It's been awhile

I've been so busy ever since I came back from Japan back in late July.

My daughter became very mobile, I'm constantly running after her since we haven't made our place child proof yet.

I remember child proofing everywhere in our house with my first son. But now that I'm more laid back (aka lazy mom) I haven't bought any materials for child proofing!
She banged her head at the coffee table and legs of dining chairs several times, she finally became pro at swerving her head around them. Quite a skill, I must say. Ha ha
Did you know it's called the French Parenting? Hahaha

Anyways, because I don't have much time to take photos of dinner and bento, until I'm more available, I'm gonna post from my phone. Poor quality photos.. Oh well.

Here some pics of bentos!

















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First experience

My daughter went to an ER here in Japan. It wasn't anything urgent, but because it was on Saturday all the clinics were closed. My daughter had been touching her ear for awhile and smelt little bit bad, I took her in just to be safe.

Turned out she had a mild ear infection. My older child never had one before, I felt very bad for not noticing much earlier :(


Here's the medicines my daughter got from hospital.









It's powder!
They'll never give anything powder to a 5mon old baby in the States! It's a choking hazard, isn't it???


And another thing, they don't include a paper that describes what kind of medicine it is. How am I suppose to trust this to give it to my baby girl???

I guess I'm gonna wait until Monday to take her to another doctor for a second opinion :p



Sorry this blog has nothing to do with my food diary...;D

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3rd day

My son went out with my parents today since I was under the weather...
He loves train so much, my folks decided to ride a train with him.

There are many different bentos they sell at train stations in Japan. My son found a fun looking one today!





The model of this bento is one of very popular Japanese steam trains, D51 aka De Ko Ichi.





He was more excited about the container! :p





The bento itself was pretty good but the color of its rice was black!!! How unappetizing...lol

I cooked some stuff for my family for tonight's dinner again. Just some little stuff. I made 3 dish, my dad made 2 (forgot to take photos).






I've been using cherry tomatoes for garnish. These are actually grown in my parents condo's balcony!






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2nd time

Cooked dinner for my family tonight.
Just three dish.








So I calculated the price of groceries. Came out to be ¥4175. About $40. Will see how many more dish I can make out of them :)




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Groceries in Japan

I finally went to grocery shopping yesterday. My dad took me to a place where you can get everything.





I've gotta calculate how much everythig was. It was super cheap though!
Those cucumbers were ¥10 each. Which is like less than 10 cents. Those tofu were ¥33 each. So cheap I wish I lived here! :p

Here's what I made for my family last night.





All those cost me about ¥1000! more than enough food for 4 adults and a child. Hmmm... Let's see what else I can cook :)




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Wednesday - Hayashi Rice

Tonight's dinner we had...

Hayashi Rice
Salad
Veggies and hummus


Quick and easy tonight.
No recipe to share tonight, sorry!
I have 4 more days to clean and pack...
Well, I'm really behind on 'cleaning' part.

Our place is never really 'dirty' but you know, like dusty corners of furniture and floors, but mostly bathrooms.

I kept thinking that I need to clean, but I kept putting it off!
I really should do it.
My mind is spinning every day now.

There are things I need to do;

Like getting some Thank You cards and gifts to my son's preschool teachers (the end of school year is on Friday).
Making sure I've got enough souvenirs to my friends and family in Japan.
Meanwhile, I'm booking myself for appointment with a lactation consultant and several play dates this week.

It's good that I keep myself busy so I don't just sit and start to panic...because, I would do that. Being busy keeps my mind off from imagining how things going to be on the 11-hr flight.

Ahhhh...
This blog is becoming my murmur-log, and not so much of food-log. haha.
Bear with me ;p


Here's the picture of Bento for tomorrow:

Tuessday - Chicken stir fry

Tonight's dinner was...

Chicken stir fry
Orange roughy in ginger soy sauce
Green beans with balsamic sauce
veggies


My son didn't have school today, but I didn't take him anywhere since I had many loads of laundry to do. Thankfully though, he was being very good boy he entertained himself all day. Pretty much. He does this thing where he throws a football above him, then catches as he runs.
Our place is not very big, but not too small either, so just about enough (?) space for him to run and catch ball alone :)

Then he took a nap for a couple of hours without any problem! What a great son he was today!!! I was able to get a lot done. I finished all the washing (bedding always takes time) and packing! Now I feel a little less of a stress about the trip...just a little bit.


Here's the recipe of the day:

Chicken stir fry

Chicken thigh (or breast)---2 thighs
Cabbage---1/4 roughly chopped
red bell pepper---1/2 about same size as cabbage
mushrooms---1/2 pkg thick slice

*sauce 1
soy sauce---2tbs
grated ginger---1tsp
minced garlic---1tsp
potato starch---2tbs

*sauce 2
Oyster sauce---2tbs
water---1tbs
soy sauce---2tsp
agave---1/2tbs

1) marinate meat with *sauce 1 mixture (without starch). Then coat with starch.
2) In a large pan, cook meat both size until halfway cooked.
3) Put them onto a plate, put aside.
4) In a same pan, drizzle oil then cook cabbage, mushroom, and peppers. Season with 2tsp of Chinese soup stock powder, then add 2tbs of water.
5) When the veggies are halfway cooked, put the *sauce 2 mixture, then add back the chicken.
6) Mix well on a high heat.


We ate dinner without daddy tonight. SO the Orange roughy was for my son's dinner and his lunch (bento) for tomorrow. I was going to make a salad, but then realized that I will be the only person to be eating it. My son's favorite veggies are only carrots and cucumbers.
Less cooking, more time to relax for me :)

I think my son knows we are going to be away from his daddy for a long time soon, he's so lovey dovey to his daddy!

My husband is coming home really late tonight, but my son's trying his hardest to stay awake until he sees his daddy because he wants to give him a big hug.
It makes me feel bad that my husband won't be able to see our kids for a month... I'm so appreciative about his generosity about letting me go to Japan every year.


That's why I try my best to cook bento every day! ;p

Here are the bentos for my boys for tomorrow...

Monday - Spaghetti and salad

Dinner on Monday night was...

Pasta
Arugula salad


Initially I was going to make 4 dish, but I ran out of my motivation ;p
I made tonight's dinner in 20min. It's great to have some pasta and pasta sauce in the pantry for days like today. You can create your dinner in a short time.

I added some veggies and meat to the sauce to make it little more nutritious. And for the salad, added some bell peppers, black olives, cheese, tomatoes and cucumbers to make it little festive.

Not so much to share recipes today.
But I add something to pasta sauce for a fuller taste.
Ketchup, little bit of mayonnaise and a little bit of agave.
To me, adding ketchup makes it a fuller taste, I don't know why.


Anyways, I've gotta go do a lot of laundry and packing!



Picture of the day:

If you are living in LA area, you probably know what this is.
I don't even know what's this called. You can get this at a Mexican fruit stand you'll see almost everywhere in LA area.
It's got Mangoes, pineapples, melons, cucumbers, coconuts, lime juice, and some spicy peppers. They are SO GOOD!

Groceries of the week 6

Sorry my blog isn't efficient lately.  I hate it.  But can't do million things all at once right? ---so blog had to be the last thing on my list ;(

I'm going to Japan with my kids this Sunday.
Usually I get mental nervousness (anxiety) happens a month before the departure day because traveling with little ones on a 11 hour plane ride is just not ideal...especially when you are travelling alone.

But this time, I didn't get any anxiety until NOW!
I have about 5 days, I'm start to panic!
This time, I'm not so worried about my son since he understands why we are going to be on the plane, and what can do and cannot do on the plane, but most of all, he can communicate with me. 
The most of my concern is...a couple of days shy of 5 month-old daughter.


I'm just hoping that everything goes smoothly...meaning...she will not scream cry on the plane!
That would be the nightmare if she starts to cry non-stop when people are sleeping...

You see, I started to think about it and now giving me a stress already!  ahhhhhhhhhhh


OK.
Let's move on to my blogging.

So I have this week left until I go back to Japan.
I bought just a little bit of essentials for the week from the grocery stores (Trader Joe's and Fresh & Easy).

I hope I can cook this week...because I'm already getting so stressed out I don't have any energy to do anything in the afternoon lately. My stress is draining my energy!!!

Sunday - Tofu burger patties

Um..I am so behind on my blog updates.

I'm going to make this one really quick... ha ha


Well, I didn't cook dinner because my boys were both sleeping around dinner time.
I made bento for my husband for Monday lunch though~!


So here's the picture of the bento...

The menu of the bento was...


Tofu burger patties
Edamame rice
Tomato & cheese
Mixed veggies
Pickles


I made tofu burger patties because I had some tofu and ground meat left for the week. Not so much of leftover ingredients any more ;)
A lot of Tofu Burger patty recipes include ground meat, so if you are a true vegetarian, this is not for you.
I used half tofu and half ground meat (turkey) this time, but I will try to come up with a pure tofu burger patty recipe one day :)

These are the seasoning ingredients I used:

(left) Karaage (fried chicken) seasoning
(right) Chinese chicken stock powder


Here is the recipe....

Tofu---2/3 or 1/2 drained water really well
Ground meat---1/2lb

*Karaage seasoning---2tsp
*Chinese chicken stock powder---2tsp
*egg---1
*Potato starch---2tbs


1) Mix all the ingredients well together

2) Make a patty with palm of hands.
3) Spray some oil in a large pan. Put all the patties in and cook on a medium heat.

4) Cook until both sides are brown and crispy.

For the sauce...

Red wine---1/4cup
Ketchup---1/2up
Tonkatsu sauce---1/4cup
Agave---1tbs

1) Mix all together in a sauce pan until boiling.



I'm in a bit of a hurry to update another blog now!

Saturday - pupus

My husband said he was going to just snack on some food and drink beer while he enjoys World Cup on TV.

Since when American like soccer?


Although I thought America has no chance to score vs. England...
I was very wrong!
Even though US scored a point with a little help of UK's goalie's mistake, it was still a clean nice shoot.

I guess this game was as exciting to watch as US vs. Canada for Winter Olympic Ice hockey game...




Who am I kidding?



I can care less about sports, to be honest.
Because I have two sports loving boys in the house, I'm pretty much forced to watch with them!
Thank goodness we finally got another cable line into our bedroom! :p



Anyways, this is what I quickly fixed for tonight's snack/dinner.

5 layer dip
Yakko tofu
Cheesy turkey roll

Everything was done within 15min :)
I love it when I make easy fixing sometimes!




The picture of the day:

My son got hungry a couple of hour later, he ate a bowl of ramen noodles :)

Friday - Cheesy potato balls and Tofu jun

Last night's dinner was...

Cheesy potato balls
Korean style Pan fried Tofu
Gyoza
Edamame rice and salmon rice (leftovers)

I'm trying to clean up my refrigerator until I leave for Japan so my husband can stock up whatever he wants in there... probably beer and sodas :)

I still have a lot of potatoes left which I bought weeks ago (5 lb bag of Idaho potatoes). And in the fridge, all the vegetables I've got left are cabbage, carrots, onion and green onions. Shiso leaves from my balcony.

So I may be cooking a lot of potato dish for this weekend :D


Here's the recipes of the day:

Cheesy potato balls

Potatoes---2 medium size
Milk---3 tbs
Potato starch---3 tbs
Cheese---whatever you like. I used American cheese

1) After pealing potato skins, wrap in saran wrap and microwave for 2 - 2 1/2 min on 1000w microwave until potatoes are cooked.
2) In a medium bowl, mush the potatoes with potato musher or fork, then add milk.
3) Add starch to the mushed potatoes, make balls with hands.
4) Put cheese inside.
5) Fry them up.


Tofu jun (Korean style pan fried Tofu)

Tofu---1/2 pkg 1/2 inch thick
salt and pepper

*soy sauce---1/2 tbs
*mirin---1/2 tbs
*Korean chili pepper---2tsp
*sesame oil---1tsp
*green onion---1tbs

1) Salt and pepper Tofu.
2) Use regular or sesame oil to pan fried tofu.
3) Mix all the *sauce ingredients.
4) Pour over the sauce on tofu.


So this week, I didn't go to a grocery shopping yet. Trying to use up all the produce I have in the fridge.
Although, I have asked my husband to pick up some stuff from Trader Joe's this week. I forgot to take a picture of them, but the stuff he bought were;

Whole Milk
Soy Milk
A loaf of bread
bananas
apples
cereals

Came up to $25.60

And then I used Chicken thigh, Salmon, Pork tenders, ground meat
for this week;

Total of $17.68

So This week's spending came out to $43.28!

But, I went to a farm and got some strawberries and some other fruits and a few veggies too. Each time I paid about $10. Add those to the spending, it's still $63.28!

YES, I made it under $70 :)


You know, I never knew how much I spend on food until I started this blog.
To be honest, it's pretty fun realizing how much I spend. It's like watching your weight.
If you don't weigh yourself on a scale every day, you wouldn't know if you are gaining or losing. But if you weigh yourself daily or weekly, you can maintain your weight, right? Well, at least for me this method  works.


Anyways, my point is knowing how much I spend on food each week helps me not spend too much on junks. I used to buy some random produce because they were on sale or something, but then I often ended up not using them before they get old/bad. There were a lot of waste in the fridge before.
But now, I think I shop wisely, store them wisely, and waste less.


Making a change of life style helps me go though the tough times of raising multiple children. Because I'm actually taking this life style as a game, it makes me 'enjoy' being a housewife raising children. Gives me motivation.
Cooking dinner used to be one of every day task and I used to not get excited about what to cook for dinner until I started this blog.
I started to think that my doing this blog is actually helping me from not getting a postpartum depression.


A picture of the day:

One more year of living in southern California...

Thursday - Cabbage with bacon and Portuguese sausage

Tonight's dinner was...

Cabbage with bacon and Portuguese sausage
Potato pancakes with scallions
Edamame rice
Easy Chicken katsu


Today's cooking was so easy. All I had to do was just prepare. Then let it cook by itself!

Recipes of the day:

Cabbage with bacon and Portuguese sausage

I had a half head of cabbage that's getting old, and 1/2 of Portuguese sausage and last 3 slices of bacon in the freezer.
Decided to use them all together and create a dish :)


Cabbage---1/2 (2 to 3 inch square, rough cut)
Onion---1 small (sliced)
Bacon---3slices cut in half
Portuguese sausage---1/2 slice

*water---3tbs
*crushed bouillon---1 1/2tsp

1) In a cast iron pot (if you have it), put Cabbage and meat layer by layer. For example, cabbage&onion-sausage-cabbage&onion-bacon.

2) Then sprinkle bouillon powder, and add water.
3) Close the lid, cook on medium heat for 15-20min until everything is cooked through.

SO easy. But So good!


Potato Pancakes

Potato---2 (grated or blended in a food processor)
Flour---2tbs
Bouillon powder---1tsp
Scallion---1bunch chopped

1) Mix all the ingredients together.

2) In a medium pan, spray some oil, then pour the mixture on a medium heat.
3) drizzle sesame oil around the pancake from the edge of the pan for a crispy result.
4) Serve with 1tbs of sushi vinegar and soy sauce as a dipping sauce.


Edamame Rice

Rice---3cups ready to cook
Frozen edamame (without shell)---1cup
Konbu dashi powder---1tbs
Sake---1tbs
Agave---1/2tbs

1) Put all the ingredients into rice in a rice cooker.
2) Cook. DONE!


Easy Chicken Katsu

Chicken breast---1
Panko (Japanese bread crumbs)

1) Tenderize chicken and make it thinner.

2) Splash some water on the meat. Then coat with panko.

YES, THEY DO STICK. Maybe thin layer of crumbs, but you'll get the same crunchy crispiness of katsu. Trust me. It's way easier and faster.

3) In a large pan, pour 1/2 cup of oil on a medium heat.
4) Pan fry the chicken.

I still haven't gone to this week's grocery shopping! more money for beer! woo hoo! :p
Well, sadly not for me though since I'm still a nursing mom...


So like I mentioned before, my Tuesday and Thursday are productive day. Because I have to plan and take my son to some activities so he won't get bored and play video games all day at home.
He usually has a music class on Tuesdays. But we went to a farm last Tuesday instead, so we had a make-up lesson this morning.
Then we went to the same library as last week. The new one.
He's so in love with that place!
Well, in love with their computer games more like...lol
But at least their games are educational stuff and not...Mario Kart :D (my 3 yr old son is addicted to Mario Kart...blame my husband!  nah, just kidding!)

And 　↑↑↑　this is the picture of the day :)

My husband is off tomorrow, so no bento update!

Wednesday - Salmon rice and Hoisen dish

Tonight's dinner was....

Salmon rice
Meat & Veggies in Hoisin sauce
Fresh zucchini
Pickled turnips with shiso leaves



I've been into making Mixed rice.
It's so easy. You put stuff in the rice cooker and cook with rice.
After trying several different kinds, I came to realize that I need to change seasoning recipes for each different main ingredients.
For example, I used the same seasoning ingredients as Bamboo shoot rice for Gobo rice a couple days ago. But it came out a bit salty.

So, my challenge for tonight, was Salmon.
I had to think how much I should put certain ingredients to make it just right.
I think I've got it--- (my husband said it was tasty. that's like the approval for my new recipes ;p )

Here's the recipes of the day:

Salmon Rice

Rice---3 cups ready to cook in the rice cooker
Salmon fillet---2 lightly salted

*Soy sauce---3tbs
*Sake---1tbs
*Mirin---1tbs
*Agave---1tbs
*Konbu (dashi) seasoning---1tbs

1) Put all the seasoning* ingredients to the washed rice and mix well in the rice cooker.
2) Place salmon fillets on top.

3) Press start, and let it cook.
4) Mix fish and rice in the rice cooker before serving.

Meat and veggies in hoisin sauce

Ground meat---1/2lb
Green peppers---1 cut in bite size
Eggplant---1/2 (long Chinese kind)

Hoisen sauce
Chinese soup stock powder (or salt and pepper)
Potato starch and water (1/2tbs starch:1tbs water)

1) In a large pan, put 2tbs of oil. Cook veggies with stock powder. Then add a splash of water. When half way cooked, put them in a plate to put aside.

2) In the same pan, add a drizzle of oil to cook ground meat.
3) Break off as you cook.

4) Then use the back side of spatula to make it smaller crumbles.

5) Add 2 tsp of hoisen sauce and cook well.
6) Put veggies back into the pan, and stir fry.
7) Add 2 more tsp of hoisen sauce.
8) Cook on heat until the end. Put starch mixture (water-1tbs:potato starch-1/2tbs), then turn off heat. Stir well.


I went to the farm yesterday with my kids.
We got some fresh zucchinis (green and yellow), and my friend who went to the farm with taught me how to eat fresh zucchinis.

Slice the fresh zucchinis, salt &pepper, drizzle of balsamic vinegar and olive oil. mmmm YUM. They are so good!!!
Very refreshing and quite addictive :)

My husband couldn't eat home cooked meal for longer than past 24hours since I didn't cook dinner last night (he had some subway sandwich, I think) and had no bento today. So at the dinner table tonight, he was telling me how he missed home cooked meal!  Awww, how sweet.

Now THAT'S a flattering compliment, but...also making me feel bad!
Because I'm leaving him alone for a month starting soon! I hope he'll try to cook something by himself and not eat beer and wings every night...:D

Well I guess I've got to try to stock up freezer with cooked meals as much as possible!  Will see...


Here's bento for tomorrow.

I was so tired last night, I had all those pictures taken and prepared to post a blog...But my brain and body didn't work together as much as I was hoping for ;(   I will go back (one day...but don't know when ;p) to write recipes...


So here's the picture of the day:

My son loves golf. My husband and I don't play golf at all. Who taught him?
My dad. He taught him when he was visiting last November. He even bought my son a tiny (but real) club set!
He even bought another one in Japan, so we don't have to bring them when we go to Japan this month. My dad is ready to teach my son again, and of course, my son can't wait to practice!!!

Monday and Tuesday

So, I'm gonna post pictures of last night's dinner...

Gobo rice
Pork tenders cooked in Japanese tea (hojicha)
Milky pumpkin


Gobo rice

Pork tenders cooked in Japanese tea (hojicha)

Milky pumpkin

I will come back here to post the recipes when I get more time.

Just recently I've been busy doing... well, busy going places!
Having lack of sleep every night.
Every time I get on computer, I know I have to update my blog, but I just get really sleepy.


And on Tuesday (today), I went to the farm (same place we went past weekend) with my son and daughter without my husband... oh boy, I think we were under the sun for about 4 hours! Got sun burn... Just really exhausted. Didn't even cook dinner tonight since my husband weren't coming home for dinner time. Another slacking day...sigh

I might be slacking all this week and next week as I start to get ready for my trip to Japan...
Although I'm still sticking to [$70/week] food budget.
I haven't gone to a grocery shopping yet since I have some vegetables and meat left. I might as well try to use them up until I run out of things in the fridge.
I will update when i get them though :)


Here's the bento I made last night for my husband's lunch for today.

Since I didn't cook tonight, no bento for tomorrow ;(


Ah...well.
I'm heading to bed....night night

Sunday - no cooking / Plate lunch

We were out today AGAIN!  Love going to outdoor fun places on weekends with the family!

Today we went to Redondo Beach Pier for like...15min or so.

It was windy and chilly, we decided to go to some place else...only to find out it became hotter and hotter!

We ended up going to Botanical Garden in Palos Bardes.

It was so pretty, we loved it!

We go to Descanso Gardens, L.A Arboretum, and Huntington Library a lot since we have memberships and live close to these places. But it was refreshing to go to a brand new botanical garden to stroll around!

I saw this flower first off...is this an artichoke flower???

Doesn't it look like it though?

I have no idea what any flowers are, so I just like to wonder off...

in other words...I don't really care what the names are, I just love looking at them!

There were these little fountains everywhere in the garden. So cute.

My son loves finding "jungles" everywhere we go. When we were walking through the "jungle", reminded me of my high school in Interlochen, MI.

Although we live in a big busy city, I miss a lot of green and peacefulness...which I was used to having them all the time throughout my high school and College years.

I never thought I would enjoy these 'nature' activities in the million years until I became a mother and never thought I was an 'outdoor' kind of person before either.
But I have to admit, it's pretty cool to see my own child being so excited about different shapes of leaves, different colors of flowers, and different sizes of trees... my children's smiles are priceless!

So much fun!


After we finished walking around in the garden for a couple of hours in the hot hot sun, we decided to grab a  late lunch in Torrance/Gardena area on the way back home.

The choice of place was HERE


King's Hawaiian Bakery restaurant.
It's like Zippy's in Hawaii. Oh how my husband and I miss Zippy's alot...mmm Zippy's Chili and Rice.. nothing can't beat that.

Anyways, my son is rice and noodle lover, we ordered a plate lunch and a bowl of Saimin. Not as good as Zippy's but, hey, this is how close you can get here in Southern California, I guess :) Who am I speaking, I'm not even Hawaiian!

Because we ate lunch pretty late, I didn't cook for dinner tonight ;p
We still had some leftovers from last night's dinner.
So today was another slacking day...but oh well. I need some rest too right? ha ha



So, looks like my husband and my son are bringing a regular boring (?) turkey sandwich for their lunch :)