I made loaves of Irish soda bread from BBC website. I loved the results and friends who tried approved its taste. The bread was delicious with butter. However, Karen who is from Ireland told me it is wheaten bread not soda bread. According to her, north and south of Ireland people make soda bread differently. I found a website about Irish soda bread: http://www.sodabread.us/ Real Irish may not call this soda bread. Still I like this recipe. Here is the recipe website : http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A23502908
My neighbor friend, Yami, took me to Gaspar’s cooking class and full course dinner in Tuesday evening. Gaspar’s is the construction company specializing design/build/remodel houses. The attendants of the class were the employees, friends and their customers. The class was held at Gaspar’s office. There is a model kitchen installed in the office to show their customers appliances and building materials Gaspar’s use for their construction business. When Yami and I entered to the Gaspar’s office, we were asked if we like to have red or white wine. I asked for red and Yami for white. The chef and instructor of the class was Incredible chef, Karen Rosenzweig ,(See http://www.incrediblechef.com/index.html) who is personnel chef. Karen offered us appetizer to start. It was baked Brie with Caramel with Walnuts or with cranberries served with crackers and slices of apples. The appetizer was very rich and delicious. She showed us how to prepare it. I already tried this appetizer recipe with my first home made puff pastry and brought it to the Irish dinner party. Every one who tasted it loved it very much. I thank Karen for this recipe. After the instruction of this delicious appetizer, we learned about energy efficient and high BTU stove with the grill on the top. The next lesson was how to cook the entrée, baked chicken with tomatoes, olives and Mushrooms, Herbed couscous, and Grilled Zucchini with Feta and Mint. While we wait the dishes were ready to be served, we learned about the rest of the kitchen appliances, lighting, and environment friendly building materials. Karen grilled zucchini on the stove top grill and fry and baked the chicken using the stove and the oven installed at Gaspar’s. Finally it was the dessert time! The dessert was old fashioned-shortbread. Karen showed how quickly the tasty short bread was prepared. We had hot freshly baked short bread. It was very tender and buttery bread. We could not resist several servings. I will try this recipe soon. Karen was very knowledgeable and a good teacher. I liked her style of teaching and cooking. I appreciate Gaspar’s and Yami who provided me a great time and opportunity to experience full course dinner with valuable cooking instructions from professional chef.
<----Photo left doesn’t include some dishes mentioned in the blog. This is my favorite simple Japanese Vegetarian breakfast. I love Japanese breakfast. I was thrilled to be asked to create a Japanese breakfast menu. Japanese breakfast includes a lot of vegetables, fish, eggs, meats (bacon or ham), rice and Miso soup. I thought there should be choice of fish, meats, or vegetarian. The vegetable dishes on side can be the same in three menu items if they don’t contain any meat. I selected four vegetable dishes, the cooked spinach marinated with sweet sesame sauce, Nimono which is vegetables cooked in Japanese stock, fresh salad, and Tsukemono which is Japanese pickled vegetables. I included fresh fruit. The plate will be crowded with small portion of these things, choice of main dish, rice and Miso soup. Also I added Children plate as another menu item. Most children may not like Miso soup but rice balls and Bacon. I included these items and changed some of vegetables for Children’s plate. My complete menu may not be used at the restaurant which asked me about Japanese breakfast menu. However, I enjoyed thinking and write down about what Seattleite will like in their Japanese breakfast and what I can introduce someone who have never been to Japan and try out something new. Japanese breakfast items above is very close what you find at Hotels in Japan and hopefully Seattleites try out these food and start eating Japanese breakfast.My another blog about Breakfast is found: http://fumikob-foodtalk.blogspot.com/2008/03/is-breakfast-most-important-meal-of-day.html
St. Clouds’ owners organize many volunteers to cook for homeless people once a month. (See St. Clouds website) I went to join February’s homeless cooking project. I was surprised to see so many volunteers cutting, chopping, and grilling vegetables and fruit, mixing seasoning for baked meats, making dessert and washing dishes. I met my neighbors and some people who came from Bellevue and Burien. A lady told me that she has been doing this for two years. I met high school and middle students who are in Spring break. John Platt who is one of the owners of St. Clouds determines what to cook based on the food donations and instructs volunteers what to do. The results was full course menu which include salad made of spinach with cherry tomato and pear, roasted asparagus, Baked Mexican spiced pork and chicken, apple custard tart, and chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. I was very impressed! All food was completed and packed and labeled to be carried away around 1:00PM to the 4 homeless shelters. I had exciting experience working together with many volunteers to cook nice meals. These meals will not only fill the stomachs of hungry people but also make them warm.
I decided to cook Vietnamese Chicken Rice soup for Teacher’s appreciation lunch at my son’s middle school. The soup is called congee in English. I saw how Congee was made at Club bamboo at ACRS and loved the taste and thought it is perfect to add to Teacher’s lunch menu. I searched the congee recipe which uses the same ingredients, ginger, lemongrass and chicken. I found it in Allrecipes.com. Please see the site: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Vietnamese-Chicken-and-Long-Grain-Rice-Congee/Detail.aspx The recipe looks good. However, I had to think how to bring the soup to keep it warm for teachers during 3 lunch periods. I neither wanted to carry boiling hot soup in the car nor half-way heated soup. I got an idea. Here is how I prepared and served the soup safe, hot and delicious. The day before the lunch I cooked the chicken soup stock as the recipe, and cool it down quickly in shallow pan surrounded with ice. I remove the bone and separate the chicken meat to cool quickly, and stored cooled soup and the meat in the refrigerator. At the day, I cooked a small amount of rice with the some of the chicken soup and cool the rice. I chopped cilantro, lime, and chives. I carried all of cooked ingredients and condiments into the cooler with ice. Slow cooker will require too much time to heat up the content so I brought a large pot and Chinese portable gas burner. My method worked well. The burner heated up soup quickly and I added cooked rice and chicken. The teachers were happy to have this warm unusual Asian soup in addition to tasty bagels, salad, lasagna, and sweets. I loved the compliment from some of the teachers about the soup. The recipe was great and produced the superior soup. I like to thank to the owner of the original congee recipe.
Last week, there were several celebrations. The first was the Chinese New Year’s day on January 26th. My favorite Tofu Company took this day off although Seattle international district seems to be quiet. Employees at ACRS celebrated New Year’s party for lunch. The club bamboo staff members helped cooking some Chinese dishes in addition to our duties cooking for seniors. People celebrate the special occasion by sharing food with families and friends. Japanese celebrate New Years Day eating special food. For example, we have Black beans which pronounce KURO-MAME and MAME means healthy and eggs which is yellow (gold) and white (silver) and they are lucky color. Unfortunately I didn’t have an opportunity to ask someone at ARCS about special Chinese or Vietnamese New Year’s Day food. On Wednesday, Rosita who is my fellow kitchen staff had a party to share her happiness to obtain her green card. Although I was not volunteering the day, I attended her celebration by accepting her invitation. Rosita was very happy surrounded by her favorite colleagues and her nephew. On Thursday an employee of ARCS brought special Vietnamese dishes for kitchen staffs. The food was steamed dish made of rice flour, jacama, and etc and cooled and decorated with colorful toppings. It was served with sweet fish sauce and salad. They were very delicious. Please see photos of this pretty dish. I think I gained my weight this week by having many delicious treats.
My husband and I went to my first Seattle food blogger’s event held at Vermillion of Capital hill which is very nice art gallery with bar and restaurant. I brought home-made California rolls and Tempura. I met fellow members of Seattle foodies and exchange our business cards. We had a lovely time talking about food, blogs, and etc. Karen Brown who organized events asked us to vote for bar food contests and most of us got some prize for our snack food. I received Strangest bar Snack prize for my California rolls, The Greek Gods Yogurt. I look at Japanese bar food recipes. It is true that Sushi is not listed in the book. Tempura is in the book though. I posted three photos in this blog, our bar food, Vermillion Sample menus, and my photo with Greek Gods yogurt guy. He told me he was from Greece and surely he was speaking in some other language to other Greek Gods worker. This was taken at Seattle Women’s show at Quest field last spring and I never had opportunity to use it.
Since last Saturday until this Saturday, I made Sushi 4 times. On last Saturday I taught 4 students how to make Sushi rolls. They made a California roll, a Seattle roll, and a Japanese roll. They were happy to take home their Sushi for their family. They told me they had a great time producing nice looking Sushi rolls and their family loved them. Tuesday, at ARCS’s club bamboo I showed fellow assistant cooks how to make California rolls and tuna salad rolls. Although I failed to cook rice correctly and rice was hard, the customers at Club bamboo seemed to like Sushi served with Miso soup and spicy Nappa cabbage salad. One of fellow assistant cooks told me that her husband loves Sushi and she will make some for him soon. Another told me that she learned the reason why Japanese restaurant charges so much for food. It is because Japanese dishes uses so many ingredients and requires a lot of work. I admit that there are many ingredients on my kitchen counter when I make Japanese food. Wednesday, my friend asked me to make 3 Japanese rolls, 2 Seattle rolls, and 12 pieces of Inari Sushi. Inari Sushi is made of Sushi rice stuffed in deep fried Tofu pouches. I finished all Sushi and brought to my friend’s house around 11:30am. The most of the guests were Japanese wives and they loved my Japanese Sushi and Inari Sushi. I was happy to please these Japanese ladies. Today, on Saturday, I made Japanese Sushi rolls for Japanese school’s New Year’s potluck and Seattle rolls for my husband’s friend’s moving party. My family had to eat Sushi after my class and to take Tuesday’s lunch. I think we eat Sushi more often than my parents who live in Japan. Generally speaking, Japanese people eat Sushi for special occasions such as family gatherings and serving for special guest. Some Seattleite loves Japanese food and they buy Sushi at grocery store and have it once a week.
At ACRS again, Chef Alice was nice to assign me to cook Japanese curry with rice on Tuesday’s lunch. I brought two boxes of curry sauce mix from home. I was planning to make usual my Japanese curry which includes meat, onion, carrot, and potatoes. However, Chef Alice had a better idea. Ground beef and eggplant curry! The curry tasted better than my usual one and looks good with tomatoes and green peas. Unfortunately I didn’t take photos of curry. Alice even prepared nice cucumber salad with Miso dressing and mandarin orange served with curried rice. Here is the recipe.
Ingredients I lb Ground beef 3 cloves of garlic 1 large onion 3 Chinese or Japanese eggplants 3 cups of Water (Add less for thick and more for soupy curry.) ¼ cup Frozen green peas 1 tomato 1 box of Japanese curry sauce mix 7oz (Or you can fry curry powder and flour in butter and add chicken broth. You need to adjust thickness and taste. By using sauce mix, you can make tasty curry easily.) Cooked Japanese rice(Calrose )
Cooking Instructions 1. Peel, cut half onion and make them thin slices. 2. Peel , and mince garlic 3. Cut eggplant halt vertically and slice them to a half inch thickness 4. Heat frying pan and add oil 5. Fry onion until they are transparent and caramel colored. Do not burn. 6. Take onion out and add more oil and fry eggplant. I fried them until well-done. However, since the eggplants will be cooked in the soup, you can quick fry the eggplant. 7. Take eggplants out and fry ground beef with garlic 8. Heat stew pot with 3 cups of water and add cooked onion, eggplants, and ground beef. 9. Boil it and take out dark bubbles floating the surface to the soup. 10. Cook until eggplants are done. 11. Turn heat very low and add curry sauce mix into the soup. 12. Stir until the sauce mix is completely melted. 13. Cook low heat for 20 minutes or more. Stir as necessary. 14. Slice tomato and add them and frozen peas into the curry and cook for 5 minutes. 15. The curry is ready to be served. Serve the curry over the steamed rice.
<-Photo is one of the fellow kitchen helpers and my lunch.
I started volunteer work at Club Bamboo yesterday. Club Bamboo belongs to ACRS (Asian Counseling and Referral Services) in Seattle and serves lunch to the employees and guests. I arrived at ACRS around 9:00am. At the Club Bamboo, I met two ladies who were bit older than me. I introduced myself to them and joined their conversation until Chef Alice arrived. The kitchen at the Club Bamboo was new and clean. Chef Alice showed me around the kitchen and told me where things were kept. She announced that today’s lunch menu was Chinese style spicy chicken, roasted root vegetables and cooked rice. She told us to start peeling and chopping root vegetables. We peeled and chopped carrot, sweet potatoes, celery roots, and parsnips. There two ladies were Filipino and I am Japanese. All of us saw celery roots at some store before, but we didn’t know what they were. They smelled like celery but don’t look like celery. We wondered if celery roots were Asian vegetable. According to wiseGeek website, celery roots are from Europe. After all roots vegetables were chopped, the two ladies chopped ginger, garlic, and chilies. I cut chickens to small pieces with another helper who came later and spoke Vietnamese. Chef Alice set a rice cooker ready for rice after she started roasting large portion of the roots vegetable in oven. All chicken ingredients were chopped. Chef Alice told me to mix corn starch with the chicken. She heated large Wok to fry oil and all spices and took out all spices from Wok. Then she added more oil and fried the chicken until done and added egg white to the chicken. Meanwhile, rice was cooked and vegetables were roasted. My job at this point was to wash and to sanitize all bowls, knifes and cutting boards. The first guests arrived. Chef Alice dished up the spicy chicken on a piece of large lettuce leaf, roasted root vegetables and cooked rice. It looked colorful and nice. She told the guest to add some pine nuts and chopped green onion over the chicken if she like. Several guests arrived and had their lunch. Around 1:00pm, Chef Alice told us that it was our lunch time. I dished up my lunch as other guest. The chicken was spicy, little bit hot and was good with rice. The root vegetables were sweet and tender. The meal included protein, vegetables and carbohydrate. It was healthy. After filling my stomach, I washed more dishes. I left the club bamboo around 3:00pm. I had fun working with interesting ladies and helping Chef Alice. Fortunately Tuesday was not busy day at Club Bamboo. It was good for me to start today instead of Thursday which is supposed to be busy. I am planning to work two days a week for three months and hopefully Chef Alice let me try out my Japanese recipes to the customers before my three months term ends.
