Bacon Corn Potato Chowder

I have become a good cook! Foods I create come out edible! Of course, I feel like this every time I make a success . . . but the success rate is really about 50/50. Last time I cooked, I created a roasted eggplant/hummus/yogurt/sesameoil/oliveoil salt monstrosity that lacked in taste, texture, color, and every possible scale of food meritocracy. Good thing I made it on the same night as the seared alaskan sea scallops with seashell pasta.

Anyway, this time, I made a winner. Sometimes, a disregard for all the fancy spices and flavor enhancers actually detract from the heady natural flavors of fresh produce. Corn chowder has always been one of my favorite things to eat. It was actually the very first thing I ever cooked all by myself. I was about ten and I think I used the JOy of Cooking book. I had to walk to the store and ask my mother for money. Those were interesting days.

The success of this chowder comes from the enormous amount of fresh vegetables, and the enormous amount of thick sliced, slow-fried, crispy bacon. I used an entire pack of bacon, minus 4 slices that were mysteriously eaten beforehand....

You also have to give credit to the dubiously large amount of onions. When I added them, my big ole soup pot was literally half full of onions and bacon. But never fear, little dears. I drained the bacon fat before getting dirty with my chowder. If I ate this in a restaurant, I would have no qualms about licking the bowl.

Ingredients:
1 pack of bacon
1 big russet potato, cubed
1 red potato, cubed
1 jumbo-sized onion (the size of 2 normal), chopped
1/2 bunch celery (about 7 stalks? including the heart?), sliced/chopped
1 can creamed corn
8 mini bell peppers, diced (about 1 cup)
1/2 bunch parsley, chopped
organic chicken broth to cover, about 3-4 cups
1 cup whole milk
plain yogurt for garnish
cheddar cheese for topping
garlic salt, cayenne, and black pepper

Instructions:

1. With scissors, cut the bacon into strips (1/2") into a big fat soup pot. Turn on medium heat. Let sizzle until crispy, draining liquid when it gathers. I drained it twice. Bacon should be carmelized and crisp crisp.
   
2. Add onions. Stir occassionally and let cook. Add celery, potato, bell peppers. Let them get about halfway done. Then add corn and broth to just cover ingredients. Simmer or boil until potatoes are done. Turn off heat. Add parsley, pepper, garlic salt to taste, and milk. Stir. Serve with shredded cheese and/or yogurt. I eat it with both.
   

BLT in Okinawa, with extras

This is the first time I've been in a rush to cook dinner. This is also the first time I realized it may be possible to make my favorite American home foods in my Okinawan kitchen. I'd just picked up some lovely produce from JA, and I decided I needed to eat some uncooked vegetables. They're harder to chew, and they're not as mellow, but they're (supposedly) better for you because the cellulose walls, vitamins, and nutrients haven't been broken down by cooking heat. I disguised them with the clever ruse of bacon, cheese, and eggs. Not that I don't love these

Micro Cherry Tomatoes (see chopstick for size comparison), a big bag of cuteness of

One of my schools gave me fresh butter lettuce from their garden!


Here's my version of a BLT in about ten minutes:

• cheese
• tomato
• 1 slice bread
• bacon
• lettuce
• egg
• salt, pepper, basil flakes

First, to sate my appetite (or maybe stimulate it--tangy things will do that!) I ate a lilikoi. As one Kauai adventure tour guide once said to a ten-year-old me, a lilikoi is nature's juice box! Also known as passion fruit (ポッション　フルツ）, lilikoi is one of those extraordinary flavors you usually don't find in a grocery store. Fresh ones are hard to come by, and ones as big as my hand for 100yen each were too good to pass up! I cut off the top and eat the lilikoi out of the "cup" with a spoon:

Meanwhile, fry bacon on low heat to make it extra crispy. If you use high, or even medium heat, the bacon will curl up and the fat won't dissolve. It'll just get soft and burn quickly. Bacon = low heat! It's worth the extra time. Bacon in Japan does exist. It comes packaged in 250g packages of neatly arranged half-slices. This is about half a pack:

About 10 minutes later, when brown and crisp, remove from pan and set aside.

Prepare your cheese! I love the taste of smoked cheese. Heck, I just love cheese. Cheese in Japan is very expensive, and comes in bite-sized morsels wrapped to resemble candy. And, all of it, no matter what, is simply called "cheese." There are no varieties of cheese. I am very disappointed in this. However, this cheese is a close approximation to smoked gouda, in miniature. Mini cheese:I sliced a few pieces to melt onto my bread:


Then I popped the bread into the "fish grill" part of my stove. This is a wire rack with flames that broil from the top perimeter. It's very useful (and FAST) for toasting bread. My cheese didn't appreciably melt, but what the heck, it's Japanese cheese, right? I halved some micro cherry tomatoes and added those: (notice how MINI everything is! Oh, Japan)

In the unwashed bacon pan, crack an egg. Sprinkle on some salt, pepper, and basil flakes. By the time you're done, so is the egg!
Slide the egg on top of the bread cheese tomato bacon layers:
Add lettuce as the top layer. I like open-face sandwiches, because I don't especially like the dryness of bread. This one required a knife and fork. I ate it with some fresh pineapple, a very good choice. Whoever invented the ham and pineapple pizza had the right idea!

After I'd mangled half of it:


Of note: this brand of preserves labels their stuff "Blueberry Jam," but actually puts blueberry JELLY inside the jar!
jelly, not jam (but I'm not complaining too much)

French Toast & Canadian Bacon Sandwich

Total time: 7 minutes.

I believe in eating breakfast. If I didn't eat breakfast, I wouldn't be able to get through the day til lunch. As it is, I snack on chocolate, senbei, and other おかし that they always have lying around the teachers' rooms. I can't do cold breakfasts, and I recently splurged on a bottle of real Canadian Maple Syrup for 753円 (The bottle is a wee bit smaller than my hand), and I love French Toast. I was already 10 minutes late for work, so I figured 10 more minutes couldn't hurt.

Plus, don't YOU love the way maple syrup always gets all over your bacon? Sweet and salty is a key spice of life. I'd also like to say that french toast is not as bad as folks make it out to be! It can be delicious, and just as healthy (and quick) as any other "toast"-based sandwich (e.g. PBJ, butter and cinnasugar, cream cheese and something sweet, nutella, etc).

Ingredients:
1 slice bread (older is better. I keep my bread in the freezer, so I popped it in the microwave for a few seconds [and then the fish grill part of my stove] so that it would absorb)
1-2 tablespoons milk
1 big egg
dash vanilla extract
cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, chili powder (yes!) to taste

a bit of butter

3 slices canadian bacon
Maple Syrup

The Way:

1. Fry bacon in pan. Meanwhile, mix milk, eggs, vanilla, and spices in a dish (I have a shallow soup bowl that is almost exactly bread-sized. It works perfectly!) Soak bread in egg mixture, poking holes with fork, shaking, and flipping bread as necessary. Try to get it to absorb all of it.
2. Remove bacon. Set aside. Rinse pan. Melt butter in pan. On medium flame, add bread. Flip when golden brown and crispy. Assemble into sandwich with canadian bacon, and drench with maple syrup. Yes!