed home today as I was under the weather. When I wasn't prone in bed sleeping or just laying there being sick I spent my time in the living room with the wife and son. Man does that boy have energy. He literally ran and ran all day. If he wasn't chasing a balloon around the house he was playing some game where he was a dog or a cat or a power ranger. It was kind of neat to see how he and his mother spend time during the week days when sis and I are at school. I am now, really looking forward to taking parental leave. Come on baby number three.

As for dinner we had a tofu veggie casserole with a rice base. This is home food and it goes down so easy. It has a nice even blend of flavours. Not overpowering. Probably just right for people under the age of 10 whose taste buds are still intact. But hey, if you want to go for it add some hot sauce or soy sauce. It was good food for a sick boy. I am feeling better. Thanks for all your well wishes. Now I gotta go get ready for work tomorrow.