Spicy Leafies and Country Roads

Ayiyiyi, It's been forever. I do declare, when I am finally home in Amurrrica in one month I will step it up with the posting. Since I will have access to a kitchen. Fina-fluffing-LY.

My eleven month long program here in Japan is nearing it's end. It is sad, and hard to fathom, but I am ready to be home. Quite frankly, I am starting to feel the years, and--forgive me for getting Sirius Black here--by the years I mean the sigh-able things that come with feeling like an outsider in Japanese society. It's a hard one to knock, indeed. I need a change of environment and to be with my family, my friends from home, my friends at school.

There are so many things I do love about the mighty Nippon, and its people, food, quirks, aesthetic, and culture. I have made wonderful friends this year that I will miss dearly. I've seen and gone to neat places that I will think about for months after I get home. This last month is just the right amount of time to enjoy as much as I possibly can, and say sayonara.

One thing I will certainly miss is takana, a peppery salty leafy sort of marinated pickle. The stuff is groovy flavored, and I must have eaten a gazillion takana filled onigiri during my time here.

I recently discovered this series of curious instructional cooking videos on YouTube, called "cookingwithdog".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O9kWD8nuRU
...

But hey, this looks very oishii, and there are videos for so many Japanese dishes it's almost overwhelming. Keep on keeping on, Francis the dog.

Oishii and Rare Specimen of No-Meat Tofu Burger in Japan

I had my eyes on this burger place in Shinjuku for months, so when my friend K.S. was visiting me here a month or so ago, I suggested we take a look at the menu. HELL-FLUFFING-YEAH-- they had a vegetarian veggie burger. Often tofu burgers I come across here contain some sort of meat or seafood. This patty was flesh-free. It's basically tofu ground with different veggies and then buried in a mountain of other veggies in between a bun, and it was perfect. The renkon chips were interesting, too. The name of the restaurant escapes my mind at the moment? I shalt get back to you.


Of luscious avocado I am an advocate.

Nom nom

One night while I was home I was in an XTREEM mood for something dumpling-y, and I remembered seeing these delicous, plump gems that Vegan Dad made and posted about. I especially admire Vegan Dad for his ability to create original and satisfying protein sources, and was super intrigued that he uses pulsed chickpeas as the dumpling filling.


My frumpy versions, pre-steamer
And so the game went afoot. An hour, a million minutes, and a chickpea mash and flour covered kitchen counter later, I had created my own lumpy versions of Vegan Dad's perfect-looking gyouza. I opted to steam them, keeping a watchful eye to determine when I should take them off heat. I made a dipping sauce of soy sauce, mirin, rice vinegar, a few drops of toasted sesame oil, and chili flakes. My finished products were indeed sort of lumpy and awkward looking, but really flavorful and I loved the texture. The chickpeas were AWESOME. Kudos, Vegan Dad, kudos to the nth degree.

Globby yet delicious

Strangely Chicken-tasting Seitan

Here is a simple miso-inspired "itame ni", (eetahmeh nee) or simmered stir fry I concocted using home made seitan, carrots, and string beans. The flavor turned out to be a successful ying-yang of sweet and salty, and it was yummy.

Rather then measure or use a recipe for the above dish, I just threw in random ingredients that I thought might work, and tasted as I went along. Therefore I don't really have an exact recipe, but as a flavor base I used miso paste, mirin, soy sauce, grated ginger and ground white sesame seeds.

As for le seitannnnnnn:

1/2 cup vital wheat gluten
1/2 almond milk
1/3 (ish?) ground raw unsalted cashews. (I used a food processor)

Seitan vat of flavor:

1 bay leaf
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1tbsp soy sauce (or so, to your liking)
1 clove crushed garlic
small/medium sized pot of boiling water

• Combine seitan dough ingredients in small to medium bowl
• Let sit for five minutes, then knead until smooth and stretchy and gluten-y (5-10 minutes)
  
• Cut dough into pieces of desired size and shape.
• Prepare "vat of flavor" and turn on low medium heat
• Boil seitan in broth for 45 minutes, (I tend to just eyeball, but this is always the approx. time) until the pieces have expanded in size and are firm

And behold. If all goes smoothly, you will have savory and bizzarely chicken-y seitan that you can dine on in whatever fashion you like! This time, I threw them in a pan with olive oil to brown for the miso simmer-stir fry, but I also like to bake them in the oven for extra flavor and texture.

In fact, when the seitan pieces were boiling on the stove, my sister stuck her in noise in the kitchen and asked whether I was making chicken. And I said I was not. Muhahahahahah.

Vegan Pizza of Valour

I made 'za a couple times when I was home. This one, I thought, was especially yum.
I used the pizza crust recipe from my mom's tattered and flour encrusted Sunset cook book, "Breads". It turned out well, or at least like how I like crust; crisp on the outside yet fluffy on the inside. Oh! And I threw in oat bran and wheat germ for some fibrous measure.

As for les toppings:

• carmelized red onions
• chopped red bell pepper
• a mountainous mountain of torn baby spinach leaves
• satisfyingly creamy/crumbly vegan tofu ricotta from PPK.
• crushed garlic, salt and pepper, olive oil drizzlies

I had wanted to step outside of the box and explore the realm of non tomato sauce-based pizzas, and I digged this. I dug it well.



On a plate with some strawbs. Hangin' out, raw and oven-ready

Back, Like the Dinosaurs Aren't.

It has been many, many moons since I've been on here! In my absence I returned to the (sort of) motherland Pennsylvania for a month, where family and friends and almond butter were plentiful. It was really nice to be home for a bit, I needed it I think.

A day or so after I got back to Japan, my lovely friend ginger friend K.S. arrived to visit from Hawaii, and together we took the Kanto region by storm. Her stay was roughly two weeks. We encountered Showa era scented trains, cherry blossoms and cherry blossom flavored everything, Japanese Elvis impersonators, a thousand and one satisfying triangles of rice, futuristic dystopias by water, and amusing clocks, and much more. I was really glad I got to experience her first time in Japan with her.

This was all very wunderbar.

However I will tend to the happy fluffy details later; I finally have some cooking shots I can babble about!

Many of my days at home were spent sort of stuck in the house, pitter-pattering about my kitchen, so I concocted and experimented and went a bit ingredients happy. Some of my projects turned out scrumptious, some turned out monstrous, and some turned just kind of neutral. Whatevs yo, I was just happy to be back in the kitch.

I think I will do the cooking posts individually. So. Be warned, dear readers.

Cupid is a Silly Being.

Using my incisors to tear into a yummy hummus, kabocha, lettuce, and grilled carrots and onion sandwich by myself in Yoyogi park.

ハッピーバースデー

Cooked tomatoes. While I celebrate the pressure from the juicy, tart, and acidic burst that my tongue and cheek insides feel when I bite into a raw tomato, I have trouble feeling as excited about them when they are hot and mushy. Don't get me wrong, I am a large fan of chunks of tomato in sauces, curries, etc, but you know when they're like, whole, served as an accompaniment off a grill or something? I just feel don't feel the magic. Oh well. Maybe some day I will learn to appreciate.

Today I am 21. I feel it in my fingers, and even in my toes! Kind of. Well I feel a sort of fluttery excitement, despite the fact that I am sitting on my bed alone in a messy dorm room, yet unsure of exactly what today's celebration plans are going to be. There is a mini bottle of cabernet sauvignon on my desk, a gift from a Christmas Secret Santa exchange that I have only first sipped from an hour ago. Waiting for the right moment, you see.

It is my birthday and I feel butterflies inside. Moths are surprisingly terrifying creatures. While I cannot say my last few weeks since school let out for spring break have been um, productive, I have been lucky enough to run into delightful, intriguing things and people. I'm going home to PA for a few weeks on Sunday, which comes at perfect timing I think. I have a new favorite Japanese word; "fua fua" （フワフワ）. It's an onomatopoeia that is used to describe fluffy, airy things like pillows or marshmallows.

I feel content and settled, finally, after what was sort of a mentally draining autumn season. I miss the crunchy red potato chip leaves. I also like cherry blossoms, or sakura though, and cannot believe they will be here soon. Spring Tiiiimmee for Hitlahhh in Germanyyyy.

Of course, being mid February, it's still chilly. To keep warm when I walk home from the train station, I eat warm things and stick カイロ (kairo, self-heating patches) down my shirt and on my back.

I hope to go to an all-vegan restaurant in Omotesando called 'Cafe Pure' this evening with a friend, and this makes me giddy!

Seaweedin'

I'm addicted to convenience store konbu onigiri (rice balls with a sweet-salty konbu seaweed filling wrapped in crisp nori) once again.

I've had a few weeks of off time since the fateful day that my onigiri fell apart, somehow leading me to inhale the ENTIRE glob of konbu at once. Traumatically salty! Consequentially that did turn me off a bit, but now I am back and hitting them hard.

To be honest, the convenience store ones are really not that good for you at all; they often contain some weird food dyes and chemicals that I just try not to think about while eating them. On the other hand, they are vegan, a quick hunger fix, and super cheap (100 yen=90 cents?), so I dabble in them a considerate amount.

Department stores in Japan often have a basement floor where you can find groceries, as well as Japanese and Western dishes, and when I have time I like to venture down there get fresh konbu onigiri. These are worlds better and phenomenal when warm! Yummy. When I eat them I kind of want to wrap myself in slippery konbu and slide around on hot rice.

YESSS!

SUTAABAAKUSU MONSUTAA

A monster though Starbucks may be, I do like this fun feature that the ones here in Japan have! Or rather, I think it's funny. When ordering a beverage with soy milk, you're given this cardboard card (redundancy?) that you present to the barista person when you pick up your drink, so as not to accidentally receive something dairy.
I am drinking things with cow juice again here in Japan, switching to soy when I feel like it, but this is a neat reassure-er for vegans or those who have allergies. Maybe the ones in the US have adopted this since I left in August?
Actually, it seems kind of silly; I can't imagine the order mix-up happens too often. Anyhow, Japanese culture is a cautious and ginger one, so these soy-cards are endearing.

Smiley Apple

I got these indoor sock slippers recently. They keep my feet warm and amused! Unfortunately they have the rubber stopper pad things on the soles that stop me from being able to slide around my dorm room floor, but alas, I endure.