Last month, I was invited to a tamale party. I didn’t know how to make Tamales before this party. The party was fun and tamales were very tasty. I took video and learned how to prepare tamales. I practiced making tamale at the party. I wrapped cooked and minced turkey and cheese on corn paste into corn husk. I made much tamales. The following week of the party, I bought all ingredients for my first tamale and roasted whole chicken. It was not as good as the ones made by tres Tamarelas at the party. When the corn husks are unwrapped from cooked tamale, the center parts which are meat or vegetable and cheese should be completely wrapped with corn paste. In my first tamale, cheese was out of corn filling and stuck to the corn husk. I realized that I was wrapping tamales wrong way. I made Tamale with ground pork with cheese 3 days later. At this time, they looked perfect and were delicious. Please view the YouTube video of Tamale Making Party to learn how to make your Tamales.
The other day, my elderly Japanese neighbor told me about a local Japanese soy sauce store in Bellevue which is a 30 minutes drive from Seattle. I love to have Japanese soy sauce from a small producer. I asked her to take me to the store. The maker is Kamada Soy sauce or Kamada America. Unfortunately we found out the store portion was closed. I decided to knock the door to the office to find out if we can order the soy sauce today. A Japanese lady opened the door for us. My neighbor told her that she learned about their soy sauce from her friend who owned a good Japanese restaurant and used to buy their soy sauce before. She loves their soy sauce and was disappointed to find out the store was closed. The lady from the Kamada America was apologetic that orders need to be made by fax or internet. She gave us order form. I asked if we can fill the order information and pay it today. She was kind to accept my proposal. I ordered Koikuchi Soy which includes 7 small boxes(200ml) of original soy sauce and Gourmet set which includes Dashi soy, Ponzu and Salad soy. Dashi is concentrated version of Japanese soup, Ponzu is generally made of citrus fruit, vinegar, Japanese soup and soy sauce, and Salad soy seems to be soy sauce based salad dressing. It is costly ($15.75 +shipping for Soy sauce set 1400ml ) comparing buying soy sauce (less than $10,for 1000ml) made by major company at the grocery store. My neighbor told me she only uses this soy sauce and Dashi for the special occasions.
My orders were arrived yesterday. I poured Dashi soy sauce over my fried tofu and made teriyaki fish with original soy sauce. Kamada’s koikuchi soy sauce or original soy enhanced the tofu taste and fish was delicious. Only thing that I may warn some people is that Dashi soy sauce contains MSG as most Asian soup does. Kamada’s Original soy sauce is darker brown than one made by a large soy sauce maker. Its ingredients of the soy sauce are Soybeans, wheat, water, salt, and alcohol. According to the box, it was made of organic soybeans and produced using Japanese traditional method. Although I need to test this fancy soy sauce for my various recipes, so far I love using Kamada soy sauce and convenient Dashi to my cooking.
I recently found Tofu factory with Chinese restaurant near my house. I drove in front of the place often and have never known I could buy such a delicious freshly made tofu there until someone mentioned to me that she always buy tofu when she was near by. It was much inexpensive than buying tofu at any other store. I wrote my review with photos to Yelp. Then I realized someone else posted his review of the same place with different name. So there are two review pages for the same Northwest Tofu inc.: http://www.yelp.com/biz/northwest-tofu-inc-seattle http://www.yelp.com/biz/house-of-tofu-seattle
I decided to buy tofu every Monday morning after I drop off my son at his school one block from the Tofu factory. Yes. I will be there 7:50am in Monday morning.
I had no pumpkin pie filling and mashed potatoes leftover this year. I made pumpkin cookies from pumpkin pie filling. They didn’t look perfect but tasted good. I made potato pan cake and potato bread from mashed potatoes. Here is my premature version of recipes which probably needs to revisit and test: Pumpkin cookies made of pumpkin pie filling
Ingredients 1/2 cup pumpkin pie filling left over 1/2 cup butter melted ½ cup powdered sugar 1 cup unbleached flour ½ tsp baking powder Cooking Instructions 1. Preheat oven to 425 degree 2. Mix all ingredients 3. Drop dough with 1 inch diameter to the baking pan 4. Bake for 7-8 minutes.
Potato bread made of mashed potatoes Ingredients 2 cups Mashed potatoes 1 cup water 3Tbsp vegetable oil 1 tsp salt 1 ⅓ Tbsp sugar 1 ½ cup bread flour ½ cup Whole wheat flour 2tsp active yeast Cooking instruction using bread maker 1. Add all ingredients to bread maker 2. Set dough setting and start bread maker 3. After dough is done, punch the dough down and flour the dough to prevent to stick to the hand. 4. Divide the dough to two and make elongated or round shape 5. Set on loaf pan or pan and final rise until the loaf is double about one hour 6. Preheat oven to 375 degree and bake 30 minutes or until done.
In addition to these left over, I had large portion of ham with bone. I created soup stock and made blackeye bean and ham soup. Soup was full filling and delicious with home made bread.
My husband bought two tickets of Thanksgiving lunch. He paid $10 each and the proceeds go to the charity. His coworkers cooked Turkeys and other food. The lunch was full course buffet include dessert. All the food was good. I took photos of each food as you seen the slide show above. I tried out everything. I was full all day.
There are three things which I need to have to create Japanese taste. They are Soy sauce, Sake Rice Vinegar and Miso (soy bean paste) . I am happy to find all of them can be at major grocery stores such as Safeway, QFC and Albertsons around Seattle. Soy sauce may be in kitchens of most North American houses and they came from various countries and some from US. I used soy sauce made in China and it tasted different than Japanese one. So I usually go to Japanese grocery to buy low salt soy sauce for my Japanese recipe. If I find the soy sauce produced by small company is for sale, I buy it rather than one from large producer. Sake or Rice wine seems to be one of popular Alcoholic drinks and it can be found at wine section in most grocer stores around Seattle. I don’t buy Cooking wine made with Sake because it contains too much salt. I buy inexpensive Sake for cooking. Also cheap Sake is good to drink warm. I heat it up to be warm and serve it on cold night with my Japanese food. Rice vinegar is useful to make Japanese flavored salad dressings and add sugar and salt to make Sushi vinegar. I often add a bit of Rice vinegar with soy sauce to pour fresh or cooked vegetables instead of soy sauce only. We make Miso soup using Miso or soy bean paste. Miso can be used instead of soy sauce most of the recipe. With these four ingredients, I can create Japanese full meals which are accompanied with cooked white rice. Itadakimasu.( This is the phrase we Japanese say before eating our meal like a prayer.)
This was my second time attending the Brew master’s dinner. Early Summer I attended and the food and beer reflected the late beginning of summer. There were a lot of fresh vegetables. The seating was at round tables. This event reflected the Harvest time with heavier beers and food. The seating was family style with long tables. I liked this arrangement, because I was able to see and talk to people. I recommend this to every one who loves good beer and food. By Daniel
I had opportunity to join the feast of four courses brew master’s dinner at Hales Ale. The brewery is one of the best and popular breweries in Seattle. The last time we came to Hales Ale was with my English neighbors who like to drink beer and they loved the Hales Ale beer. I was curious what will be served with crafted beers. There were about 40 guests for the dinner. The owner of the Hales Ale, Mike Hale, made the opening speech to the guests and had the dinner with the guests. He walked around the tables and talked to each guest. I was grateful to have opportunity to hear about the history of the brewery, his life, and his beer. The first beer was the gift from the brewery before the meal. I am sorry to say that I lost my paper that contains the names of beer served and I don’t have a good memory of names. The first meal was Duck confit with wild mushroom and Garlic custard and smoked Tomato relish. I learned the ‘confit’ meant for French cooking when the chef described that the duck was cooked in it own fat. I learned how to pronounce confit. ( ‘t’ is not pronounced.) With this meal we got bitter golden color ale. The duck confit was very rich and it tasted great with this ale. The second in the course was Beet, Carrot, Turnip and Parsnip Salad. The chef told us some vegetables were from his garden. It was pretty and crispy salad. The main course was the choice of Cioppino or Braised Rabbit Stew. I ordered Braised Rabbit Stew for my husband and Cioppino for me. The harvest ale was brought for main dish. Mike Hale told us the beer was made of freshly harvested hop. I tasted the rabbit stew and the meat was tender and soup was tasty although it was too strong and I prefer my Cioppino which made of my favorite
sea foods. I loved this ale the most among others and the beer was very delicious with these meals. The final was the dessert. Baked Apples with Vanilla Ice Cream, Carmel Sauce and Toasted Pecans! The dark almost black beer was served. It was my first experience having beer with my dessert. The dark beer was actually good with the apples and ice cream. We had a great time with our friends having nice dinner with fresh brewed beers. It was the birthday of one of our friends, Lyle whoe is the one who notified us the dinner. We wish happy birthday to Lyle and thank you for having us to the dinner.
I took some photos and posted on my Picasa. Lastly I like to write how to boil Edamane which is Japanese favorite beer food. Here is the Edamame cooking instructions from my mother in Japan. I think with this method the color of Edamame will stay green . ———————- Boiled Edamame Ingredients Frozen Edamame Water to boil Pinch-1tea spoon Salt Cooking Instructions Boil water Put Edamame into the boiled water. Cook and boil the water with Edamame for 3 minutes. Drain the water. Sprinkle salt over Edamame and mix. Serve it warm.
I baked scones for Sunday breakfast. The recipe in the cookbook used baking soda as one of the ingredients. I didn’t have baking soda and remembered that my husband once mentioned baking powder is made of baking soda and cream of tartar. So I modified the recipe to add extra baking powder. It was successful. Then I wonder what is cream of tartar does. I had Joy of cooking 1975 edition to find out. No cream of tartar in Index. I decided to look for baking powder section. Yes. I learned something new about baking powders and baking soda. Probably good bakers know these facts. This book included much chemistry of baking. I was ignorant in this field. Now I learned a bit from this book. There are 5 types of baking powders in this book, tartrate baking powders, phosphate baking powders, double acting or S.A.S (sodium aluminum sulfate). I learned two useful things from it. One is that if tartrate powder (tartric acid and/or cream of tartar) is used for baking, batter or dough need to be baked quickly and not kept in fridge or freezer. Another thing is when there were no baking powder, use mix ½ teaspoon cream of tartar, 1/3 teaspoon of baking soda, and 1/8 teaspoon of salt in exchange of one teaspoon of baking powder. This mix needs to be used quickly once it is mixed with liquid.
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Fumikob’s SconesRecipe
Ingredients 3 ¼ cups of flour 2 teaspoons of cream of tartar 3 teaspoon of double acting baking powder 1 tsp salt 6 TBSP chilled butter 3 TBLSP sugar 1 Cup milk (Chocolate chip or raisins, optional) Cooking instructions Preheat oven to 425 degree. Combine first 4 dry ingredient and shift. Add the dry mix above into food processor and mix Cut butter into small pieces and add and process in the food processor. Add sugar and milk and process to mix. Take out the dough on the floured surface. Add raisin or chocolate chip (optional) Knead dough and ½ inch thick round Cut 12 pie shape Bake for 10 minutes
I think plate is like a dress and the food on it is the naked body. If simple food was dished on the gorgeous plate, it becomes more fancy and expensive looks. Plate is also like canvas waiting to be painted. Chef is the artist and food is the paint. When the chef chose the right plate for his food and used perfect color coordination between his food and plate, his food become art. The simple plate may look good for colorful dish while simple food may look good on colorful plate. I love buying plates to dish up my food. When I lived in Japan, I often visited a store which sold inexpensive place made locally. I collected purple, green, yellow, and blue plates for my food. I still cannot resist my urge to buy the plate when I saw unique and artistic plate. I often imagine what can be on the plate. I usually go to my favorite second hand store and go to see plates and china section. I usually buy nice plate around $1. I found nice Black Bloom plate by Noritake and bought it one dollar, yellow cute heart plate for 75 cents, and more. I posted the photo of the black plate and yellow heart shape plate with the lime cake pudding on it. You can compare the photo of lime cake pudding of the previous blog. You will see the difference. I think the both plates look nice with lemon cake pudding on. Depending on my mood, I select the plate for my dinner. The bright plate may cheer me up in dark winter days and clear glass plates will cool me down in hot summer day.
produced by small company is for sale, I buy it rather than one from large producer.
