Japanese Curry Bear

Happy Valentine's Day!!!
I made curry bear for my husband<3<3

Arrange the face parts....

And transfer curry to the plate! Make heart by cutting red pepper<3

Chicken Tofu Hamburger with Radish Bear

What do you think this bear is made with??

The answer is....

Daikon radish!!!

I made tofu + chicken Japanese hamburger.
This kind of hamburger is eaten with grated daikon radish and soy sauce in Japan.
Much healthier than with sauce, right?

It is very popular to make character with grated daikon in Japan right now.....
So I gave it a try!

Tofu Chciken Hamburger (adapted from Japanese recipe site)

250g Ground chiken
250g Silken Tofu
125g Onion
1 Egg
40g Panko bread crumbs
1/2tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Black pepper
*2tbs Soy sauce
*2tbs Sake
*1tbs Sugar
*1/2tbs Vinegar

1. Mince onion and saute until transparent.
2. Mix the onion, tofu, egg, panko, salt and pepper in a bowl by hands.
3. Divide into 6-8 egg shapes.
4. Heat oil in a pan and cook the patties for 1~2 minutes over medium heat. (with a lid on)
5. Turn down to low heat and cook for 3~4 minutes.
6. Flip the patties and cook for another 3 minutes. ( no lid)
7. Mix * ingredients and pour over the patties.

To make dakon bear,

You need,

Daikon radish
Soy sauce
Nori seaweed

1. Grate daikon

2. Squeeze a little liquid out of grated daikon by a hand, just enough to make it easy to shape.
3. Add a little soy sauce to color the daikon.
4. Shape body, hands, legs and face and put those together.
5. Cut a piece of nori seaweed to create the face parts.

Valentine Tomato Salad

Looking for some ideas for Valentine's day dinner??
This heart shaped tomato salad is perfect not only for Valentine's day but also for birthdays or anniversaries!

You need,

2 tomatoes
Salad -remaining tomatoes
          -greens
          -cheese
          -balsamic dressing)

1. Slice off the stem and cut a tomato in half. Thinly slice.

2. Transfer the tomato to a plate and slide to make a shape of half heart.

3. Cut the other tomato and repeat the same steps.

4. Add salad inside the heart.

Edible Gift,Tofu Meatloaf

How about healthy(?) tofu meat loaf as a holiday gift? :)


Tofu Meat Loaf
(If you don't want to use tofu, see Meat Loaf Cake. )

300g Ground beef
200g Tofu ( I used soft tofu, but medium or firm would work too)
1/2 Onion
1 Egg
1cup Panko
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Mix all the ingredients in a bowl.
2. Layer a baking sheet with parchment paper and spread the meat on it to make a square shape.
3. Bake at 350F for about 20 mins.

 4. Cut off the edges to make a nice square. Cut into 4 small squares.

 5. Stuck 4 pieces on a plate.

Sauce
8tbs Ketchup
8tbs Worcester sauce

1. Mix all the ingredients in a pot.
2. Put the sauce on the meat.


Ribbon

3 ham
Fried pasta

Make a ribbon with a slice of ham as shown. Connect the s sides of the ham with fried pasta.

Create the rest of ribbon strings with 2 hams. See the final picture.

Found this cute meat loaf idea on Cookpad (Link in Japanese)
Thought this would be a perfect gift for holiday party:)

Halloween Smoked Salmon Sushi

Happy Halloween!
This is our tonight's dinner.... Smoked salmon sushi Jack!

What you need
-about 600g sushi rice See sushi cake post for sushi rice recipe
-smoked salmon
-7 shiso leaves
-a cake mold  (18cm, about 7in. I don't have it, so I made it with a paper milk carton)
-nori seaweed


1. Layer a cake mold with plastic wrap.
2. Cover the bottom of the mold with salmon and shiso leaves.

3. Put sushi rice over the salmon and shiso leaves.
4. Push the rice over plastic wrap.
5. Flip it over on a plate.
6. Make face parts with nori seaweed

Meat Loaf Cake!

Made a Halloween meat loaf cake for my first girl's bunco night!
I always wanted to make this, but it's kinda too much for just two of us, so thought it was a good chance to make this big meat loaf cake this time!!! Great for parties♪♪


8in Cake
Meat loaf
850g  Ground beef
1 1/2 cup  Japanese bread crumbs
1 cup  Soy milk
1 Large onion
3 Eggs
1 1/2tsp  Salt
a little   Ground nutmeg
a little  Pepper

Sauce
12tbs  Ketchup
12tbs  Worcestershire sauce
300ml  Red wine
1tsp    Vegetable broth powder
50g     Butter
Juice from the meat loaf

Mashed potatoes

2 Russel potatoes
1 Golden potatoes
60g Mayonnaise
Heavy whipping cream
2tbs butter
Salt

Meat loaf
1. Minced onion and saute until translucent. Soak the bread crumbs in soy milk. Preheat oven at 400F.
2. Mix all the ingredients in a ball and knead until combined.
3. Put in a cake mold and cover the top with tin foil. Place on a baking tray and bake for 40-50 mins.
4. When it's cooled down a little, take the meat out of the mold. Keep the juice from the meat for the sauce.

Sauce
1. Mix the sauce ingredients except butter in a pot and simmer until reduced by about 2/3.
2. Add butter and stir. Turn off the heat.

Mashed potatoes
For the nappe
1. Cut the Russel potatoes and steam in a microwave. (about 7min at 700W)
2. Cool it down a little, peel and put in a blender.
3. Add mayonnaise and a little salt and blend. (use more or less mayonnaise until your desired consistency)
    A little hard is better to nappe, I think.

4. Let it cool in a refrigerator a little and put it around and top of the meat loaf by hands.
    The key is to put the potatoes thick.  It's easier to smooth out later.
5.Smooth it our with spatula.

For the piping
1. Cut the golden potatoes and steam in a microwave.
2. Cool it down a little, peel and put in a blender.
3. Add butter, whipping cream and a little salt and blend. (use more or less cream until your desired consistency)
4. Let it cool and put in a piping bag and decorate the cake!

Seared Shiitake Mushroom and Avocado Sushi Roll

Have you  been disappointed by vegan sushi?? Yes, I have!!!!!
I wasn't a big fun of vegan sushi until I had this seared shiitake and avocado sushi roll.
This is SO good!
Even my "meatarian" husband loves this.

I love seared fish sushi, so bought a cooking torch last year to sear fish by myself.
I seared shiitake with it, but if you don't have it, you can just sear it over high heat on the grill:)


Ingredients (for about 4 rolls)

4  Shiitake mushroom
2 Avocado
*Sushi rice (I used 2 cup of uncooked rice)
Olive oil
Salt

*See Sushi Cake post for sushi rice

1. Cut shiitake, drizzle olive oil and sprinkle salt
2. Sear the shiitake (either with torch or on the grill)
3. Just roll it with sliced avocado!!!

See "Make My Sushi", if you are not familiar with sushi roll. I think this website is good.

Baked Crispy Chili Bread

Made too much chili? Then make this crispy bread! 

Well, I wanted to make Japanese curry buns, but I was too lazy to make bread.

This is the easy recipe, using store-bought bread.

It's not soft like Japanese curry buns, but it's nice and crunchy :) 

What you need:

2 serving Chili

1 Potatoes

Bread crumbs

1 Egg

4 slices Store-bought bred

ketchup, curry powder, black peppers to taste

4 tbs Oil

1. Make mushed potatoes. I used 1, but it depends on how much chili you have left.

2. Mix mushed potatoes and chili over medium heat. (use more or less potato to get desired hardness)

3. Add ketchup, curry powder and pepper to taste

4. Roll out bread (spread butter if you want)

5. Put chili mix and fold in half

6. Brush the edges with beaten egg and press with fork to seal.

7. Dip the bread into beaten egg and then bread crumbs

8. Place on a baking pan and drizzle oil

9. Bake for about 20 mins at 400F

Vegetarian Miso Chili and Corn Bread Bear Muffin

Watched the movie "Fork over Knives" with my husband the other day.
I had tried to avoid animal protein before watching this movie, but he LOVEs meat so I cook meat for him sometimes. But this movie makes me worried about his health!
Even though he still doesn't seem to care about it, I've started looking into vegetarian recipes more than ever before.

I found vegetarian chili recipe on food network.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/vegetarian-chili-recipe/index.html

I changed the ingredient as follow;

Ingredients
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 1/2 cups chopped yellow onions
1 cup chopped red bell peppers
2 cloves minced garlic  
2  peppers, stemmed, seeded, and minced, depending upon taste
1 medium zucchini, stem ends trimmed and cut into small dice
2 cups fresh corn kernels (about 3 ears)
2 large portobello mushrooms, stemmed, wiped clean and cubed
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 tablespooon ground cumin
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
3 large tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped 
3 cups cooked black beans, or canned beans, rinsed and drained
1 (15-ounce) can tomato sauce
1 cup vegetable stock, or water
3 tablespoon Miso
Rice cheese

Directions
In a large, heavy pot, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the onions, bell peppers, garlic, and serrano peppers, and cook, stirring, until soft, about 3 minutes. Add the zucchini, corn, and mushrooms, and cook, stirring, until soft and the vegetables give off their liquid and start to brown around the edges, about 6 minutes. Add the chili powder, cumin, salt and cayenne, and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the tomatoes and stir well. Add the beans, tomato sauce, and vegetable stock, stir well, and bring to a boil. Add miso. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, stirring occasionally, for about 20 minutes. Add rice cheese.

Remove from the heat and stir in the cilantro. Adjust the seasoning, to taste.


I added 3 tablespoon Miso to this recipe to make it milder. ( I recommend less sodium one)
And rice cheese to get the consistency of a thick soup.

My husband loved this chili!! even though there is no meat in it.

And great cornbread recipe here
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/golden-sweet-cornbread/

I made it look like bear:)
All you need is fried pasta and cookie cutters!

 Fry a pasta noodle.

Cut and put where you want to place the ears and nose.

Make ears and nose using cookie cutters with another cornbread.
Join the parts using the fried pasta.

Cheese pumpkin hamburger with ghost mashed potato

Had a great Halloween dinner with my bf last weekend!
I moved to SF from LA recently..so now we are doing a long distance thing.
It's much harder than I thought, but he is trying his best to make this work.
So thanks to him, I think we've gotten much close than before:)

Here is a dinner idea for happy Halloween!
To make a cheese pumpkin burger, cut cheddar cheese into pumpkin shape and make eyes and a mouth by using a knife.
Use seaweed to make eyes and a mouth for a ghost.
How easy it is to make a dinner cuter!

Want to have a healthy Halloween?
Here is the hamburger recipe made with TOFU!!

1lb  ground meat
1pk(about 300g)  silken tofu
1cup Japanese Panko
1/2  onion
1  egg
1/2p  consomme cube
1/4tsp nutmeg
salt and pepper to taste

Place tofu into a blender and make it smooth.
Add panko and let it absorb the water of tofu (about 5mins)
Add meat, egg, nutmeg, salt and pepper and mix well by hand.
Add minced onion and minced consomme cube.
Form into 4-6 patties.
Cook on the preheated skillet over high heat until nice brown. (both side)
Add 1/2 cup of water and place a lid. Steam over medium heat until you don't see water.

Lemon and Salmon Chirashi Sushi

Add lemon to regular sushi vinegar!


For 3 cups of rice (3cups, before cooked)

3Tbs Lemon Juice (about 2-3 lemons)
2Tbs Vinegar
4Tbs  Sugar
2tsp Salt

Microwave the ingredients for about 30 seconds and mix well.
Add to cooked rice.

Sushi Flowers

Sushi flowers! Make 5 sushi balls and set those on a plate. Put scramble egg in the middle. To make a leaf shaped wasabi, mix paste and powder wasabi so that you can shape it easily.

★Easy sushi vinegar recipe (for 3cups of cooked rice)★

5 tbs Vinegar

4tbs Sugar

2tsp Salt

Mix all and microwave for about 30 seconds. Pour into the cooked rice and mix well. Do it when the rice is hot!

Cover your sushi mat with plastic wrap. Place a seat of seaweed and put rice and spicy crab meat ( just add mayo and spicy sauce in crab meat to your taste). Leave a little space on top.

Roll and tighten with the sushi mat, making the shape of a flower petal.

Yuzu Pepper Veggie Pizza

Spice up your pizza with a Japanese unique spice, YUZU PEPPER!
Yuzu is a Japanese citrus fruit known for its characteristic aroma.
Yuzu pepper is the hot rage in Japan right now and more and more food companies have started making it.
It's spicy paste made from Yuzu zest, green chili peppers and salt.
Look for it in Japanese grocery stores.

I mixed Yuzu pepper with tomato sauce to add a spice for the pizzza.
About 1/4tsp yuzu pepper for 3TBS tomato sauce.
Yummy!!

Pad Tahi Soba

Used soba instead of rice noodles for pad thai.
Thai sauce + Japanese noodles=Yummy!

Japanese Caprese Salad

Put a new spin on a traditional caprese!
Try this Japanese caprese salad, substituting tofu for mozzarella and shiso leaves for basil.
I LOVE the smell and flavor of shiso. So exotic.

For the salad
1pack tofu
1/2tsp salt
2-3 tomatoes
10ish shiso leaves

The most important thing it to drain tofu very well.
1.Sprinkle salt on tofu.
2.Wrap the tofu with a few paper towel.
3.Press with something heavy for more than 3 hours.
*I always use the pickles pressure to drain tofu. Very easy and works very well.
Cut the drained tofu and add between tomato and shiso leaves.


For the shoyu dressing
1tbs shoyu
1/2tbs sesame oil
1tbs vinegar
1/2tbs sugar

In a small bowl, mix all the ingredients.

Tofu Gyoza

I'm not a vegan, but this is the best vegan gyoza recipe ever!
This is the one I made at the tofu cooking party.
Gyoza is fun to make with many people:)

1/2 tofu
1/2cup brown rice, cooked
1/2 onion, diced
3 shiitake mushroom, cut into small pieces
2tbs potato starch
1tbs grated ginger
2tbs grated lotus root (optional)
2tbs soy sauce
1tbs seasoning
1tbs sesame oil
20-30 gyoza wrappers

For the dipping sauce
1/2 green onion
1clove ginger
2clove garlic
1tbs soy sauce
1tbs sake
1tbs sesame oil

Wrap your drained tofu in a few paper towels.Press with something heavy for about 3 hours.
Saute onion with sesame oil. Combine with other ingredients and mix well.
Place about 1 tablespoon of the mixture in the center of each gyoza wrapper. Fold wrappers in half and seal edges with moistened fingers.
Cook gyoza with canola oil.

To prepare the sauce, cut green onion, ginger and garlic.
mix all the ingredients and leave it for about more than 1 hour.

Sake Cheese Pizza (Non Daily)

Sake lees taste and smell like cheese when mixed with oil and salt.
That's because sake lees are the fermented food like cheese.
I wrote about sake lees before but it's quite nutritious!
It's a good substitute for cheese.

Another sake lees recipe↓
http://taste-of-japan.blogspot.com/2011/01/sake-white-sauce-seafood-gratin.html

Sake cheese creme

Tofu 1/2pack
Sake lees 1tbs
Salt 1/3tsp
Plum vinegar 2tsp
Thini 2tsp
Basil paste 1tsp

Mix all together with a blender.
Use as a substitute for cheese.

Sake white sauce seafood gratin

I've seen a lot of Sake lees recipes on a Japanese cooking website, cookpad lately.
I found out why by reading this article about sake lees in Japan Times.
A popular Japanese science TV program introduced the health benefit of sake lees.

So I bought a bag of sake lees at a Japanese grocery store to try some of them.
Sake lees are the leftover from sake production and quite nutritious!
The most popular dish using sake lees is "kasuzuke" which is made by pickling fish in the lees. But today, I made sake white sauce for the gratin.

Sake white sauce

2tsp sake lees
1cup soy milk
1tbs miso
1tbs tahini
1tbs soy source
1tbs vinegar

Put the sake lees in a pot with soy milk and stir while heating over a medium low heat until the lees melt. Add the other ingredients and use as white source for gratin.

My favorite pickles

Best pickles ever! My friends love this recipe too.

1cup vinegar
1cup water
6tablespoons sugar
2teaspoons salt
2 red peppers
1 baby leaf
3 cloves
2 peppercorns
1 garlic clove

Remove seeds from red peppers and mix all the ingredients in a pot. Bring it to boil. Cool it down and then pour in a jar. Put your favorite vegetables in it.