Remission.

In that I have been remiss in my blogging about dinner. First a quick strained smile. Interestingly, after downloading the pics I realised that two of the three meals I will present to you have the same guest in them, but first, more kid shots.The meal we will begin with is our almost thanksgiving dinner. This was last Monday. There was chicken roasted with assorted other stuffs. We had our local Japanese friend over. First there was a driving lesson (she passed her test on Thursday) and then there was some dinner. Good times had by all.Next up is my return dinner on Saturday night. It was yaki-soba grilled up on our teppan yaki. Big shout out for the wonderful wedding gift that keeps on giving. We grilled up a whole mess of noodles and vegetables. This was followed by some hot apple crumble with ice-cream and the jello and fruit mixture which the same guest provided. Gotta love guests.
This kid wasn't happy because all he got was breast milk and apples. Get used to it is all I can say.
So we finally make it to this evening. From conception to table there was a very short timeline on this evenings dinner. Basically at 3:30 we had no idea what we were going to have and by 5:00 everything was hot on the table. This included a shop for ingredients. The soup was a squash bisque (I saw bisque written somewhere recently and I liked the sound of it) with tomatoes and carrots. It was a little sweet for my taste but we served it with rice and the kids didn't complain for the most part. In my second bowl I added a few shots of tabasco sauce and the flavour literally exploded off the old flavo-meter. Definitely hit that nail on the head.We will see if my consistency stays spotty or if I turn things around on the old blog front. It seems my life has been a little too busy recently. I am sure it will calm down again soon. Say December 27th or there abouts. I won't hold my breath. Finally a shot of me and son. Serious, deadly serious.

Soup and Noodles

Just not together.We had a nice squash and pea soup to start this evening. The peas were of the dried variety and though they had received a good soaking and boiling there were still a tad crisp. The rest of the soup was awesome and a little pea crunchiness couldn't keep it down.

The Yaki Soba was fried up with some lovely pork and the vegetables normally associated with Yaki soba. Onions and carrot spears. The sauce was quite lovely but then my daughter mentioned I could have it with hot sauce. So I did. There was some fresh salsa for dessert but it didn't make it into any picks. I made some for the kidlets and then some spicy stuff for me.

Had a big discussion about why I like spicy food. The gist of it was that I was sort of denied it as a kid and thus grew a craving for it. I remember eating it inspite of the burning mouth and runny nose. My mom had said I wouldn't like it. And now it is what I usually crave. Here is to hoping that my kids turn the corner some day, some day soon would be even better.

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.

Barely the will to live

Man it is only a four day work week but the part that should be on Friday is packed into the other days. So by the time we get to Thursday we have actually done five days worth of work. As a result I am totally shwacked by the time I get home Thursday after noon. The result, I have nothing to give in the dinner help department and tend to indulge in snack foods. Not that anyone here seems to mind. A dinner of cheesy nacho's with homemade guacamole and salsa, bowls of ice cream, cookies, dill pickle chips and all that after having slurpees on the way home. The wife did put together a wonderful tofu infused yaki soba. This was all the base that was necessary for this evenings meal. Honestly, anything more solid and I wouldn't have had the energy to chew it. Well, I have had a sort of 30 min post dinner nap so am functioning again. Gonna be a busy weekend. Gotta get the rest of the wood chopped, tonnes of planning and marking for work, tomorrow is pizza night so that is also on the agenda. Lots brewing here. If anyone is going to make it for pizza please give me at least 3 hours notice so I can increase the amount of dough. Your all welcome.

Its not Yucky, July 26th

Its Yaki, as in Yaki soba. In Japan Yaki soba is made on a grand scale. And this is a good thing. The wife's mother took control of the evening meal on the 26th and did it up in grand style. Lots of veggies fried up with the real soba noodles. The wife commented that she can't get noodles like this in Canada. Ahh what a shame. We will keep trying though. Heavily flavoured yet the comment was made that there wasn't enough sauce added. We are already feeling the effects of heavily flavoured food. When in Rome I guess. We were very grateful to be finally settled in Ijuin Japan and living the good life. The travel day from Tokyo was tough but it was so great to see grandpa and cousin in the crowd outside the arrivals gate. We settled in for a nice evening chatting and catching up. With six cousins in the same house it was very lively. A few people felt left out and let everyone know but almost everyone had a turn at it so I think for the most part everyone is getting along. I thought this combination of signs on a condom vending machine across the street from a pachinko parlour had a pretty nice message. Don't you. I personally love coming across this type of thing in Japan. Random English used for emphasis. However, there has got to be a huge portion of the population who just ignores this stuff. The true craziness of Japan.

Light Dinner

As we were driving back to the GF this evening the topic of dinner came up. After a weekend of feasting and four days of sitting I am always thinking of something light. Also something quick and easy to prepare with very little lead time. In my brain I come to pasta with a vegetarian tomato sauce. No dethawing. Anything undercooked can still be eaten without the possibility of death. I think it works. So I offer this up. To which wife responds, "you always say that when you want a quick meal. I was thinking, yaki soba with miso soup, and a green salad." To me this does not sound like a quick meal to be whipped up in no time. However, it also sounded way better than what I was offering and -- more to the point -- sounded like I wasn't going to be cooking it. Sold. It turns out I was in charge of the salad but after being away for three days the garden was teaming with fresh produce. We even ate our first daikon. It was pretty small and the kids complained because it was too spicy. Exactly. Yup having a great garden year so far and though one of my jalapeno plants has succumbed to a bad case of dampening off, everything else has flourished (so far). Even the almost dead broccoli is coming on strong. I actually had to tell it to back off as I am married. You know how broccoli can be.

Oh yeah the red stuff is hot sauce. I know I won't be able to taste anything by the time I am sixty but I just love the hot stuff.

April 9th: Home alone

Well do to work circum- stances this evenings meal was taken with out me. It sure looks good though. I am told it was quite delicious. The fried noddles had bean sprouts and pork along with various other vegetables. The salad was a vinegar, cucumber, soft tofu and soy sauce affair. This is a very light dinner. Excellent for when the heavy eater is being fed elsewhere. You can tell from the distraught face on my daughter that they really missed me at dinner.