Enchilada Remix

Oh my gosh, people, I do believe, I am back!  Thank you all so much for your words of support and encouragement!  It’s been a long haul…

In my last post, I mentioned a wonderful way to cook chicken and make delicious broth at the same time.  This is one of the meals I made with the fruits of those labors:  Chicken Enchiladas.  So easy and yummy.  I did a post a couple of years back on Chicken Enchiladas that I made with my mom (I grew up with this dish), and I think I’ve improved it (sorry, mom!)!  My friend, Judy, of Bebe Loves Okazu (check out her beautiful, beautiful blog!) had mentioned she had made it but sauteed the onions.  Also, she wanted a thicker sauce.  I was keeping this in mind when I redid this recipe.  I also streamlined it a bit and instead of spraying and softening the tortillas in the oven, I just covered 6 at a time with a damp paper towel and heated in the microwave.

Sauteing the onions gave the dish a sweeter, milder flavor, and made the sauce tastier.  I reduced the amount of broth and increased the tomato sauce, which made the resulting sauce thicker — perfect for serving at the table.

Hope all of you have a wonderful Saint Patrick’s Day this Sunday!  I plan to relax with my family and just enjoy being.  Here is an image I did for the occasion with the same kids from Valentine’s Day.

May good luck flow your way!

Chicken Enchiladas (revised)

1 medium onion, diced

2 teaspoons olive oil

1 15 oz. can tomato sauce

3 cups chicken broth

1 tablespoon (or to taste) chili powder

kosher salt to taste

12 corn tortillas

About 4 cups shredded cooked chicken

About 8 oz. or more (to taste) shredded Monterey Jack cheese

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2.  Saute diced onion in oil on stove in a large pot.

3.  When onions are softened and translucent, transfer about 80% of them to a bowl and set aside.  To the remaining cooked onions in pot add tomato sauce, chicken broth, chili powder, and salt to taste.  Bring to a simmer and cook for about 20 minutes, until thickened.

4.  Heat 6 tortillas at a time, covering with a damp paper towel, in the microwave for 45- 50 seconds, until warm and pliable.

5.  Pour some sauce into a 9-inch by 13-inch baking pan to coat bottom.  Lay one of the warmed tortillas in dish and coat both sides with sauce.  Then fill with  a handful of chicken, sprinkle of sauteed onions, and a bit of shredded cheese.  Roll up into a tube seam-side down.  Continue with five more warmed tortillas.  Then warm the remaining 6 tortillas and fill these in the dish, adding sauce to coat, as needed.  For the last two enchiladas, you may want to coat, fill and roll in another dish because there isn’t much space left.  I find that doing the bulk of the filling and rolling in the backing dish itself helpful though, because you don’t have to worry about the tortilla breaking and spilling mid-transfer!

6.  When all twelve enchiladas are arranged in baking dish, cover with cooked sauce, and sprinkle with remaining shredded cheese.  Cover with aluminum foil and bake for about 20-25 minutes.  Alternatively, you could also refrigerate up to this time and bake later.  We did this, and baked it for about 30 minutes.

Makes 12 enchiladas.  Serve with extra sauce.

Pumpkin Granola Bars Two Ways: Chewy and Crunchy

Fall is already well underway!  I can’t believe how fast Halloween is approaching.  We’ve been promoting our book, Hush Little Monster,  and doing book signings and readings.  It will continue into November.  For a list of appearances, click here.   We would love to see you if you are in the area during those times!
I was also featured on Kathy Temean’s Illustrator Saturday post over the weekend about my work and process.  Check it out here.
The coming of fall also brings…. pumpkin puree in the stores!

I thought it would be fun to develop a pumpkin recipe, and I was inspired to try making pumpkin granola bars.  I love Kashi’s because they are really crunchy and not too sweet.

I hadn’t known how hard it would be to come up with something that I would be satisfied with! The last couple of weeks have been devoted to this enterprise.  There have been “fails” along the way, but even these have tasted pretty good.  The problem has been getting it to be crunch-worthy and stick together!

Crunchy

I  initially based my ingredients on a peanut butter chewy granola bar that I will share soon in a future post.  I exchanged the peanut butter for pumpkin and applesauce, decreased the sugar, and used pepitas (roasted pumpkin seeds) instead of almonds. Unfortunately, this version of granola bar had rice cereal in it and became soggy immediately when it came in contact with the moisture of the pumpkin and applesauce!  I could hear the “Snap! Crackle! Pop!” as I was putting the pan in the oven…  FAIL!  It tasted good, but the texture was like mochi.

In the second round of my quest for crunch, I omitted the rice cereal, upped the oats, and added egg white  thinking this would help the crispiness as in Anna’s Chunky Granola.   The result was a really good, tasty chewy version of pumpkin granola bars.  They are very much like an oatmeal bar cookie.  Jamie loves these and prefers them to the crunchy version.

Chewy with chocolate chips and dried cranberries!

Unsatisfied, I pushed onto a third round.  This time, I omitted the egg white, chocolate chips, and dried cranberries, thinking less chunky ingredients would help make them stay together better when cutting.  I also baked the mixture on a baking sheet in a thinner layer than the one in the baking pan.

The result was a crunchy, tasty granola bar! Finally!  There was some breakage — they are fragile– but the resulting granola is as delicious.  I mixed it with the dried cranberries and chips that I had omitted.  This granola is addicting.

I could eat this all day long.

As a side note, this granola — and their bar counterparts (I break them up) are heavenly with ice cream! Also, Jamie has come up with a novel recipe on his own which he says he will post on his blog, involving the chewy granola bars and cookie butter.   Trust me, it is wonderful.
I could go on experimenting — adding flax seeds, wheat germ, etc., but if I did, I’d end up eating batches more of granola and granola bars, and I wouldn’t be able to fit in my jeans, so I’ll stop for now!

Crunchy?

So there you have it.  Two pumpkin granola bars with similar flavors but different textures.  Which do you prefer?  Crunchy? Or chewy?

Chewy?

Chewy Pumpkin Granola Bars

2 cups oats

¼ cup pumpkin seeds (I used roasted, salted pepitas – they are smaller and have been removed from the shell)

¼ cup pumpkin puree

¼ cup applesauce

¼ cup honey

1 tablespoon oil (see note below)

1 egg white

1 teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon pumpkin spice

1 tablespoon brown sugar

2 tablespoons dried cranberries

¼ cup chocolate chips

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Line an 8-inch by 8-inch baking pan with parchment paper.  Set aside.

2.  In a large bowl, toss oats and pepitas together.  Set aside.

3.  In a smaller bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree, applesauce, oil, egg white, honey, cinnamon, pumpkin spice, and brown sugar together.  Pour over dry ingredients and stir until everything is coated evenly. Add dried cranberries and chocolate chips and stir to combine.

4.  Pour mixture into prepared pan.  Really press down and pack it in as tightly as you can in an even layer.  Bake for about 20-25 minutes, watching closely at the end.  Let pan cool on rack for about 5 minutes.  Run knife around edge, invert pan onto cutting board.  Cut sheet of granola in half, then into fifths, so you have ten bars.  Carefully transfer bars to rack and let cool completely.

Crunchy Pumpkin Granola Bars

2 cups oats

¼ cup pumpkin seeds (pepitas – see above)

¼ cup pumpkin puree

¼ cup applesauce

¼ cup honey

1 tablespoon oil

1 teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon pumpkin spice

1 tablespoon brown sugar

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.  Set aside.

2.  In a large bowl, toss oats and pepitas together.  Set aside.

3.  In a smaller bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree, applesauce, oil, honey, cinnamon, pumpkin spice, and brown sugar together.  Pour over dry ingredients and stir until everything is coated evenly.

4.  Pour mixture onto prepared sheet.  Shape into a square shape, and press down and pack it together as tightly as possible in an even layer about 3/8-inch thick. Bake for about 20 minutes.  Remove pan from oven and cut square in half and then into fifths, so you have ten bars.  They are very fragile, so be careful!  Of course any broken pieces can turn into tasty granola though….

5.  Return baking sheet to oven and cook for another 5-8 minutes, watching closely at the end of baking.  Let pan cool on rack for about 5 minutes.  Carefully transfer bars to rack and let cool completely.   They will harden up as they cool.

These can be stored in an airtight container.  If they lose their crispness, after a day or two, just toast in a toaster oven for a minute or two and then let cool completely.  They will be crunchy again!

Note:  I broke my resolve and made another batch today for a play date!  I accidentally forgot the oil (duh!), but they came out OK, and were still crunchy.  So oil is optional.

Green Egg and Avocado Salad and Saint Patrick’s Day Reunion

My friend, Jennifer, came to visit us on Saint Patrick’s Day this past weekend.  We hadn’t seen each other since 1993!  That was many lifetimes ago when we were both graduate students of Linguistics at Stanford. We had a wonderful morning together catching up and reminiscing.

The year I met Jennifer, my second year of grad school, was the lowest point in my life. I realized I was on the wrong path.

The day I actually made the concrete decision to leave academia was when I was staying with Jennifer and her family in Los Angeles during an LSA (Linguistic Society of America) conference.  Surrounded by brilliant scholars passionate about their work, I felt like an impostor and completely disconnected.  During one of the conference days I cut out and met my dad and his wife for lunch.  We had a long heart to heart talk.  They were amazingly supportive and told me to “go for it” — to pursue my dream of illustrating and writing children’s books.

I also took it as a “sign” that Jennifer’s mom, Caroline Arnold, was (and still is!) an amazing award winning children’s book author and illustrator of over a hundred books.

I dropped out of my program at the end of that year (my department was nice enough to grant me an MA!)  I went to art school in Pasadena and later came to NYC to pursue a career in children’s books.

Jennifer continued successfully at Stanford and eventually became a professor of Psycholinguistics at University of North Carolina.  We had lost touch for many years, but reconnected recently on Facebook.

If you told me nineteen years ago during my “life crisis” that I would someday be having brunch with Jennifer in Brooklyn in 2012, happily married and having my dream career (even sharing a publisher with her mom!), it would seem TOO good to be true.  It is also surprising and wonderful that we both have sons just months apart in age!

Her visit made me remember how blessed I am.  In a visceral, tears-of-joy kind of way.  I am SO lucky to have such supportive people in my life and to have had the opportunity to pursue my passion–no matter how crazy and out of reach it seemed at the time.

This Saint Patrick’s Day was more like a second Thanksgiving Day for me — as corny as that sounds!

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Green egg salad in Romaine lettuce leaf--it looked "greener" in person!!

Here is a belated green dish to commemorate Saint Patrick’s Day that I had made the day before.  I used my whipped cottage cheese for extra nonfat protein, but you could substitute mayonnaise.

Unwhipped new container of cottage cheese.

After processing -- silky smooth!

Green Egg and Avocado Salad

3 hard boiled eggs, chopped

3 tablespoons whipped cottage cheese (or mayonnaise)

1 tablespoon minced onion

kosher salt to taste

pepper to taste

1/2 ripe avocado, mashed

1.  Mix together and use as a dip, as a sandwich spread, or as part of an hors d’ Oeuvre.

On pita chip

Pita Chips

1 pita

non-stick spray

kosher salt or other seasonings

1.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2.  Cut pita in half, then fourths, then eighths.  Split each triangle into one layer.

3.  Line a baking sheet with parchment or foil.  Spray with non-stick spray.  Lay pita triangles in a single layer and spray again.  Season with salt or other seasonings.

4.  Bake, watching closely (thinner triangles brown faster) for about 6-9 minutes.  Cool.

Autumn Bounty: Roasted Acorn Squash and Seeds

Hope all you folks (who celebrate it) had a nice Thanksgiving!  We visited our family in Illinois for a week.  I also visited the children at Woodland Primary School in Gages  Lake where my sister-in-law works on Monday. We had fun pretending to make soup!

From the Daily Herald -- my sister-in-law is in the back in the striped sweater!

While I was in Illinois, I received a really touching email from a woman whose adorable 2 1/2 year old daughter, Addison, enjoys my book, Soup Day.  She did a blog post about them spending the day recreating the story that is so perfect I just have to share it.  Check it out here!

Before, during, and after the Thanksgiving festivities, we all indulged in comfort foods and desserts.  My mom made our favorite enchiladas.

My nephew made amazing grilled chicken sushi.  Unfortunately I have no photos!  Major fail on my part.  He basically grilled some chicken breast seasoned with salt and pepper in olive oil.  Then he cut it into strips and rolled it with cucumber, green onion and wasabi on seasoned rice and seaweed.  See the maki method here.  We also made crazy kimchee and jalapeno versions with smoked salmon and avocado that were so good.

My nephew’s girlfriend made these decadent, addicting Oreo Truffles with milk and white chocolate.

Photo credit: Run For Your Life on Food.com

My cousin made her own inventive creation of Coconut Frosted Pumpkin Cupcakes filled with Haupia (Hawaiian Coconut Pudding).   She’s from Hawaii and had the brilliant idea of combining Ina Garten’s Pumpkin Cupcake recipe (sans Maple Frosting) with this Haupia and Frosting recipe  (sans cupcake).  They were to die for!!

Since my brother’s house was overflowing with decadent food, I focused on making a lot of vegetables!  One of dishes I made was my favorite fall veggie that is also readily available throughout the winter months—acorn squash.  You can steam cook and even microwave them, but my favorite way to prepare them is to roast them at high heat.  It really brings out the natural sugars, and you can do double duty and roast the seeds at the same time.

To serve, I mash the cooked acorn squash halves in their skins a bit and add butter and brown sugar and cinnamon to taste.  I cut the halves into wedges and serve them in their skins.  If you don’t eat the skins, it’s easy to scoop out the sweet flesh and eat with a spoon.  It tastes like dessert.

We like to eat the savory roasted squash seeds as is or tossed on our salads for added crunch.

For about $1.49 per acorn squash, this is a fantastic deal I love to take advantage of this time of year. 

Roasted Acorn Squash

non-stick spray

1 medium acorn squash

butter to taste

brown sugar or maple syrup to taste

cinnamon to taste

Roasted Acorn Squash Seeds

Seeds from an acorn squash

1 1/2 teaspoons olive oil

Kosher salt to taste (or other spices — cumin, smoked paprika, chili powder, garlic salt might be good!)

1.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Line a baking sheet with parchment or foil.  Spray with nonstick spray.  Set aside.

2.  Cut acorn squash in half lengthwise.  Scoop out seeds and stringy flesh.  Separate seeds from flesh and rinse in a colander.  Spread seeds out on a paper towel to dry a bit.

3.  Place acorn squash halves cut side down (I do this to get them caramelized on top) on parchment or foil lined baking sheet.  Roast for 30 minutes.

4.  While squash is roasting, scrape seeds off paper towel into a medium bowl.  Toss seeds with oil and seasonings.  Set aside.

5.  When squash has roasted for 30 minutes, flip halves over so cut side is up.  Set timer for 20 more minutes and continue roasting.

6.  When timer goes off, move acorn halves to one side of the the baking sheet and spread prepared seeds on other side of pan in one layer.  Set timer for 10 minutes.

7.  When timer goes off, stir seeds and continue to check every five minutes or so once or twice.  Remove seeds to a plate when they are golden.  They will crisp up more as they cool.  Test acorn squash flesh to see if they are done.  If they are soft like a cooked sweet potato, they are ready.

8.  Season acorn halves with butter, brown sugar or maple syrup, and cinnamon to taste.  Cut into wedges and serve.
9.  Serve seeds as is in a bowl or tossed on salads as a healthy, crunchy condiment.

Mmmmm!

Summer Salads: Asian Slaw with Fuji Apple and French Potato Salad

I usually include jicama in this slaw, but I couldn't find one at the store!

We’ve been grilling a lot this summer — correction — my husband has been grilling a lot this summer.  I’m the sous chef in the nice air conditioned kitchen marinating the meats, prepping the vegetables, and making all the side dishes while he swelters in 100 degree plus weather over the hot coals.  Seriously, he actually grilled outside for a couple of hours during the heat wave here last week where we had record highs of 104 degrees (with humidity, it felt closer to 109).

Two side dishes I’ve been making which go quite well with the grilled vegetables and meats we’ve been having are an Asian slaw that I concocted that is both sweet and savory, and a Dijon and olive oil based potato salad with lots of fresh herbs.

The potato salad is based on a recipe from The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook, but I altered it by greatly reducing the olive oil by more than half.  She tends to have a heavy hand when it comes to olive oil and butter, that Ina Garten!!

With the “leftover” bunch of parsley, I’ve been making Tabouleh also — another great summer side salad!

Hope you enjoy them.

French Potato Salad

2 lbs. Yukon and Red Bliss potatoes (I just used Yukon)

kosher salt and pepper

2 tablespoons chicken broth

2 tablespoons dry white wine

1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard

3 tablespoons champagne vinegar or white vinegar

1/4 cup chopped scallions

1/4 cup chopped fresh dill (I increased the dill!)

2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil

2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

3-4 tablespoons virgin olive oil

1.  Bring a large pot to a rolling boil.  Season water generously with kosher salt.  Boil potatoes for about 20 minutes or until a knife can be inserted easily into the flesh.  Drain potatoes into a colander and cover with a clean dish towel and let steam for about 10 minutes.

2.  Cut potatoes into sixths or fourths depending on their size.  Place in a large bowl.  Sprinkle the chicken broth and wine over and let sit and absorb for awhile (I usually use this time to make the vinaigrette and chop up all the herbs ).

3.  Mix together the Dijon and vinegar in a small bowl.  Season with salt and pepper.  Then slowly add the oil while whisking to form an emulsion.  Set aside.

4.  Season the potatoes with the vinaigrette to taste.  You may have some leftover, which is wonderful as a salad dressing.  Then add the scallions and chopped herbs and stir gently to combine.

Serve at room temperature.

Make about 6-8 side servings.

Asian Slaw

Asian Slaw with Fuji Apple and Jicama

½ head of Napa cabbage, shredded (about 7 cups)

½ cup finely sliced red onion

2 teaspoons kosher salt

2 teaspoons granulated sugar

½ Fuji apple, julienned

¼ cup julienned jicama

2 tablespoons rice vinegar

2 teaspoons fresh lime juice

1 teaspoon sesame oil

1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds

1. Toss shredded cabbage and sliced onions with salt and sugar.  Set aside for about 10 minutes.
2. Add apple and jicama to cabbage and onions.
3. Whisk rice vinegar, lime juice and sesame oil together.  Pour over cabbage mixture and toss to coat.  Just before serving sprinkle sesame seeds on top.

Makes about 6 servings.

Bake Sale for Japan and Almond Cookie Cup

This Saturday, April 2, 2011,  a simultaneous national bake sale will be taking place to raise money to help with relief efforts in Japan via Peace Winds Japan.

Amateur and professional bakers, artists, artisans, and musicians will be participating in the event.  If you are interested in attending or volunteering at a location near you, please visit bakesaleforjapan.com for a list of locations in the U.S.

Since I am in Brooklyn, I’ll be at the Brooklyn Flea manning a bake sale table in the afternoon.      By the time I had heard of the event, they had all the baked goods taken care of — a lot of local bakeries and restaurants in the area are donating the tasty goodies.  I’m looking forward to it!

Though I am not baking this weekend, I thought it would be appropriate to share a lovely kid-friendly and functional baked good — an almond cookie that is a snap to make.

All you do is mix the batter ingredients together, spoon into circles on parchment and bake, mold cookies onto inverted custard cups when they are still warm and pliable.  When cooled the resultant cookies are wonderfully crispy, nutty, and sweet dessert bowls to hold ice cream, sorbet, fruit and whipped cream… whatever you can think of!

I used this recipe, but cut it in half to make 6 servings.

Almond Cookie Dessert Cups

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup sliced almonds, finely chopped

1/3 cup packed dark brown sugar

1/4 cup light corn syrup

1/4 cup butter

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 350º.
2. Line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper.
3. In a small bowl combine the flour and almonds. Set aside.
4. In a medium  saucepan bring the brown sugar, corn syrup and butter to a full boil over medium heat. Remove from heat. Stir in flour mixture and vanilla.
5. For each cookie cup, drop about tablespoons of batter about 5 inches apart onto the cookie sheet (bake 3 or 4 at a time).
6. Bake in for 10-12 minutes or until bubbly and deep golden brown (cookies will form irregular shapes).
7. Let stand on cookie sheet about 2 minutes. When cookies are firm, but still pliable, place them on inverted custard cups to form small bowls. Cool to room temperature.  Cookies will harden as they cool.
8. To serve, fill the cups with ice cream or other sweet treat.

Makes 6 large dessert cups.

Blog 4 Japan

Basenkyo Gorge near where I lived in Ichinohe Source: Iwate Prefectural Government

Many years ago, I spent two years as a JET (Japan Exchange and Teaching) participant in Northern Japan.  I remember receiving the letter from the JET program in the summer of 1989 letting me know I would be teaching at three high schools in Ichinohe in Iwate Prefecture.  I had lived in Tokyo as an exchange student previously and didn’t have a clue about life up north in rural Japan.  I had an inkling it would be cold, as I had heard about the Siberian winds that blew across the region.  Little did I know what awaited me there.

What I found was a beautiful, rugged, and pristine landscape.  The prefecture is dotted with rice fields, green forests, snow capped mountains (Alpine skiing is a popular sport), and a breathtaking coast line.  It is quite a ways from bustling Tokyo and seemed to be a different world altogether.  The pace was slower, and there was room to breathe.  The sky appeared to be bigger.
The people I met there welcomed me into their community so warmly and graciously.  I was like the foreign long lost relative who came to visit.  They forgave me for my horrible Japanese (although I am a 3rd generation Japanese-American, I didn’t grow up with the language and learned it in college) and various social faux pas I made during my stay.

I made friendships there that I have kept to this day.  One of them is a person who was my guardian angel that first year.  She was an English teacher, single, female, and young, like me, whom I taught with at the high school.  Happily, she was also my next door neighbor.

The Fates were good to me.  Without her, who would have explained the social politics of the teacher’s room?  Who would have translated what the oldest male teacher was saying to me (he had a thick regional accent that had little resemblance to the one I learned in school)?  How would I have known that I could keep my face warm during the cold winter nights (having no central heat indoors and no gas heat for fear of carbon monoxide poisoning) by putting cold cream and saran wrap on my face??

Memories of my time living there have come rushing back to me during these past few weeks.  I have been filled with sadness and concern for the people of Japan and my beloved Iwate.  Its coastal towns have been wiped off the map.  It’s still hard for me to fathom and to truly grasp.  The magnitude of the destruction is just so great…

I was incredibly relieved to find out that my dear friend (and past guardian angel), Yukari, and her family (who live in Sendai) are all OK.  My heart goes out to all those who weren’t so lucky.

We, outside of Japan, may feel removed and helpless to really make a difference, living so far away.  But we CAN help.  And in a very local way.

Todd of Todd’s Wanderings has organized Blog for Japan.  He and his wife, who is from Tokyo, are both professional aid and and recovery workers with the United Nations.  They witnessed the recovery phase of the 2004 Tsunami  and are spreading the word that there is a tremendous need to not only raise donations but to make sure those funds are used responsibly and are in the hands of organizations with not only technical expertise but also local knowledge.  They put together a list of local Japanese organizations that you can donate to.

Also, if you have a blog and would like to participate in Blog 4 Japan to spread the word, please do so!

Below are the links for the organizations from the original post at Todd’s Wanderings:

Japanese Organizations We Trust

Please consider donating to one or more of these organizations. All are local Japanese organizations and we have found the English Pages for you. Even a small amount like $10 is useful, but we hope you donate more!

Peace Winds Japan is one of the largest Japanese organizations providing humanitarian relief such as food, clothing, fuel and medical supplies to the affected areas. You can Donate Here.

JEN is a well known NGO dedicated to restoring a self-supporting livelihood both economically and mentally to those who have been stricken with hardship due to conflicts and disasters. They are currently supporting emergency relief items such as food, woman’s hygienic items, clothes and other essentials to the survivors of the Japan Tsunami. You can Donate Here.

Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) is donating food and essential items to the survivors of the tsunami. They also keep a well maintained English blog of their activities in Japan for the tsunami which you can Follow Here. You can Donate Here.

The Japan Organization for International Cooperation in Family Planning is taking donations for their response to the tsunami that will focus on the reproductive health needs of women and mothers in affected areas. You can Donate Here.

The Association of Medical Doctors of Asia (AMDA Japan) team is delivering essential medical services through mobile clinics and delivering relief goods to the nursing homes and schools (evacuation shelters) in Aoba and Miyagino Wards. You can Donate Here.

OXFAM Japan is working with two partners in Japan on providing support to those on the margins of society who might otherwise have difficulty accessing emergency relief. One group is assisting mothers and babies and the other is providing information to non-Japanese speakers living in Japan. You can Donate Here.

Habitat For Humanity Japan is still assessing the situation but will be involved in the reconstruction of housing once the emergency period ends. This is one of the most vital aspects of recovery and the homeless will need a lot of help to put their lives back together. You can Donate Here.

The Institute for Cultural Affairs Japan (ICA) is still assessing the situation but is accepting donations. You can Donate Here.

All of these are worthy organizations to support and  you can match your own personal interests to the organization that you think will work the best on what you want to support. Even if you are unable to donate please pass this on through social media, word of mouth or even in print. I have waived all rights to this post so please feel free to copy and reproduce any part of it for the good of the Japanese people.

If you do want to reproduce this please see the Blog4Japan page where you can find out more details.

Thank you from my family and friends who have been affected by this terrible disaster.

Ritz Asian Spicy Mock Ceviche Bites and Shrimp Toast

Work has been eating into the days recently and I haven’t had a chance to post anything.  I have one pending, but it isn’t ready yet.  I thought I would do a quick post here in the interim.  I have so many photos and recipes I’ve taken and prepared in the past weeks, but I haven’t had a chance to edit  them!

Last month, I entered another recipe contest for fun.  It is sponsored by Ritz and “hosted” by Guy Fieri of the Food Network.  Finalists will be chosen March 28th and posted on Facebook for voting.  It is a long shot, but I had fun making these up.  I had just gotten a bag of frozen shrimp at Costco, so I was inspired by that purchase!

This would also be good on endive leaves...

Ritz Spicy Asian Shrimp “Mock” Ceviche

8 oz. shrimp, peeled and deveined

2 tablespoons minced scallions

½ teaspoon minced garlic

½ teaspoon minced ginger

4 teaspoons minced jalapeno pepper

2 tablespoons minced cilantro

½ medium Fuji apple, julliened

1/3 cup julliened jicama

¼ teaspoon roasted sesame seeds

2 teaspoons fresh lime juice

1.4 teaspoon sesame oil

½ teaspoon soy sauce

¼ cup plain yogurt

2 tablespoons mayonnaise

½ teaspoon kosher salt

freshly ground pepper

20 Ritz Crackers

1. Bring a large saucepan of water to a boil.  Drop in shrimp.  When the water starts to bubble again, remove and strain.  Chill shrimp in refrigerator for about 30 minutes.
2. Remove shrimp from refrigerator and chop into small chunks.  Toss with scallions, garlic, ginger, jalapeno pepper, cilantro, apple, jicama, and sesame seeds in a large bowl.  Set aside.
3. In a smaller bowl, combine lime juice, sesame oil, yogurt, mayonnaise, salt and pepper until it is a smooth consistency.  Pour over shrimp mixture and stir until it is coasted with the yogurt mixture.
4. Top each Ritz Cracker with a spoonful of shrimp mixture and serve.

Makes 20 appetizers

Ritz Shrimp Toast

8 oz. raw shrimp, peeled, cleaned and deveined, chopped into pieces

Kosher salt

½ teaspoon sesame oil

2 oz. chopped water chestnuts

¼ cup chopped scallions, reserve some green parts for garnish

1 ½ tablespoons minced ginger

About 2 egg whites

40 Ritz Crackers, divided

2 tablespoons sesame seeds

Oil for frying

1. Combine shrimp, salt and oil in a small bowl and toss to coat.  Set aside.
2. Place 10 Ritz crackers into the bowl of a food processor and process until they are fine crumbs.  Transfer to a large shallow bowl, add sesame seeds, and stir until combined.
3. Place shrimp into the now empty bowl of the food processor along with water chestnuts, scallions (reserving some green parts for garnish), and ginger and pulse about 10 times.  Then with processor running, pour in egg whites through feeder until mixture has the consistency of a moist paste.
4. Spoon a heaping tablespoon of shrimp paste on top of a cracker.  Dip shrimp side down into cracker crumb and sesame seed mixture and set on a clean plate, cracker side down.  Repeat with remaining twenty-nine crackers.  Chill for a few minutes in refrigerator.
5. While crackers are chilling, pour oil into a deep frying pan so that it comes up to about ½ -inch inside of pan.  Heat oil until a bit of crumb sizzles when dropped in.  Fry crackers shrimp side down until golden, about 1 minute.  Drain on paper lined plate shrimp side down and serve immediately shrimp side up.  Garnish with reserved scallions.

Makes 30 appetizers

Crunchy Tabouleh and Savory and Sweet Breakfast Millet

I recently read Mark Bittman’s Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating with more than 75 Recipes.  Along the lines of Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, it chronicles the many ways in which the way we eat is damaging to both our bodies and the environment.  But it also offers concrete advice in the form of easy, nutritious recipes that you can incorporate into your diet.  His mantra is basically:  Eat less meat.  Eat less animal products.  Eat very little processed food.  Eat a lot of plants.

I always enjoy his recipes because they are written to be experimented with — nothing is set in stone, and he always gives tips on how you can change things up to suit your tastes.

The biggest thing I took away from the book is that I was inspired to start cooking more whole grains other than wheat and oatmeal.

Looking in my pantry and refrigerator, I found that I already had bulgur wheat and millet from who knows when!  I actually use bulgur wheat semi-regularly to make tabouleh whenever I have extra parsley on hand.  Don’t you hate it when a recipe just calls for a “few sprigs of parsley”?  Then you are left with a bunch of parsley that you forget about that gets wilted and worse, slimy, in the vegetable bin.  To avoid this unfortunate situation, I try to wash all the parsley at once when I come home from the green grocer, use what I need, and then use the rest to make Tabouleh.  This time I decided to make it crunchy and add some nutty flavor and protein and threw in some almonds.  It was a really great combination.  You could also add cucumber, scallions, grilled chicken, grilled shrimp, chopped olives, other herbs, such as mint.

I made it my lunch and stuffed it in a pita pocket with a few fried slices of tofu and chopped olives.  The flavors actually worked well together!

As for the millet, I decided to cook up a batch and come up with a way to use it later.  Millet is high in protein and gluten free, so it’s a good grain choice for people who are gluten sensitive.  I like the texture — it is kind of like small rice grains.

I incorporated it into a couple of breakfasts — both savory and sweet, and also ate for lunch with some leftover vegetables and marinara sauce.  It is quite versatile!

For the savory breakfast, I scrambled an egg, heated the millet in the skillet with a bit of water to soften it, and then threw them together in a bowl.  I seasoned it with a bit of Japanese seasoning I had on hand, called Furikake.

It comes in different flavors. This one is just salt, sesame seeds and seaweed.  You could probably make your own if you have nori (dried seaweed) and sesame seeds on hand.

The sweet breakfast was heated millet mixed with a dash of agave syrup, thawed frozen blueberries, and toasted chopped pecans.  SO delicious.  Millet is a nice alternative to oatmeal in the morning — it is chewier and not “gloppy” if you are not in the mood for that texture for breakfast.
I’ll keep experimenting with it and try it out in different dishes.  There are also a wide variety of different grains to try:  amaranth and quinoa, pearl barley — there are so many I have never worked with before!

What are your favorite grains and grain dishes?

Mark Bittman’s basic recipe for cooking any grain is this:

Whole Grains Without Measuring

Adapted from: Food Matters:  Conscious Eating with over 75 Recipes

Makes 8-6 servings

2 cups brown rice (any size), quinoa, barley (any type), oat grats, buckweat groats, steel-cut oats, millet, cracked wheat, hominy, whole rye, farro, kamut, or wild rice; or 1 1/2 cups wheat berries

Salt

Olive oil or other vegetable oil (optional)

1.  Rinse the grain in a strainer, and put it in a large pot with a tight-fitting lid along with a big pinch of salt.  Add enough water to cover by about an inch; if you want the grains on the dry side, cover with closer to 1/2 inch of water.  Use 3 cupt water for pearled barley.  Bring to a boil, then adjust the heat so the mixture bubbles gently.

2.  Cook stirring once in a while, until the grain is tender.  This will take as little as 7 or 8 minutes for steel-cut oats, about 40 minutes for brown rice, and as long as 1 hour for more for wheat berries, hulled or unpearled barley, and other unhulled grains.  Add boiling water as necessary to keep the grains just submerged — don’t let them get dry.

3.  Every now and then test a grain.  They are done when they are barely tender and have some chew.  If the water is all absorbed at this point, cover and remove from heat.  If some water still remains, drain and the grains and immediately return to pot, cover and remove from the heat.

4.  Toss with oil if you like and refrigerate or freeze until ready to use.

Bulgur:  Pour 5 cups boiling water over 2 cups bulgur.  Stir once and let sit.  Fine bulgur will be tender in 10 to 15 minutes, medium in15 to 20 minutes, and coarse in 20 to 25.  Strain using a fine mesh straining, pressing down with a spoon to remove excess water.  Return to bowl and fluff with fork.

Couscous:  Put 2 cups of couscous in a pot with a tight-fitting lid and add 3 cups of water and pinch of salt  Bring the water to a boil, then cover and remove from heat.  Let steep for 5 to 10 minutes (10 minutes for whole wheat), or up to 20.  Fluff with a fork and serve.

Crunchy Tabouleh

About 2/3 cup bulgur wheat

One bunch of flat leaf parsley, chopped

About 2 tablespoons minced onion

1 plum tomato, diced

Salt and pepper to taste

2 teaspoons lemon juice

1 tablespoons olive oil

1 oz. roasted salted almonds, chopped

1. Place bulgur wheat in a medium sized bowl.  Boil 2 cups of water.  When it comes to a boil, pour over bulgur wheat and let sit about 10 minutes.  Drain in a fine mesh sieve, pressing down with a wooden spoon to remove excess water. Transfer to a large bowl and fluff with a fork.
2.  Add parsley, onion, and tomato to bulgur.  Season with a pinch of salt and toss to combine.

3.  In a small bowl, whisk lemon juice, olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste.  Pour over bulgur mixture.  Fold in almonds. Serve immediately.

Note, if you want almonds to stay crunchy, only add as needed at one serving.

Huli Huli Chicken and Homemade Rice-A-Roni

Years ago my cousin from Hawaii visited us with her then boyfriend who was a chef.  He had worked in various kitchens in Honolulu and at the time of their visit, I believe he was working as a chef at a swanky golf resort somewhere on the island of Oahu.  He told us a story of how he had once eaten this amazing chicken when he was young that he had never forgotten, and how he had spent several years trying to find the recipe.  He finally tracked it down at a friend’s house on another island — maybe it was Maui.  I am probably getting the story all wrong – my cousin will have to correct me!  Anyway, as a thank you for letting them crash at our place, he wrote out the recipe for this amazing chicken, and gave it to us.  In his version, marinated chicken is dredged in flour and then fried.  We would skip this step and just grill it over charcoal.

It is with deep regret that one day I discovered I had LOST this recipe.  I am not exaggerating when I say that my husband was devastated.  This chicken had become our number favorite.  We all love it so much.  No matter how many times we have had it in the past, my husband still swoons over it while eating it.  He was ready to kill me.

Melissa Iwai Copyright 2010

However, all was well, because since we had made it so many times, it was pretty much ingrained in my brain – I could practically see the paper with our friend’s handwriting on it if I closed my eyes.  And of course, I ended up changing it up a bit – I can’t help myself – I’m always doing this.  My husband made me promise him I would type up the recipe and save it on the computer as well as print out a hard copy to have in our recipe files.  Several friends have asked for this recipe, and I keep forgetting to give it to them.  So I decided to feature it here, where it can live in cyberspace, and where I can share it with everyone.  And thank you E, for sharing it with us in the first place!

I’m adding a “Rice-A-Roni” recipe here – we were out of Japanese rice, and I decided to liven up the whole wheat basmati rice we had in the pantry and make a childhood favorite – Rice-A-Roni. Remember the jingle?  “Rice-(ding! ding!)A-Roni … the San Francisco treat!”

I literally had not eaten this in over 30 years, but I saw a homemade version at Thibeault’s Table and got inspired.  It is such comfort food.  Of course Jamie loved it. How could a kid not?

Huli Huli Chicken

My modifications are in parenthesis

½ cup soy sauce

1 teaspoon salt (I usually omit this)

10 tablespoons sugar  (about ¼ cup sugar)

2 tablespoons rice vinegar

1 tablespoon whiskey ( I use 1 tablespoon sake instead)

10 slices ginger

5 large garlic cloves, smashed

1 tablespoon sesame oil

4-5 lbs. chicken thighs, de-boned, skin on

Mix marinade ingredients together.  Marinate chicken for 24 hours in refrigerator.  It may seem like overkill for chicken, but trust me, it is what makes it so tender and taste so good.

Dredge in flour and fry.

You can also grill the chicken.
For the meal pictured, since it was winter, I baked the chicken in the oven at 350 for about 30-40 minutes.

Homemade Rice-A-Roni

adapted from Thibeault’s Table

I lightened her version a little, and I didn’t have chives or parsley on hand so I omitted them.

1 teaspoon oil

1 medium shallot, minced

1 cup whole wheat basmati rice

1 oz. whole wheat thin spaghetti, cut into small pieces

2 cups chicken broth

1. Heat oil in a skillet over medium heat.  Add shallot and sauté for about 1 minute.  Add pasta and rice and sauté for about 2 minutes.  Pour in broth.  Bring to a simmer.  Cover and turn heat down to low.
2. Cook rice for about 40 minutes until liquid is evaporated and rice is soft.  If you would like the rice to be softer, add a bit of water and keep steaming.
3. Fluff with a fork and serve.