Thank you!!

It was a great event! Almost 100 people showed up, and John organized wonderfully.

(you can click the photos to make it bigger)

I recognized lot of people (John's; friends, coworkers, business friends, etc). They all said John did a great job and enjoyed the opportunity he made for people. At the end of all thanks, he asked how people liked the food and they gave me claps. It tickled. 

See? Isn't he cool? :-p He made a good speech at the beginning to thank everybody who helped for this event. It was so wonderful to see my husband was talking in front of 100 people. I couldn't take too much pictures (because I was serving people behind the food counter), but I could see the space was full.

I got a helper from Japanese Table. She helped me alot! I'm so glad she came. I told her she can stay at least about an hour (the most busiest time) and she can leave after that, but ended up she stayed til the end and helped for clean up too! Thank you, Marina!

I should mark this down for next chance, I cooked too much. Both me and John was so nervous that we might not have enough food for 100 people (and John strongly believed that :-D and said we might need to order pizza to cover up the less amount), it ended up TOO MUCH food!! My goodness, I got more than half of the amount I brought as left over!! Easy math, that means I cooked for over 200 people! (Now, just to make sure the reason I got that much left over was not people hated my food, people LOVED it; I got a lot of thankyous and comes back for 2nd or 3rd refill. Some people asked me for business cards to know my business name, or strongly recommended to start the business :-) )

  

2 more days

So, it's 70+ people for John's event now. How exciting! Am I gonna make it? I sure hope so! Please pray for both of us!

Garden day

It was little bit chilly but not rain today. I reserved a small tiller for our garden since this is the last Saturday I can use for whole day (Farmer's market will start from next weekend). John helped me to till our weedy garden.

Before

After

Nira (garlic chive) is prennial and it comes back every year. We harvest it by cutting about 2 inch from ground and leave their roots (not pull a whole thing), and it will come back again in couple weeks. Good for stir fry, omelet, or pancake.  

Cilantro!! I used to hate this stinky smell. John loves it and planted couple years ago. Pretty easy to grow and makes tons of seeds, and voluntarily comes back every year. I was pinching my nose to harvest and cook, but seems like I'm used to it now.

Garlic. They are not making bulbs yet. I'm not sure, but I might plant them back and let it grow to make bulbs. 

So, I dig cilantro (we got tons of them!) before John tilled them. I gave some for neighbor gardener and planted some in planters/pots on porch. I've heard they don't do well for re-planting, so it might not do well, but who knows. Even after giving-away and planting, I still got this (above) much cilantro left. What should I do?!

Well, there's no choice. I made a dinner using cilantro. 3 different kinds. Fresh spring rolls (cilantro, daikon, carrot, garlic chive, boiled pork fillet), steamed chicken with cilantro sauce, and chickpea soup with cilantro on top (yes it's a same dish from last night. John liked it alot and requested to make it again). Man, we ate like 3-4 bunches of cilantro tonight! (and as you know, we still have 5-6 bushes left)

Cod, tomato, and beans

Tonight's menu:

Cod with tomato cream sauce

Bacon wrapped tomato

Chickpea and soup with cilantro

The reason some ingredients are overlapping is, I don't have much vegies in refridge. I've gotta go shopping.

Aaahhh!

People suddenly showed up in my back porch. Ahhh!!! Who are you, how did you came up here, what's going ooooooonnnnnn???!!!

Oh, they start cleaning our door. Yeah, we received the notification that people will come to clean door/window. Man, it surprised me.

Wild Onion Cooking

So, here is the supper, made almost by wild onions. We set our handmade foldable table in porch to enjoy nice spring night.

Wild onion simmered with soy sauce and fish broth, with starch potato jelly 

Korean style pan cake with wild onion and carrot

Fresh wild onion bulbs, with miso paste

Boiled wild onion with miso&vinegar sauce

Like John said, most of them were little bit chewy, especially leaves and bigger bulbs were. Although, small&young bulbs were soft and yummy. After cooked, oniony-garlicy smell gets much weaker. Well, it was fun experience for sure :-)

Wild Onion

I was reading some Japanese nature articles online, and found a report of picking "nobiru". According to the author, it's a wild plants available in spring, looks like onion, and taste little spicy and so good. Nobiru was written in ancient Japanese books, Gods used it to cleanse evils. I've seen wild onions around the house and I think it's the same thing as nobiru, so I went for hunting them with a plastic bag and a fork (to dig).

There are wild onions everywhere!! Although, 6-10 inch tall ones are still young and small bulbs, it's not worth much to dig, I noticed. About 2 feet tall or taller would be big enough, and easier to dig & pull.

For about 30 minutes hunting, I gathered up this much wild onions (and a small blister on finger)

Once you know what/where to find and how to dig, it's not so hard to get bunch of them. Now, wash to remove dirt and outside skin, and cut roots off.

Washed & cleaned. Now what should I fix with them? Japanese recipes says:

-Eat fresh with sauce/dip
-Boil lightly and pour sauce
-Pickle bulbs in soy sauce
-Chop them up and marinate in miso paste

Hmmm. Hard to pick. How do American people eat them? (you eat them, right?)

Warning: there is a similar looking poison plants, called red spider lily. Easy way to figure out which or which is smell. Wild onion has strong onion-y smell but spider lily doesn't. So when you harvest it, make sure you sniff and it stinks.

Signs of spring

I found some "hints" of spring in town. 

 

Aren't they beautiful? I used to like falls for long time (maybe because I was born in fall), but I like spring now. I really enjoy recognizing what trees they are by finding flowers on them.

And here are some other pics about spring:

Yum~~~~!!!!! Hey, who said "Ah! Gross!"? Wrong reaction. You should have said "Oh, yummy!" 

This is Shad roe, a sign of spring in US (don't tell me "I don't know such stuff!" American people :-D). It's available only about a month in this season throughout the whole year. I heard it's good with Japanese style recipe too, so I cooked half of them with soy sauce broth with daikon radish. 

The store person said his favorite recipe is battered with flour and sautee in bacon grease.  That's sounds yummy too. I will try it for the other half.

Little snack saves me and John

John suggested to have late supper (so that he can work little longer) and we will go to one of the popular cafe in town to have some sandwich and Irish music there.

Sound like a good idea and fun (thank you for taking time for us!), but I will get hungry soon. I easily get emotional when I'm hungry and sleepy (yes, I'm very immature like a baby) and victim will be John. So I have to prevent it happens.

I made some soup for myself and ate it before he's coming home. Tee hee hee. Sorry honey! It was egg-drop curry soup. I didn't measure exact amount, but ingredients are like:

1 cup water
1 tsp chicken bullion powder
1 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp hondashi (fish broth powder)
1/4 onion (sliced)
2 mushroom (sliced)
1 TBSP corn starch + little water to melt (to thicken the soup)
1 egg (beaten)

Well, seems like I kinda remember the amount :-p Yumm. Now, I hope John comes home before I digest it and get hungry again.

    

Curry Powder                     Hon Dashi 

Oh shoot. I forgot to take a picture of my soup. Oh well, it's all in my tummy :-p

Appreciation

BIG BIG APPRECIATION for help, heart, messages, prayers, and donation for Japan!

We all are so surprised to know how sweet you are. Thank you, world!

Thimble receiver

I enjoy quilting, and so happy to learn how to use thimble.

I learned how to use thimble, but receiving needle is painful sometimes. I talked about it to my mom and she said their is a tool called thimble receiver. Oh, good idea! I should have think about it! She said she got several of them and gave me one.

I haven't tried yet, but I assume I don't have to poke my finger anymore!

Too huge!

I'm taking Clomiphen (pills to help ovulation) and prenatal vitamin now.

Clomiphen is a small white pills and tastes so bad (I know I should swallow it instead of tasting it). So I usually toss them toward back of my throat so that I don't have to have bitter taste in my mouth.

Well, prenatal vitamin pill is huge. HUGE. It's "1pill 1day", but I prefer taking 2-3 smaller pills.

Nature Made Prenatal Multi and DHA

This morning, stupid of me, I decided to take all of those (3 clomiphen and 1 vitamin) at same time. That's right, it didn't work well, I choke and one of clomiphen went up to back of nose. Man it hurt! I managed to swallow all of them, fortunately, but I felt like s--t. It was so miserable. Soon after, John came down stairs and saw me crying for pain. I couldn't even talk because my throat hurt so bad. I even lost apatite but finished and ate breakfast.

Oh what a day.

Homemade chips

When I make deep-fried food, I also make potato chips these days. This is bowl full of chips, using 2 large potatoes.

Recipe: Wash potatoes well, wipe the excessive water, slice thin (using slicer would help alot!). Set heat medium-low, so that potato won't get browned but still soft. About 3 minutes, edge start browning and sliced potato gets crispy. Leave chips on paper towel to let excessive oil suck in, and cool down. Sprinkle seasoning.

My favorite seasoning is salt&pepper (freshly ground, of course!). You might want to microwave chips (paper towel on bottom) before you eat, warm chips smell so good and you feel like it's just made :-D

Dollar shop

Dollar Tree in town has been moved from small&old place to new location. It's in the same shopping center, but better (easy to find, at least) location and carry more stuff now. We've gotta be careful not everything is cheap there, but lots of things are good deal.　

Cream puffs

Cream puffs I made for Secret Sister's tea party. Things sticking out from puffs are white cookie with white chocolate.

Senna Tea

Accidentally woke up early (5:30am). Kitchen is still cold (it is always cold here).

Last night I made some ketumeishi-tea which my mom sent me. I used to toss a tea spoon full of seeds in a pot with water and boiled to make tea, but John doesn't like the taste (he says it tastes like socks :-o I wonder if he has ever tasted socks). So last night, I lightly roasted it in frying pan and steeped. I took a cup last night and it tastes good, I think. This morning I microwaved to warm it up and now taking sips.

I've heard ketumeishi is used for Chinese medicine for eyes. I searched more about it to write in this blog, and figured out that it also works for constipation!! Yahoo! (WARNING: Not good for pregnant/nursing women.)

Senna Tea

Lotions for sale!

My (&John's) favorite body lotion: Tesori d'OrienteWhite Musk. Only place I can find is at Londons Bathecary, and there are 2 stores in town :-D. Although, one of them are closing soon and they are carrying closing sale now. Buy 1-2 for 25%off, 3-(I forgot) for 30%, and more discount for more purchase (I forgot the detail). They are also selling their display cases and furnitures. 

I got some L'Occitane hand creams too, which is my other favorite skin care item. This one is traveler's size and easy to carry around in purse. 

Smoothie

Smoothie made by John. I've asked him to make breakfast sometime in hot season. He was scared of cooking, but he can blend. If I prepare enough fruits, he blend those with milk, honey, etc. and make smoothie for us. This morning was banana&pineapple.