Deka Dora

On Monday, a friend called by with a box of the most humongous dorayaki I have ever seen! For the uninitiated, a dorayaki is a type of sweet cake, made up of two pancake-like sponges which are sandwiched together with red bean paste. They are the snack of choice for the very-much loved, robot-cat-from-the-future superhero, Doraemon :-)



She had bought them fresh from a bakery (Morikami-ya in Kokubunji), and advised me to leave them for a day before eating. I had to beat the boys of with a stick to stop them getting at them, their eyes nearly popped out of their heads when they saw how big they were. Unfortunately, by the time they got home from school the next day, eagerly awaiting their treat, I was dealing with a very, very pukey baby and the dorayaki were almost forgotten... until this morning. I honestly would not have even considered eating these for breakfast had it not been for a friend posting me a link to Bill Cosby's chocolate cake sketch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K5YBNQq-Qo

After seeing that, I felt entirely justified in serving this nutritionally balanced meal before school :-)



Check out the filling!

Just popping in!

I don't want you to think I've gone quiet on you again, but things have been busy and blah, blah, blah... I spent ages over the weekend trying to set up my Etsy shop, finally managing to list my first item yesterday - woo hoo! There's still a lot of tweaking to do on the site, but I'd been putting it off for weeks so was determined to get it up and running (I'm so impatient).

Just so that you know that I've been at least thinking of writing, here's a couple of very quick recipes for you :-)

OK, so the first isn't really a recipe... more like an idea that I wished I'd have thought of sooner! Not sure what to call it... Chocobanana Mush? Anyway, take an unpeeled banana and wrap the whole thing in cling film. Microwave for about 2 minutes, depending of the size, then spit the skin open and sprinkle with a little cocoa or even drinking chocolate. Voila!



I made this for the children, so took them out for the skins for serving. I can't normally get the boys to eat bananas, but these disappeared as soon as they arrived at the table :-)

Next up are some kabocha dango (Japanese pumpkin dumplings). I had a friend coming to visit this morning and wanted to make some kind of snack, but I know that she has a lot of allergies and so needed to play things safe with the ingredients. These were a doddle to make, really quick, and looked very pretty.



Kabocha Dango

200g kabocha, peeled, seeds removed and cut into chunks
100g rice flour
120 - 150ml water
kuromitsu (or molasses/treacle)

Put the kabocha in a bowl, cover and microwave for about 4 minutes, until soft. While still hot, mash with a fork and allow to cool a little. Gradually mix in the rice flour, then carefully add the water until it forms a fairly soft dough. Bring a pan of water to the boil. Roll teaspoons of the dough into balls and gently squeeze with your thumb and finger to flatten and make a dent in the middle. Drop into the boiling water and cook for about 15 seconds, the remove them and place in a bowl of iced water to cool. Serve the dango drizzled with kuromitsu.

Introducing...

Remember the nappy cakes I showed you earlier in the year?



I had so many people telling me that they thought I should sell them that I am testing the water by introducing them in a new blog:

www.cakesagoogoo.blogspot.com

Please take a look and let me know what you think, and kindly spread the word!

Yoroshiku ne!

Sweet!

Last night, as I called in to Jusco to pick up necessities for the next day, it occurred to me that I could actually indulge in a leisurely browse at the book shop (without having to be concerned about what my two year old might get up to if I were to take my eyes of her for more than a split second - her favourite new pass time is ripping paper into shreds!). Naturally, I headed straight for the cookery section and spent a good half hour trying to whittle down the small mountain of books in front of me to just one, oh decisions, decisions!

I do have plenty of gorgeous (yes, cookery books can be gorgeous) recipe books that I brought with me from the UK, but here so many of the ingredients can be hard to find (like self raising flour or golden syrup), and so I was after something Japanese. Torn between a book on how to make wagashi (those delicate, sweet morsels that get served with green tea), a book on baking with vegetables, and another book on the various uses of goma (sesame), I eventually settled on this:



It pretty much covers all of the above, plus has the advantage of being fairly simple to understand :-) Gosh, I am amazed at how many of the 363 recipes I can't wait to cook! Buckwheat sable biscuits? Kinako (roasted soya bean flour) and goma cookies? Sweet potato doughnuts? Obviously, I need to go shopping again...

Of course, I wanted to try something out straight away, so chose a simple sweetcorn bread (actually, it's more like a slightly savoury cake) that could be made in the rice cooker (remember, my temperamental oven has a strong dislike of baking):



This was so easy (and delicious) and turned out exactly like the photo in the book - yay!

Sweetcorn Bread

50g sugar
2 eggs
pinch of salt
1 1/2 tablespoons powdered cheese (I used Parmesan)
100g flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon milk
100g sweetcorn, drained (defrosted if using frozen)
2 tablespoons butter, melted

Whisk together the sugar and eggs, then add the salt and cheese. Sift in the flour and baking powder, then stir in the milk, sweetcorn and butter. Grease the rice cooker pan with a little butter and pour the batter in. Cook on the white rice setting, checking to see if it is cooked through as soon as it beeps to tell you it is done (if not, press the switch again and cook for an extra few minutes), and turn out onto a rack to cool.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter! So, did you all eat your body weight in chocolate? I think M did :-)

This week has been somewhat difficult, won't go into details here but let's just say that today wasn't quite the fun holiday that I had planned. All things considered, I amazed myself by not eating the last of the brownies left over from lunch!

Of course, this morning we were at church. A few weeks ago we were all given a small wooden cross, and were asked to carry it with us and think about what it means to us. We were then to express our thoughts in some way, for example by decorating the cross, writing a poem, painting a picture, etc., and to bring it to church today. This was my contribution (sadly, nobody else brought theirs along):



The brownies were for a treat after lunch. I chose this recipe because I just happened to have everything needed in the cupboard (I couldn't face shopping with all three kids in tow), it uses cocoa rather than melted chocolate. I'd never used this recipe before, but it's a keeper :-) Rich, fudgy, intensely chocolaty...



Fudgy Coconut Brownies

100g cocoa
250g butter
500g golden caster sugar
4 eggs , beaten
100g self-raising flour (which I can't get here, so I used plain flour and a teaspoon of baking powder)
100g desiccated coconut

Gently melt the cocoa, butter and sugar in a large saucepan, stirring so the mixture doesn't catch. Allow to cool slightly then stir in the eggs, little by little, followed by the flour and coconut. Pour into a 21cm square, non-stick (or lined) tin and bake at 180c for about 45 minutes (check after 30 minutes and cover with another piece of baking parchment if the crust is browning too much). DO NOT OVERCOOK (it is much better to slightly under cook them than to end up with dry, cakey brownies)! Leave to cool in the tin, then carefully lift out and cut into squares. If you can wait for them to cool completely, unlike me, then you will get better shaped brownies than the one you see here in the above photo ;-)

Still here

No, I haven't been in hiding, nor sulking this time. Just been rather busy, and the school holidays have meant that by the time the kids are in bed, I am worn out and unable to string a sentence together, let alone remember what we've been up to. Back to school on Tuesday... WOOO HOOO! It's not that I don't enjoy having them all at home, not having to get up at 6.15am, etc., it's just that it's sooo noisy, and the house is a complete pigsty! Oh, and as they boys' favourite way to pass time is by playing 'explorers' out in the paddy fields, the washer has been running almost non-stop. Anyway, we have had rather a fun time over the last few weeks. For a start, we have added to our family:



Making their debut here today are Polly and Penny! Actually, their names could well change. K wants to call them Tinky and Winky (I don't think so), I quite like Thelma and Louise or Thomasina and Geraldine (Tom and Jerry), the boys want to name them after themselves... Any good suggestions?

I'm still trying to eat healthier, and came across some unusual choccie treats - vegetable chocolate! There was a whole range of different flavours, I picked up the following two to try out:



On the left is spinach and white chocolate, and on the right we have carrot and mandarin orange in dark chocolate. The verdict? A waste of money and calories! The carrot one was OK, couldn't taste much of the filling at all. The spinach one was absolutely disgusting, I took a small nibble and then passed it on to the children (who wolfed it down in seconds - I didn't tell them that it was made with spinach)!

I'd much rather eat my veggies in curry form - why ruin good chocolate? Speaking of curry, I made this healthy dish for dinner the other day (it was a Yoshikei recipe) and as it's so easy to play around with I will be making a lot more of the (I need to get my protein):



Tofu with curried vegetable sauce

2 packs of tofu, cut into large pieces
1 carrot, cut into juliennes
1 onion, thinly sliced
1 small bunch of nira (anyone know what this is called in English?)or spring onion, sliced thickly
1/2 tablespoon curry powder
240ml dashi (I used kombu)
30ml cooking sake
40ml soy sauce
40ml mirin
pinch of salt
1 rounded tablespoon cornstarch

Heat some oil in a pan and fry the vegetables and curry powder. Add all of the liquid ingredients and salt and heat to a simmer. Remove the pan from the heat, mix the cornflour with a little water and stir into the vegetables. Heat again until thickened slightly. Arrange the tofu on plates and microwave to heat through, then top with the curried vegetables.

His 'n' hers

K loves scallops. I have caught him drooling over pictures of the juicy shellfish whilst browsing the the internet. So I treated him:



Hotate (scallop) Don
(have you noticed I make a lot of don? Fewer dishes for me to wash!)

12 scallops
1 tablespoon cooking sake
20ml soy sauce
2 tablespoons butter
4 eggs
2 tablespoons sugar
a pinch of salt
chili powder
some toasted nori (seaweed)

Season the scallops with salt and pepper. Beat the eggs with the sugar and a pinch of salt, scramble them and set aside. Fry the scallops on both sides in a little oil. Pour over the sake, then put a lid over and allow them to steam cook. Remove the lid and add the butter and soy sauce to the pan, turning the scallops over to coat. Serve the scallops over a bowl of rice, with the scrambled egg, sprinkle with a little chili powder, and garnish with some shredded nori.

Over recent months I've spent so much time trying to cook things that my meat-eating family will enjoy, with very little thought to myself. So I have resolved to at least occasionally cook something that we can all tuck into as a family, and first up is a veggie shepherd's pie :-) As well as being extremely healthy and tasty (this will now be making a regular appearance at our dinner table, there were absolutely no complaints about this dish), it was also very cheap to make!



Veggie Shepherd's Pie

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion, halved and sliced
2 large carrots (500g/1lb 2oz in total), peeled and cut into chunks
2 tablespoons thyme, chopped
200ml red wine
400g can chopped tomatoes
2 vegetable stock cubes
410g can green lentils
950g sweet potatoes , peeled and cut into chunks
25g butter
85g grated cheese

Heat the oil in a frying pan, then fry the onion until golden. Add the carrots and all but a sprinkling of thyme. Pour in the wine, 150ml water and the tomatoes, then sprinkle in the stock cubes and simmer for 10 mins. Tip in the can of lentils, including their juice, then cover and simmer for another 10 mins until the carrots still have a bit of bite and the lentils are pulpy. Meanwhile, boil the sweet potatoes for 15 mins until tender, drain well, then mash with the butter and season to taste. Pile the lentil mixture into a pie dish, spoon the mash on top, then sprinkle over the cheese and remaining thyme. Bake at 190c for 20 mins if cooking straight away, or for 40 mins from chilled, until golden and hot all the way through.