Midnight "Snack"

My friends sent me a box full of American food for my birthday! Included was a bowl of apple jacks. Hence I ate cereal for the first time in over six months. And there were some "Exotic Vegetable Chips," which were a really good excuse for eating potato chips. A little harder in consistency, a little tastier, and very colorful. I always liked those.

There was also a big jar of Nutella! I have long loved Nutella, but in Okinawa, it has been a long lost love. I made a delicious nutella and lilikoi sandwich on toasted brown bread. The tangy kick of the lilikoi and the crunch of its seeds were the perfect offset to the heavy, creamy, chocolately, cloying nutella. Would definitely do that again! Sorry, I scarfed it down before I thought to take pictures.

...and then I was still hungry, because I was up late watching cooking videos from vahrehvah.com. I've decided that Indian food is the best food to eat out, because it's so complicated to prepare (and OH SO TASTY). I will be frequenting Indian restaurants more often (in the states, where they exist).

SO, I made some carrots and onions with pineapple, inspired by the Indian use of many many spices. This did not turn out very deliciously. Will probably not do this again--something is missing. Perhaps protein?

3 carrots
1/2 onion
1/4 of a pineapple
olive oil (should've used butter)
maple soy milk
thai sweet chili sauce (you know the one--red with the rooster on it)
cumin
coriander
cardamom
garam masala
tumeric
cinnamon
nutmeg
clove
allspice
1 cube bullion

I first sauteed the onions with some of the spices, then added carrots, then milk, then steamed it for a few minutes with the chili sauce and bullion, then added the rest of the spices, then the pineapple at the end. This particular pineapple was a bit too sour for me to eat plain, but it stayed sour in this concoction. I'm eating it anyway--there's so much of it!

Anyway, all that food made for a very large midnight snack!

Carrots & Onions, simple asian style

Soft, sweet, and slightly salty. I made this one on the run and out the door!

It's a "stir fry," but I don't believe in wokking onions, because they just get burnt without getting soft and sweet. Same with carrots. So, here is my asian sautee of sweet root vegetables, adaptable to pretty much anything:

peanut oil
1 medium carrot
1/2 onion
sesame oil
soy sauce
sugar (you probably don't need it if you don't have my sweet tooth)
a few big pinches of sesame seeds

1. Heat peanut oil in a heavy pan. Chop onion. As you chop them, add them to the pan in batches, so it stays hot all the time. Do the same to the carrot. Small pieces cook faster, and that's what we're going for here. Cover for a few minutes and wash the dishes.
   
2. When vegetables are about soft enough, stir in a dash each of sesame oil, soy sauce, and the optional pinch of sugar. Mix in sesame seeds for garnish and extra flavor. Serve!
   

Chicken Winter Vegetable Soup

Feeling a bit sick, so I made chicken soup with winter vegetables. Chicken Vegetable soup is really just about the easiest things you can make. I don't know why anyone would want a can of soup full of preservatives and lacking in vegetably nutrients when they can just throw a bunch of ingredients in a pot, add some salt, and serve. It's bound to make you much better than anything from a can with a shelf life of several years.

Seriously, it really is that easy.

Hot and steamy chicken winter-vegetable soup with chicken breast chunks, celery, kabocha (Japanese Pumpkin), carrot, fresh corn kernels, crimini mushrooms, garlic, onions, and cilantro.
I cut all the ingredients into small pieces, threw it in the pot, added enough water to cover everything, and let it simmer for a long time. You can add rice if you want to make juk/chuk/congee. Oh, and add some salt and whatever spices you want. I personally like miso, basil, and black pepper. I may also have added a bit of cinnamon, nutmeg, 2 bay leaves, and coriander. However, the natural goodness of the chicken and vegetables makes it unnecessary to add anything but salt if you're not in an herby mood.

Just after adding the mushrooms to the pot:
There is literally an entire wall of miso at every grocery store. I have no idea how to choose the "good" miso, but this one tastes pretty good, even if it doens't taste like your typical US restaurant dissolved-powder miso soup. Miso is very versatile and very healthy. Many Okinwans swear by it for breakfast. They also sometimes serve a spoonful of miso with rice for lunch. Add a scoop of it to stir-fries, or use some in your next marinade. Very versatile.I like this miso:

I was so excited to see fresh corn on the cob! This is the first time I've ever seen it on the shelves in Okinawa! At 100 yen/ear I got two. I like the way it's wrapped, with a peekaboo exposure so I can check the quality of the kernels on the ear I want to buy:





In conclusion, Join me--Let's boycott canned chicken soup as a cure for colds!

Thick Carrot Sweet Potato Taro Soup 厚いのスプ

厚い "atsui" : cordial, kind, warm (hearted), serious, faithful, thick, deep, heavy, serious, abundant, brazen, shameless.

I think Atsui Soup is a fair name for my most recent creation. It's thick, heavy, heartwarming, and shamelessly tasty. It's also surprsingly good for you, with a complex mix of Asian flavors imbued into a classic Western winter favorite. And it's easy to make! This is twenty times better than the carrot soup recipe I tried from the Silver Spoon book. And that one I made after comparing at least a dozen similar recipes on the internet! To be fair, that old carrot soup was also one of the first things I tried to cook here in Okinawa. I guess I must have leveled-up enough in experience to make something truly delicious.

The key to the sinfully creamy quality of this soup is the potatoes, which the first recipe I tried did not call for. Since I had taro and sweet potatoes (and carrots) lying around from the beef stew, I knew I had to make this!

This recipe requires only 1 pot, unlike others that make you sautee onions, take them out, blend the carrots, re-add them, etc, etc. And I think it tastes even better than those more involved recipes.

Oh, and to save time, I usually don't start cutting my vegetables until the cooking process has begun, much unlike the chefs I always see on TV. While something else is cooking, I'm cutting the next thing. AND for this recipe, since everything is going into the blender, you don't have to worry about cutting the garlic and onions as carefully as you otherwise might! Anyway, Now for what I did:

Ingredients:
3 tablespoons olive oil
6 cloves garlic, diced
1 onion, diced
2 tablespoons brown sugar
3 carrots
~1 pound sweet potatoes, peeled
1 medium taro (~0.5 lb)
3" ginger, diced
1 package (~1 tablespoon?) soup dashi--other soup stock can be substituted
1 gouging teaspoonful miso
water
milk

Recommended Spices (Probably not mandatory, but, y'know):
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon maple syrup
1 t. cinnamon
1 t. allspice
1/2 t. tumeric
1 t. sweet basil
black pepper
red chili powder

Method:

1. Heat olive oil in a large pan. Add garlic. Add onions. Add brown sugar. Carmelize all. Meanwhile, dice the carrots, sweet potatoes, and taro into small pieces. Add them to the pot.**alternatively, leave root vegetables in bigger pieces, but cook for longer time.
2. Add enough water to just cover the vegetables, about 5 cups. Add soup dashi, ginger, and miso. Season with maple syrup, cinnamon, allspice, basil, tumeric, black pepper, red chili powder. Simmer until carrots are soft and potatoes are fully cooked, adding water if it dries up too much, about 15 minutes.
3. Optional: remove a portion of the cooked vegetables from the pot, to reserve as "chewable pieces" in the blended soup. After blending soup, re-add vegetables.
   
4. Transfer soup to a blender. Cover blender. blend to desired consistency.
   
5. TO SERVE: Just before serving, to thin soup, add milk. My soup was so thick, I added milk in a 1:1 ratio. Optional: garnish with plain yogurt, parsley (it won't need the extra flavor!)

Note: If you're going to save some in the fridge or freezer, do not add dairy! It will separate. (And it takes up too much space in the fridge). Reheat dairyless soup, then stir in milk or yogurt just before serving.