Eating, Meeting, Mighty, Money

Today is my son's basket ball game. In Japanese, "Katsu" sounds same as "Winning".  So, it's popular to eat cutlet (katsu) before you are going to important tests, games. It is very good and has a nice texture as a food. Everybody would like as a nice lunch/dinner. You can use tenderloin, (above) or loin, or chicken. Pepper and salt the meat, and coat with flour on about 1/4 inch thick meat. beat an egg in a bowl,  coat the meat in the egg, then put in a bowl with bread crumbs (sold as panko) heat oil. I use just a little more than to cover. after heating up on the pan, put breadcrumbs coated meat, cook each side until golden brown. (about 2 minutes each) I put Tonkatsu sauce (sold at asian store) on top.

I made "European Style Beef Stew" with slow cooker last week. My friend gave me this"William Sonoma" cook book (this certain book isn't available anymore), and this is the only recipe that I tried in the book. I changed here and there to fit our family size. I used, Half onion, finely chopped, 2 stems of celery, finely chopped, 3 or so garlic cloves, finely chopped, 1 lbs beef 2 slices of bacon 2 table spoon of flour one or two tomatoes Red Wine, (10 fl oz / 300 ml) Beef Stock 16 fl oz / 500ml) 1or 2 Bay leaves Thyme (dried herb) 1potato, 1 or 2 carrots, turnips as you like salt and pepper One table spoon of ketchup and Worcestershire sauce 1) Cut veggies, About 1 lbs and half beef, (this time was sirloin tip roast) salt and peppered. 2 slices of bacon, cut like this and sautéed until oil come out and slightly crunchy. Add onion and celery, sauté until the onions are soft. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the onions and ...

Working at night, kid's sports practice at night.. Busy parent's great helper, "Slow Cooker". When I was little, I read Ramona's series and that appeared every now and then. Slow cooker isn't used very much in Japan, even though almost every household own a rice cooker.  Anyway,  I have been pretty busy because I started doing waitressing at night few nights a week and I have been using slow cooker quite often lately. I made beef stew, I forgot to get red wine so I used sake. beef taco meat, pulled back pork, baby back pork ribs, shoulder pork ribs etc.. One time, somehow the glass lid broke but I carefully removed the lid and no glass was in there (Thank god) since then, I'm using other stainless lid from other pot I have. Even the cheap hard beef or pork will be tender and delicious!

Friday night's dinner was spaghetti. Everybody's favorite and easy to make! I used this sauce from Trader Joe's Usually I put onion, garlic and sausage in it. and add some of this basil pasto also from Trader Joe's... Noodles are also from Trader Joe's. I mix whole wheat noodle about 10% This tool that I got from some junk mail actually comes handy. Are you ready for the Valentine's Day? Peace Wings Apparel 

Chicken and broccoli piccata recipe Chicken breast 1.3 lbs - cut thin and put salt and pepper broccoli - about 1 branch - lightly boiled Sauce - Mix those ingredients Eggs - 2 Flour - 4 table spoon Miso - 1 table spoon Dried Oregano or favorite herb - 1/2 tea spoon or more 1)Heat flying pan with 1 table spoon salad oil. sauté chicken lightly. 2)put broccoli and cooked checkin into the egg sauce. 3)After clean up flying pan, heat 1 table spoon of butter and put 2) into the pan. cook both sides until egg sauce is cooked. ------------------------- I found this recipe from Japanese magazine called ""ESSE" Jan 2014. Chicken breast tends to be dry. The magazine says this recipe doesn't let chicken dry up. In the U.S. people seem like prefer breast chicken than dark chicken. I guess in Asia it's opposite. I was looking for more recipe that cooks breast meat nicely and it was a success. I have never made piccata but heard of it. I guess it's I...

What are you gonna eat tonight? I ate Port cutlet with vegetable stir fry and brown rice. I tried a new recipe from Japanese TV because it looked easy and delicious.  I used frozen thin sliced pork. Paste mixture of beaten egg, flour, salt and pepper on the meat and coat with bread crumbs like this. and cooked with 50cc of vegetable oil. The TV recipe says needs to cook only for 5 minutes but it took nearly 30 minutes! This is called mille-feuille cutlet. I guess thin layers looks like mille-feuille pie. Nice. But I wonder it will be enough for 2 adults and 2 kids.. I thinly cut carrot, asparagus and garlic. pour some stir fry sauce from Trader Joes.. Sour and sweet. With yesterday's left over brown rice and hand made kimchee by Korean neighbor. It was a nice dinner again. I am using PFOA Free Non-stick Stone Cookware By the way, Valentine's day is coming soon. I make t-shirts and sold at  Peace Wing Apparel

This day's dinner was Omellette Rice. (O mu le tsu in Japanese) Under thin egg layer, there's fried rice. I made with asparagus, green onion and sausage (nitrate free.) I used brown rice. My husband doesn't like rice, especially brown one. I had to make potato omelet with cheese. The pic above is before I flip the omelet. With Japanese probiotic soup, miso soup. Bon appetit!! I use PTFE and PFOA FREE non stick frying pan.

I have been using iPhone (3!) since summer of 2011. I don't have an expensive media plan so I use wifi at my house or wherever free wifi is available. I use the camera & video a lot. It's so nice that you can take pictures  & videos of my kids and send e-mail to grandpa and grandma. One of the things I do with my phone is keeping track of dinner using notes. I cook almost every day.  It's nice to write down that info so that I don't cook the same thing twice in a week and it's  good brain training. Soon I will be eligible for the new phone.  I can't wait to get iPhone 4 or 5!