Mysterious Coleslaw

Recently I was organizing my recipes folder when I came across a yummy-looking recipe for a coleslaw. This particular recipe called for mayonnaise, which I realized I had a jar of sitting in the back of my fridge. Since I hadn't used it in too long, I thought it was about high time I made me some coleslaw.

Except I didn't have any cabbage around, so I just ended up throwing in whatever vegetables I had on hand. (That would be spinach, mustard greens, and scallions.) I dressed it with plum vinegar (I am telling you! It's like I'm addicted!), Sriracha sauce, cayenne pepper, and plenty of mayonnaise. I should've let the scallions sit in some cold water first, and I think I put in a bit too much plum vinegar (the slaw was too salty), but the taste reminded me of the "Special Orange Sauce" I had at a mediocre sushi place I went to in San Diego years ago, so it brought back some funny memories.

Topped with some toasted sesame seeds, it made a lovely midnight snack. Yum.

Pineappe Pie?

I am trying to come up with a recipe for a gluten-free, vegan pineapple pie. (I also want to stay away from other common allergens—nuts, soy, milk, eggs.) I wondered why we don't often see pineapple pie, but I realized that in Japan we have so many of those puff pastries with pineapple fillings inside (kind of like a pineapple turnover), it's kind of the same thing.

And then I remembered the Taiwanese pineapple cake (for which I have a wonderful recipe), and I thought that I can make pineapple "jam" as the filling and (since I don't feel like making a gluten-free double crust) just make a pie akin to a coconut or banana cream pie.

So yes. I'm going for a DQ Hawaiian Blizzard kind of a thing (my favorite Blizzard flavor): gluten-free crust, pineapple jam, with a banana-coconut milk custard on top. It sounds so good in theory that I'm going to be even more disappointed than usual in practice.

[That photo's not mine, by the way. As if I could make a pineapple cake that looked so good.]

Show and Tell in Elementary School

Actually, I think Show and Tell is kind of an odd practice. What is this business of, "Hey look at me, I have this cool thing that you don't have"? But when you're a kid and you're new to a country and every Friday afternoon you have Show and Tell, at some point you start wanting to take part. It's just the American way, I suppose.

Except I still didn't understand Show and Tell. There was a kid who brought in a geode (the first time I'd seen a geode), and I thought, "Oh, so I guess you can bring a rock to class and talk about it."

So at some point I brought in my own rock collection—I mean, a collection, in an egg carton and everything. And though it wasn't a terribly good collection, I even had my friend help me Show and Tell it. I think the teacher was a bit confused about what drove me to bring in such a lame collection to Show and Tell, but...hey. My American childhood mission accomplished.

(Not sure why I thought of that, but I remembered it with a tinge of embarrassed sadness. I think I'm going to blame my recent reading of Stephen Colbert's I Am America (And So Can You!)...)

[I got that image from someone's Tumblr...though that's not what that kid's geode looked like...]

Crispy Curry Chicken Snack

We hold this truth to be self-evident, that Satoko does not cook meat; unless, of course, chicken thighs miraculously appear in her freezer, in which case she's going to have to whip out her meat-cooking hat and do something interesting with them.

Well, maybe not that interesting. I can barely cook vegetables, so cooking meat is basically out of the question. But a recent foray into Japanese cooking left me wanting to try marinating meat in soy sauce and sake, so I decided to do just that—and what left to do with marinated meat than to fry it? (No, Satoko does not grill.)

For the marinade I used soy sauce, sake, mirin, and some plum vinegar. (It goes into everything I make these days.) I left the cut-up pieces of chicken to marinate for about an hour while the rice cooked. Eventually I got to "frying" my chickens in a shallow pan with an even shallower film of coconut oil (about the only oil I use nowadays), with a coating of corn starch, garlic powder, and curry mix (courtesy of my former co-worker).

Thank goodness I still had some parsley left from the beet salad a few days ago. I forgot to pat the oil off the fried chickens, but it didn't really matter because I'd already neglected to trim the skins off of them anyway (willfully, I confess). Like chocolate syrup, Jack's curry powder mix makes everything better...and this Crispy Curry Chicken Snack was better than anything I could have gotten from my oft-visited TapiocaExpress (though not enough to get me to cook more meat).

pink......

So, I wasn't sure if beets could be eaten raw (they can, right?), and since I didn't want to die, I decided to boil them, like so many recipes told me to do. Last night I marinated boiled beets in Japanese cooking sake and plum vinegar, and this morning I had myself some beet salad.

It wasn't as sweet as I was hoping they'd be, but they had a nice texture to it. I'm not sure if the parsley was a good idea, but they were had been in my fridge for over a week, and I wanted the salad to have some color. (I mean, some color besides...beet reddish pink.)

What to make next? I'm trying to learn more Japanese cooking (the beet salad was not it), and I just opened that bottle of cooking sake...there must be something else interesting to make out there......

Red beans are for celebrating.

I had some zenzai with mochi a while ago, but I had found the red beans to be too sweet. Unrelatedly, I bought some boba off the street (well, OK, Library Walk) from the Taiwanese Students Association (or something like that...I don't think they're really called TSA) on Wednesday, and it was surprisingly delicious. (Well, OK, maybe the boba was a bit undercooked...) But what really sold me on it was a slice of lemon that was in the boba; its sourness and acidity added a whole new dimension that I had never known before.

Then I remembered that I had multiple packets of gelatin in the cupboard that I'd accumulated over the years, and I thought, "Hmm. I wonder if I can't make me some (fake) yōkan." So on Thursday morning, when I should've been grading my students' journal assignments, I got to making me some red bean jello. With, of course, a slice of lemon as garnish.

The red beans (which had sunk to the bottom) had a nice level of sweetness, but the top layer of jello turned out a bit bland. But that all changed with just a hint of lemon juice from the garnish—I don't know what the hell it is, but that tinge of freshness, and it's like...boom. Pig skin collagen + citrus = magic. Who knew.

So, I'm thinking I'm going to have to get some yuzu to try out some variations. Juice? Zest? Peel? In the jello, or just as garnish? Ah, what to do, especially with still so much gelatin still left in my cupboard...


Fake Yōkan

Sprinkle a packet of gelatin powder over 1/2 cup of water and let stand for 2 minutes. Add 1 cup of boiling water and mix until the gelatin dissolves. Add your handy instant zenzai mix and stir. Pour into a nice-sized container and let cool. Stick in the fridge until jello is set. Cut up into small cubes and spoon into a pretty container. Garnish with some kind of zingy citrus. Enjoy slowly.

strawberries are in season nowadays.

Yesterday I got my delivery of a dozen Frost Me Gourmet Cupcakes. Mmmm. I ordered the Strawberries and Cream (gluten free and vegan!), opting for a fruit flavor after the success last time with the Toasted Coconut flavor. And boy, was that a good choice or what...

The cake part was nicely spongy and not too sweet, the sugar in the batter having crystallized along the edges in the baking process. The cake provided a great foundation to the frosting—smooth, sweet, rich, and creamy, with fresh strawberries inside! And the decorative strawberry topped off perfectly the ensemble with an in-season fruit, so dark and ripe...

I'm all for supporting small, local businesses (even though, yes, I really do like the Gluten Free Red Velvet from Sprinkles), and I've been happy with not just the cupcakes but also the service from Frost Me Gourmet Cupcakes. (I feel like an advertisement.) I'm looking forward to the owner opening up her own store, though she says it will be in Downtown San Diego, which will be a little ways away from me. But until then, I can keep getting my orders delivered to my door.

To sleep tight is:

I've no idea what it means to sleep tight, actually. My body curled up tight, like a shrimp? My eyes closed tight, keeping out the light? My hands clenched tight, fists ready to punch at that which goes bump in the night? Nighty night...

I'm sure there is a proper way to film the night sky, but I don't know it—but I should learn (lest my phone camera becomes like my telescope...damn expensive but collecting dust). That is a fuzzy moon rising by Marriott...

[BTW: If ever one is looking for Japanese food close to UCSD, look no further: I press my taikoban for YouZen in the Vons complex over on Regents. The service was good, the food was yummy, and the price was cheap. I ask for nothing more.]

Shhhhh.

Today I was craving sweets so badly, I just threw whatever was in my cupboard to make myself some chocolate johnnypancakes. That's right. Chocolate johnnypancakes.

At first I wasn't sure what to call them. They're not cookies, exactly. They're actually not really pancakes, either, though they kind of look like them. (And the consistency was more pancake than anything else, like cookies or bread/cake.) But they're not really johnnycakes either, since they're not made of cornmeal. And most importantly, it's got cocoa powder in it! So, what in the world is it? And whatever the name may be, is it edible??!!

Well...chocolate syrup makes everything better. I don't think I'd ever make these again (I don't think I can, even if I tried), but I've got leftovers of them in the fridge that should do well to satisfy my sweets cravings during the coming week. So I suppose I saved myself a trip to Trader Joe's.

This is just another instance of me attempting to practice using language carefully—my fifth and final resolution for year 2012.This has several components to it, which I haven't yet figured out:

1. Choose words carefully
2. Think before I speak
3. No swearing (::sigh::)
4. Practice using foreign languages
5. Consider if I have to say anything at all

Those are probably the larger breakdowns, though there may be others and they may overlap. But I suppose, when I say "language," I really mean...I want to use care when I am communicating with others. How am I expressing myself? Am I getting my point across? Is it a point worth getting across? What better ways are there to say the same thing...or, what better things can I say?

I need to be better at controlling my emotional outbursts, and I have a feeling that goes hand in hand with using language carefully. I suppose, as a linguist and a writer, I should find this prospect exciting...

[1/2 C coconut flour, 1 C gluten-free flour, nutmeg, cinnamon, baking powder, sweetened cocoa powder, and enough soy milk to make batter. Cook in coconut oil, drizzle with chocolate-flavored syrup, and enjoy while hot. Next time, I should add a pinch of salt...]

Good Moon Rising

It's early early on the fifth day of Spring Quarter, and I must say...this time of year in La Jolla is incredibly beautiful. The weather alone has made this quarter amazing so far.

Speaking of amazing, despite my crappy track record for sleeping well, I've been making good on my New Year's Resolution #4: Spending good time with good people. And I realize that this is actually more simple than I think it is, because I don't actually mean good "organized time," I just mean...even a few, brief moments of happy encounters count toward a "good time."

I guess that's why this quarter has been so lovely thus far—a performance of intimate chamber music, unexpected catchings-up with former students, an enlightening talk, a piping hot meal out, just running into people (though not literally) while walking about campus and the neighborhood...oh, what good times! And really, what little planning they all require!

To be fair, I'm far too lazy to actually plan and organize things, and I'm not socially driven enough to desire spending that much time with most people out there anyway. (Ha!) But I guess what all this makes me realize is...I am grateful for the friends I have, for they really are all good people.

[Even the moonlight is incredibly bright here in La Jolla...and when you can see the moon rising over the new building on campus (what is it for again?), it almost makes you forget how poorly budgeting works around here...]