青の洞窟 Award Ceremony

On 2/5 (Sat.), my darling and I attended the award ceremony of 青の洞窟 idea recipe contest. 青の洞窟 (Ao no Doukutsu - blue cave) is one of the pasta brands of Nissin Foods. The contest was to cook spaghetti in ONE pan using 青の洞窟 spaghetti and pasta sauce. I won the 2nd price!

The ceremony was held at an Italian restaurant called Mario i Sentieri in Nishiazabu. On this day, the owner Italian chef Mario Frittoli demonstrated his original carbonara with fruits! The sour taste of fruits gave an amazing touch to carbonara and was fabulous!



Then we enjoyed his authentic Italian lunch with wines! As seen in pictures, all dishes were beautifully presented. They were dainty with discreet seasonings.



Chef Mario said he always cooks from his heart. And contacts between people makes him enjoy cooking. Of course, we had a good time with the Chef and other contestants :D



Grazie!

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Aji no Mingei

Aji no Mingei is well known as a handmade udon restaurant. My darling and I go there once in a while because hot udon in winter warms us up. Also their Japanese style decors make us feel at home :D

As you can see, their dish is really huge. This is our favorite Mingei Salad. It comes with 3 different dressings: Wa-Fu (Japanese), Dai Dai (orange), and Shirogoma (white sesame).



On this day, I ordered Nagasaki Champon with Collagen!



From February, an extra buck adds extra veggies! Fabulous :D



However, one thing we regret is that our new home is quite distant. We have to go there again this month for the last time!

BTW, I prefer hot to cold for udon and cold to hot for soba.
How about you?!

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Eho-Maki

It's time to make a wish again :D

February 3rd is Setsubun. It is the day before the beginning of Risshun (spring season). On Setsubun, we cleanse away all the evil of the former year and drive away disease-bringing evil spirits for the year to come. This special ritual is called Mamemaki (bean scattering). On this day, it is customary now to eat uncut maki-zushi called Eho-Maki ("lucky direction roll") while facing the yearly lucky compass direction, determined by the zodiac symbol of that year.

The lucky direction of the year 2011 is south-southeast. If you eat Eho-Maki facing in that direction it will bring you luck. But just remember you have to eat all without speaking! You can speak after you complete it ;)

This year, since I was busy, I gave up cooking Eho-Maki and bought this gorgeous one last night. Luckily it was at half price!!!

I'm sorry but my darling always must wear the devil mask for the bean scattering. But one year, he was sleeping when I realized...
HEY!!! Wake up!!! LoL.



How to eat Eho-Maki.
He must close his eyes, though!



Good Luck :)

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My Accomplishments

Hi there! Time flies. As usual, these are my accomplishments in January.

On 1/8, my Edible La-Yu Shimeji received the honorable mention at shio-navi.com. shio-navi.com is the site to search & learn & evaluate about many different kinds of salt(mainly in Japan). They asked for recipes using shimeji mushrooms.


On 1/13, I had a call that I got a place at Marumiya's flavored rice sauce recipe contest. However the result was against my will that I regretted I have tried hard... Those contests are just about the luck of the roll, I know, but somehow I tried too hard... Silly me X(

On 1/14, I won the good idea award at metabo-help.com. They asked for recipes to fight metabolic syndrome using mannanhikari. Mannnanhikari is a rice shaped konjac food. By cooking the rice with mannanhikari, you can save calories (up to 30%)! My award winning recipe is Healthy Tomato Inarizushi.

On 1/17, my Bling-Bling Tuna Natto Roll won the special award at uchinogohan (my home) recipe contest. I like it's gorgeous look :)

On 1/18, I won a prize at the convenience store recipe contest. Not knowing where the result is posted...


On 1/23, my Stir-Fried Potato and Komatsuna (Japanese Mustard Spinach) Hot Miso Salad won the outstanding performance award.



Then FINALLY, on 1/24, I won the IH rice cooker that I mentioned last time. The theme was to create recipes that use GOPAN and the local ingredients. I will write about GOPAN someday later, but briefly saying, it is the bread made from rice grain. I submitted Ago Dashi Gopan Soup. Ago is local specialities in Hirado (Nagasaki). I bought the soup when I visited there :D The result is now posted on Sanyo's website!

I wish I won't get depressed easily. LoL.

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Cookpad VS Rakuten

Cookpad is the biggest recipe site in Japan, and have 920,000 recipe posts, 8 million visitors per day.

However, in October 2010, Rakuten (Japan's No.1 shopping site: currently 70 million users) have launched the same business called 楽天レシピ (Rakuten recipe) and now they have already reached up to 40,000 recipe posts, 4 million visitors per day.

Rakuten's strategy is an "added value". They give 50 Rakuten points (50 yen) per recipe post and 10 rakuten points (10 yen) per recipe report. Also they offer affiliate services linked to their Rakuten shops. On the other hand Cookpad offer nothing per post. Rakuten now say they will win out over Cookpad by the end of 2011. Their goal is to expand their food market throughout the recipe posts.

Blatantly, Rakuten copied the business style of Cookpad ... But that is the Rakuten's style... They simply snap at a chance to rise.

It may be the time for the change for recipe sites!?

Of course, I made my account at Rakuten to follow the growth of the recipe trade!!!

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pomera

pomera is a portable digital typewriter. With this device, you can ONLY write the text, so you can concentrate on writing!



I use pomera (DM20) to write my recipe. I can write faster without the Internet distraction ;) hehe!



Anyway, I always ask my darling to take my pic but he always presses the button when I'm not ready (while I'm talking like below...)



Why?! Because I mostly ask him before our meal, so he is hungry X( Needless to say, he has to take me again! LoL :P



BTW, who takes your picture?!

Anyways, the movers came on Saturday morning and got competitive quotes from them. Surprisingly removal in the morning costs more than in the afternoon... And the cheapest was $600!!! We need to try more to reduce our stuff!!!

Busy Monday! Take care :D

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Stir-Fried Ginger Pork and Cabbage

I love cabbage because it is cheap and healthy!

This recipe is the absolute best use of cabbage. The cabbage blends together well with the pork and adds volume to the dish! A hint of ginger makes it more healthy and appetizing.

It goes perfect with white rice :D

---------------------------------
Stir-Fried Ginger Pork and Cabbage

Difficulty: Easy
Time: 10min
Number of servings: 2

Ingredients:
250g (8.8oz.) thinly sliced pork
250g (8.8oz.) cabbage
1 tbsp. sake
A
* 50g (1.8oz.) grated onion
* 1 tbsp. grated ginger
* 2 tbsp. soy sauce
* 1 tbsp. honey or sugar
flour
cooking oil

Directions:
1. Cut thinly sliced pork and cabbage into bite-size, and lightly flour the pork.
2. Heat cooking oil in a frying pan, add pork and stir-fry until pink color is nearly gone (about 1 minute). Add cabbage, sprinkle sake, and continue cooking until cabbage is almost tender (about 3 minutes).
3. Add A and saute until coated and the sauce thickens slightly.

My original recipe in Japanese is here.
---------------------------------

Enjoy!

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IH Rice Cooker

After many years, I finally won an IH (Induction Heating) Rice Cooker at the contest!!!



What I currently own is a micom (microcomputer) rice cooker. It is an electric rice cooker using direct heating method calculated by a built-in computer. The heat is delivered to the inner pot by thermal conduction. Thus, the heat applied to the rice is weak compared to the gas, so some people think it is better to cook in a pan than using a micom rice cooker.

In the hope of making electric cookers better than cooking with a gas, IH (induction heating) rice cooker was invented in 1988. An electric current is passed through coils around the pot and the pot's metal itself immediately heats up, so the entire pot quickly rises to a high temperature and cooks the rice evenly. To be sure, you can cook rice perfectly without soaking in water before cooking!



What I won is an IH rice cooker with an additional "pressure cooking" function (Sanyo ECJ-XW100). As seen in the image, the rice is stirred up by the pressure and cooked more evenly just like it cooked in the furnace!



Rice is the staple of Japan. There is no wonder most Japanese have a rice cooker at home. But our budget rice cooker (6 years ago) was micom so I kept on using it, hoping I could win the IH rice cooker someday, and now my dream came true!!! Anyway, I will keep my micom rice cooker because IH consumes a lot of electricity and I might not want to cook flavored rice with it because the flavored rice leaves the smell after cooking.

Anyways, I am happy that I can cook tastier rice at home!!!

Do you have a rice cooker at home?!

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The New Starbucks Logo

I finally got a chance to post about this! Did you already read about the news (on Jan 5th, 2011) that Starbucks would make a change to their company's logo, removing the Starbucks word-mark around the siren and enlarging the siren image itself from this coming spring?!



Are they just bringing everyone to the attention of their 40th anniversary (as a start) because of the economic slowdown?!

I know we can get used to it after a while, but I don't like this change since the new logo is not that eye-catching... I prefer it framed in the word-mark! or, I wish they don't serve bitter coffee anymore...



torresfelipe illustrated the future Starbucks logos on twitpic! A dot in the end?! LoL.



Anyways, what do you think about this logo change?!

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EVOLG

As I wrote before, EVOLG are the gloves that enable touch panel operation!

I got them online for my darling for Christmas (the black ones) and were really convenient, so I bought another pair for myself :D



Since they come in free sizes, they are little large for me, but at least I can take a phone call, it doesn't matter!



I love them!!!

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