Healthy Pork Nabe with Root Vegetables and Mixed Grain Kiritanpo

Today, my nabe recipe is introduced at Megami's Recipes site!
I used to write about this site for many times, so please search my diary if you want to know about it in detail.

The recipe introduced is "Healthy Pork Nabe with Root Vegetables and Mixed Grain Kiritanpo".
Please take a look:)
It will be on there until the end of February 2008.
Kiritanpo is mashed rice put on a chopstick. Akita Prefecture is particularly well-known for it.
I cooked Kiritanpo and a lot of root vegetables in a miso nabe with thin slices of pork back ribs.
The taste of delicious pork broth gives the miso soup an added richness.
This is my boyfriend's favorite taste!
To try it out, simply add thin slices of pork rib in your miso soup and you will know!!!
Be careful not to add a chunk though!

Different story.
Tomorrow, my new Christmas salad recipe will be introduced at Megami's Recipes site!
I received an e-mail announcement yesterday.
Be sure to check it out :)
http://www.cooking-megami.com

This is all for today.
Bye for now.

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Soy Collagen Jello with Lemon Marmalade Sauce

Hi!
It's already December.
It's my birth month!!!
I'm not that happy to get older, but I am looking forward to going out for a dinner with my boyfriend :)
He said we are going out on this Friday!
Actually, my birthday is the 9th but we might go out with my parents on the weekend, so that is why.

Good news!!!
On Saturday I won the highest award at Megami's Recipes site!
The award-winning recipe is "Christmas Tofu", that I posted here last week.
As I wrote before, the Megami's Recipes site is directed by Yukio Hattori, best known as an expert commentator on the Japanese television show Iron Chef.
I received a few comments from him, which is very valuable!!!

Writing about my work.
On Sunday, I created 5 new recipes.
One of them is "Soy Collagen Jello with Lemon Marmalade Sauce".
Recently, there are a lot of food products containing collagen (especially the food products that target women) in Japan.
As I get older, I become interested in skin care.
Lotte Japan sell a collagen powder that contains 10000mg with vitamin C! I used this powder to make the soy jello.

The recipe in Japanese is here.
I will write in English if anyone wants.

Tomorrow, I will write about another collagen-related recipe!
See you :)

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Megami's Recipes

Today, my recipe "Tomato Tuna Piccata Sandwich"was introduced at Megami's Recipes site.
http://www.cooking-megami.com/index.html

This website is directed by Yukio Hattori, best known as an expert commentator on the Japanese television show Iron Chef.
It started in June 2007 and is now getting very popular among recipe posters!
Basically, only 2 recipes are introduced daily (about 60 recipes a month) and this month, there were 323 postings! So it was highly competitive!!!

I'm so happy that my recipe was accepted :)

Recipe in Japanese is here.
I will write in English if anyone wants.

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My Accomplishments

Believe it or not, the high today is 69F (21C) and was 62F (17C) yesterday because of the south wind! I hope it won't rain...

Today, I will list my accomplishments as usual.

In the beginning of February, two of my miso recipes appeared in the miso recipe book published by Megami's Recipes site. The site is currently closed (as I wrote before) but they sometimes do an activity. Some people have more than two recipes published in the book! To tell the truth, I didn't expect the book to turn out this nice, so I just submitted two recipes... I regret not making a full effort!

On 2/6, my steamed rice using "leftover beans" from Mamemaki (bean scattering) was introduced on Orangepage's website. The site was newly opened on 2/3 and I am keeping a diary there to see how it works. I am not sure whether to continue to post or not.




On 2/9, my Fruit Layered Pound Cake won a message award at the Philadelphia Cream Cheese Contest organized by Cookpad. I mixed strawberry and banana paste in the cake, too.





On 2/11, I again won the Outstanding Performance Award at Asahi Food & Healthcare's diet recipe contest. I submitted my "Microwave Cooked Juicy Chicken Balls".



On 2/11, my "LOVE Message Chocolate Chunk Muffins" was introduced as the 2nd place in the newsletter published by cookpad.com. On that week, the theme was "Valentine's day recipe, different than usual". Thanks for selecting my recipe!




Then again, I recently won some interesting samples: turmeric pills for drinkers, Mary's chocolate for Valentine's day, hyaluronan acid and collagen pills for beautiful skin.

Today, I am busy, so I gotta go now!
Have a happy Valentine's day ;)

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Everything is Kept Intact...

As usual, Monday is very busy.
Actually, I was busy from the end of October!
I haven't replied to the comments at cooking site and my e-mails since then.
I know I should do it if I have time to write my diary, but my diary is something special.

Also, my cooking is something special, too.
Yesterday, I created 6 new recipes.
Maybe this is why I keep everything intact.

Today, again I lost prizes at 2 contests held at cooking site.
When it rains, it pours...

Anyway, yesterday my spinach recipe was introduced at Megami's Recipes site again!
I wrote about this site before.
This made me happy :)

Recipe in Japanese is here.
I will write in English if anyone wants.

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My Accomplishments

Hello!
Sorry again! I didn't have a chance to write my diary on Friday.
I was unexpectedly busy.

On Thursday, I could survive the party without feeling uncomfortable.
Since the restaurant was located in a department store, we didn't expect to eat delicious food, but the food there was pretty good!
I had a good time.

Anyway, today I want to write about my recent events.
There are many thing going on!!!

Last Friday, I won the "Angel Prize" at Megami's Recipe site!
I used to write about this site for many times, so please search my diary if you want to know about it in detail.
The prizewinning recipe was "Stir-Fried Salt Rubbed Chinese Cabbage".
I received a comment from Yukio Hattori, which made my day happy :)


Also, on that day, I got honorable mention for Sushi competition at All Japan Sushi.
They put out a call for new sushi menu and there were more than 400 submissions, so it was pretty competitive.
I created Fillet-o-Sushi.

Then the sad news (or good news?!).
On Saturday I received a message from Megami's site.
They say that they are going to stop the site for a while to renew the site.
It was on such short notice that I couldn't accept it for a while...
Hope they come back soon.

Then the bright news!!!
On Sunday my "Lucky Eho-Maki" recipe was posted on the front page of cookpad.com (No.1 recipe search/posting site in Japan).
I checked my statistics at cookpad this morning and realized that I had a lot of traffic on that day! Wow!!!



And today, I got honorable mention for "salt Zosui competition" at shio-navi.com.
shio-navi.com is the site to search & learn & evaluate about many different kinds of salt(mainly in Japan).
My piece was "Chicken Broth Zosui".
I boiled a Chicken Thigh Meat in water and flavored cooking liquid with salt and used for Zosui. You eat it with varieties of ingredients.

Also today, I passed the initial screening to go to the finals and create drink recipes using camu camu. I think I'm gonna be busy again this month!

Okay. I wrote enough today!
See you tomorrow :)

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Christmas Tofu

This morning, I saw a high-school girl handing a love letter to a boy at the train station!
She ran away with the other girl romping around.
How young are they!!!
I was sooooo excited, remembering my high school days :)
And what was funny is that I found many people (especially women) were staring at them like me!

Anyway, on Friday, my Christmas Tofu was introduced at Megami's Recipes site again!
I used nutmeg, soy sauce, grated ginger, black vinegar and black pepper to season the spinach. Then I topped it on tofu, and decorated with colored peppers.
Recipe in Japanese is here.
I will write in English if anyone wants.

Sorry I am always talking about the recipes couple of days ago...
I have a lot to present!

Different story.
Today, I created a new blog to enter the contest held at Recipe Blog (they mainly trackback the recipe related articles.)
Actually, I don't have a Japanese blog since I have so many places to post my work, such as Cookpad, Lettuceclub etc...
But this time, participants were limited to the blog author, so I created one.
However, blogspot doesn't have trackback feature, so I needed to make an account at Haloscan to send a trackback ping.
It seems like not working properly though...
I have to solve the problem...
It's a long way...

Anyway, I hope I can manage all and I shouldn't increase my work any more.

Bye for now!

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Christmas Tofu - Video Recipe

This recipe was introduced at Yukio Hattori's recipe site (Megami's Recipes site). Yukio Hattori is a president of Hattori Nutrition College and best known as an expert commentator on the Japanese television show Iron Chef, if you know ;)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOw1CPBcbdo

I topped "Spinach Ohitashi" on tofu and decorated with colored peppers. Spinach Ohitashi is a common dish cooked in Japan. It is a boiled spinach flavored with soy sauce. However, in this tutorial, I used vinegar and spices to season, so the flavor is unique.

Please watch Lady Gaga Bento video for the basic "Spinach Ohitashi" recipe.



以前に服部幸應先生が監修する料理レシピ、コンテストサイト「女神の料理レシピ」でピックアップされたレシピです。

---------------------------------
Christmas Tofu

Difficulty: Very Easy
Time: 7min
Number of servings: 2 Christmas trees

Ingredients:
300g (10.5oz.) square momen-dofu (cotton tofu) or kinugoshi-dofu (silken tofu)
100g (3.5oz.) spinach (mustard spinach is okay)
salt
A
* 1/4 tsp. nutmeg
* 1 tbsp. soy sauce
* 1 tbsp. black vinegar
* a bit of grated ginger
* a bit of black pepper
bell pepper (red, orange, and yellow)

Directions:
1. Boil water in a large pot. Add a pinch of salt in the water (salt removes oxalic acid - bitter taste, and makes the spinach nice and green).
2. Wash spinach and add in the boiling water from the stem side.
3. Boil spinach for about one minute. Drain and soak the spinach in cold water (or use running water) to cool. Drain and squeeze the spinach to remove the excess water (use paper towel if you have).
4. Cut off the root ends of the spinach and cut into small pieces. Toss the spinach with A.
5. Drain tofu, slice tofu widthwise, and cut it into Christmas tree shape - please watch the video to see how.
6. Top the tofu with spinach and decorate it with diced bell peppers (ornaments).

レシピ（日本語）
http://cooklabo.blogspot.com/2011/11/blog-post_25.html
---------------------------------

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Mini Cup Chinese Vermicelli Salad for Christmas

As I wrote yesterday, today, my Christmas salad recipe is introduced at Megami's Recipes site!
The recipe introduced is Mini Cup Chinese Vermicelli Salad for Christmas. We usually make this salad in summer using cucumber.
However, I used zucchini to give a warm taste.
Since we mainly eat western dishes in Christmas, I thought Chinese salad might be good to spice up the menu.

Changing my story, my boss is off today.
He said his home PC is infected by viruses...
The thing is he didn't install the anti-virus software on his PC.
He said he found hundred thousands of viruses after installing the anti-virus soft...
Sometimes, by installing the anti-virus soft that includes anti-spam, firewall and many others, the performance of PC gets really bad so I used to think it just bothers the PC, but not in fact.
I learned it is necessary!

Today, it is very cold outside.
I'm gonna run home!

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Stir-Fried Chinese Cabbage

Hello.
Today is little bit cloudy, but not so cold. Which is good.

As I announced yesterday, my Chinese cabbage recipe is introduced at Megami's Recipes site!
The point of this recipe is that I used salt to tender the Chinese cabbage before cooking. You can save heating time and enjoy the crunchy texture. I fried the Chinese cabbage with bacon and eggs, which make the dish tasty with less flavoring.

Tomorrow we have a New Year's party after work.
I don't feel like going though...

I am getting drowsy!
Bye for now.

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4 Advantages Using Japanese Rice Vinegar

Hello!
It is very cold today.
I couldn’t get out of my bed.
I thought about getting a day off from work.
Just kidding! (But was serious in the morning though...)

As I said yesterday, I will write about another collagen-related recipe.
The recipe is "Chicken Drumsticks Simmered in Tomato Vinegar Sauce".
I used Mizkan's rice vinegar (and diced tomato can, sake, chopped garlics and onions, mustard, bouquet garni...) to simmer the chicken drumsticks.

There are 4 advantages using Japanese rice vinegar when simmering:
1. Cook meat less greasy.
2. Meat can be more easily separated from the bone.
3. Increase of amino acid gives the meat rich taste.
4. When simmering "chicken with bone", the acid of the vinegar act directly on the connective tissue of the chicken bone and the meat. As a result, collagen and calcium can seep into the broth.

Don't you think #4 is quite interesting?!
I don't prefer to eat bony chicken, but now I changed my mind :)

The recipe in Japanese is here.
I will write in English if anyone wants.

Tomorrow, my new recipe will be introduced at Megami's Recipes site again! I don't know why but this time I received an e-mail announcement in advance.
Be sure to check it out :)

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Soymilk Tofu Burdock Potage

Hi there!

This morning there was something wrong with my private Japanese blog. If I ever need someone to talk to about anything, I write there, so I was shocked...
But now it seems fine.
I hope it never happens again since I need a place to complain. Ha-ha!

Today, as I mentioned yesterday, my recipe is introduced at Megami's Recipes site :)
Here is the recipe: Soymilk Tofu Burdock Potage.
I simmered thin sliced burdock in consomme. Then put it together with soft/silken tofu into a blender and processed until smooth. The reason why I used the soft/silken tofu is because its texture is similar to that of very fine custard. It adds thickness to the soup!
Don't you think it's healthier than using fresh cream?!
I will write a detailed recipe in English if anyone wants.

Again, it is cold today.
Stay warm everybody!

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Dashi Curry Nabe

Hi! I am so tired that I don't have much time to write today.
But yes! I cooked the porridge (nanakusagayu) last night!
The herbs were on sale after work, since we eat this porridge in the morning of January 7th. I forgot to mention it yesterday.

Anyway, another thing I forgot is to write about the nabe I tried the other day.
I cooked it on the day I planned. However, it wasn't that good than I thought. I used the vegetables and the meat as instructed on the package though...

But last week, I tried Nagatanien's curry nabe.
It was great!!!
I loved the flavor of the bonito dashi broth.
The recipe is in Japanese but here is it.

Different story.
Today, I was trying my best to leave the office on time.
But some people were arguing about the new system of overtime application.
It seems like they want to overwork...
I hate this kind of Japanese work style...

Okay, I gotta go.
Tomorrow, my Chinese cabbage recipe will be introduced at Megami's Recipes site!
I received an e-mail announcement yesterday.
Be sure to check it out :)
http://www.cooking-megami.com/

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