Non Cooking Japanese Dinner

dinner: una-don (grilled eel on white rice), poached egg miso soup, tofu, kamaboko, sake

snack: almond merengue, capuchino


breakfast: bread, bacon, fried egg, coffee

Fruits Plate

My husband brought a lot of fruits for me to feel better, and prepared pretty fruits plate. Today, I felt much better and had enough appetite.

dinner: shrimp and bacon pasta with white sauce
dessert: chocolate cake

lunch: chicken curry and crispy herbs rice

breakfast: fruits plate -apple, grape, pear, cherry,

Sick Day Skipped Meals

I was sick since noon till end of the day. I felt something really bad thing hit me, I had no appetite at all, skipped lunch and dinner.

breakfast: blinchiki (russian crape) with honey

Got Street Food Flavor

For my lunch, I tried something new. Used spices from "Hot Spicy Shrimp with Coriander" that I cooked a couple days ago from the Middle East Food cookbook. Applied the spices (garlic, ginger, red chilli, cumin seeds and paprika) to the beef, onion, tomato and mushroom, it worked really good. By accident, I added more cumin seeds than I was going to but it turned out unexpectedly nice. This smell is exactly the one from the Middle Easter food street vendors in Manhattan. Sometime it's attractive when you are walking down on the street around lunch time. I'm happy to discover this spices mix.


dinner: Japanese style chicken curry and rice, celery and wakame salad with kamaboko, wine

lunch: middle eastern flavored sauteed beef and mushroom, couscous

breakfast: roll cake, tea

Chicken Soup for Cold Winter Night

dinner: chicken and potato soup, tomato, avocado, celery and sweet corn salad, fried chicken with watercress
dessert: roll cake and tea (not pictured)

lunch: fried rice, green tea


breakfast: plain yogurt with cranberry sauce, bread and egg

A Humiliating Rice Cooking Experience

I can cook perfectly fine steamed rice without rice cooker. It is a Japanese style, no salt, no oil and no drain needed, and comes out always good shape, firm and shiny. But whenever I try different way, none of recipes worked for me. It always turned out soft and mushy thing, really bad... At least, shrimp dish was good tonight. It was another Middle Eastern food challenge.


dinner: hot spicy shrimp with coriander, rice with fresh herbs, sesame and tofu's carrot salad

lunch: hotpot leftover and udon noodle

breakfast: plain yougat and apple

Potato King

My husband is potato king. He loves potato in any ways. According to what he says, all Russian people love potato, and they prefer eating it every single day. And he continued that we eat too much rice, it's ok, but rice percentage of the meal is really high. Yes, that's right, your wife is Japanese who lives on rice, and most of the time, she is the cook at home. I like potato, bread, pasta and so on, just it's easier for me to think about rice dish for everyday meal . But I am very fair person, so I got a 5lb of potato bag to please him. Today, potato is in the every meals, and I'll try to bring it more often to the table.

dinner: salmon and potato hotpot

lunch: mushed potato, meat bolls, stuffed eggs, carrot soup, cheese cake

breakfast: hash browns, fried egg, latte

Plan is Changed

I was planning to cook a lot today to prepare for next week, but it's kind of slow Saturday, it was snowing out and I felt being lazy and did. But I wanted to eat something sweet. so I baked cheesecake in the morning for the afternoon snack. Skipped dinner.

snack: baked cheesecake, tea

lunch: fried rice, stuffed eggs, tomato

breakfast: butter toast, cranberry cake, coffee

Fish Dinner Waiting for Long Long Time

It's really hard to get nice fish around the place where I live. Several weeks ago, I found a small gourmet place that carries fresh reasonable fishes less than 10 minutes walking distance from my place. I was so happy to find the shop and walked there several times since the end of last year, but no luck. The store is in the Jewish district, so they have their own calender that I don't follow... whenever I went there, the store was closed. My husband and I were desperate for fish until tonight. Thanks to FreshDirect, we love your service!


dinner: steamed salmon with lemon and tartar sauce, steamed broccoli, melon

lunch: stuffed green pepper with vegetables, pasta


breakfast: cranberry banana cake, latte

Perfect Guacamole

Guacamole is one of my husband's favorite dishes and he makes really good one. This time he tried something new, left avocado chunky not mashing that we've learned from Rosa Mexicano weeks ago when we had a lunch there. I like this way, not mushy and feel more individual ingredients better.

dinner: grilled meddle eastern rice (iranian beef and herb soup) with cheese, guacamole, naan bread, wine

lunch: carrot soup, toasted bread with cheese

breakfast: apple and banana oatmeal pancakes, italian sausages

Thanks Leftovers

It's the middle of the week. I survived eating leftovers in the fridge, getting ready for big food shopping on weekend.

breakfast: cherrios with plain yogurt and apple

lunch: pork and egg sandwich, tuna sandwich, black tea

dinner: stuffed green peppers and venegables, pasta

Exploreing Middle East Food

Since I came to New York, I've been exploring Middle Eastern cuisine around the city. I like it very much and it always makes me exciting to taste a lot of spices more than I could imagine. Now it is time to start cooking, I've got a cookbook called "The Taste of The Middle East" and for my first try, I picked Iranian Beef and Herb Soup for dinner. Well, it turned out look like a risotto rather than soup. To make it like the nice picture on the book, I'll have to try it again and adjust the recipe for myself. At least, taste was excellent.

breakfast: apple and banana oatmeal with maple syrup

lunch: japanese style stewed pork (kakuni) with steamed cabbage and carrot, white rice

dinner: iranian beef and herb soup with yogurt, naan bread

Cranberry Banana Cake Recipe

It was my first time to use fresh cranberry for baking, I like dried cranberry a lot so I though why not fresh one while it is in the season. It turned out very good. I liked the taste of baked cranberry, bit sour and well-matched with banana and walnut.

Recipe from oceanspray.com

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 cup mashed banana
1/4 cup milk
2 eggs
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1 1/2 cups coarsely chopped fresh or frozen cranberries

METHOD:

Preheat oven to 350ºF.

Grease an 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 x 2 1/2 -inch loaf pan. Mix sugar and butter together in a medium mixing bowl until completely blended.

Add banana, milk and eggs, mixing well. Add dry ingredients, mixing just until moist. Stir in nuts and cranberries. Spread batter evenly in a loaf pan.

Bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean. Remove from pan and cool. Makes 1 loaf.

Carrot Day

Looking at pictures, I found carrot in every meal today. Isn't it very healthy?

breakfast: carrot, yam and orange soup, butter roll

lunch: tuna and carrot spaghetti with white sauce, cranberry banana cake

dinner: russian beef and cabbage soup (schi), fried rice

America's Top New Year's Resolution: "me too"

According to the news paper, this year's top resolution is Lose Weight. I think it's been held many many years number one position. And I have to say "me too!", however diet food or no sweet sounds awful to me. So I decided to start my meal diary in easy and fun way taking pictures. Don't over eat, use smaller plate every meal. Lets' see how long I can do it.dinner: stuffed green peppers, veges, white rice, miso soup