Hashed beef & baby zucchini stew with rice and Chocolate layer cake :)

Recipe: Hashed Beef Stew (Hayashi)

In a stew pot, heat olive oil & butter. Sauté thinly sliced beef (cut into bite size), onion, garlic & mushrooms. Add red wine, beef stock, demi-glace, tomato paste and if you like, bay leaves. Simmer.

In a frying pan, melt butter and add flour, stir until lightly browned. Pour it into the stew. Add worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, salt & white pepper. Also put baby zucchini in and simmer.

Take out the bay leaves. Add finely chopped parsley.

Serve over garlic rice.

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
¾ cup whole-wheat flour
¼ cup oat bran
Pinch of sea salt
½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chip
½ cup white chocolate chip
2 brown eggs
4 tablespoons milk (or soy milk or apple sauce)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 mashed very ripe (blacken) bananas
1 stick melted sweet butter

Preheat the oven 375F

In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, and vanilla. Add mashed bananas and melted butter. Whisk.

Add flour and all the rest. Mix just lightly until all the ingredients are wet and combined.

Spoon the mixture into muffin cups. Bake for about 20 minutes. You can check by inserting toothpick. If it comes out dry, the muffins are done.

Eat them while hot!
(But you can freeze them and microwave when you want them too :)

Wash your hands! It's Te-Maki-Sushi nite ;) Te = Hand Maki = Roll

Prepare sushi rice:
Cook rice. Add sushi vinegar and mix. Cool.
I also add sesame and radish seeds to rice.

Spread rice on a sheet of Nori (seaweed).

Put your favorites - cucumber, avocado, crab, kaiware sprouts, shiso red basil, tuna, BBQ beef, etc.

Fold up left bottom corner of seaweed to the center of seaweed and roll diagonally.

Cut abura-age (deep fried tofu) in half. Heat dashi soup stock, sugar, mirin, and soy sauce and bring to a boil. Add aburaage and simmer until the liquid is alomost gone. Cool.

Put rice into the pocket of seasoned fried tofu.

Inari Sushi - some call them "Football" !

One of my favorites - Natto Maki, Japanese super food :)

Today is HINAMATSURI, the day to celebrate Girls!
Also it's TAIAN, the finest day of great peace according to Japanese 2011 calendar!
Cheers to All the Girls, Big & Little ♥

SalmonShrimp Cake with Dill, Sweet Onion Risotto, Baby Zucchini & Shiitake Mushroom :)

Recipe: Seafood Cake
Blend salmon, shrimp, scallop, breadcrumbs, egg, heavy cream, garlic, sea salt and black pepper in the food processor until smooth. Add crab and dill (and/or other herbs). Make cakes. Coat lightly with flour. Cook with olive oil. Can be frozen. Serve with various sauces - sour cream sauce, demi glace sauce, hollandaise sauce, etc.

Pasta à la Wafu Kinoko Bacon (Wafu = Japanese style), Osatsu Age (Sweet Potato Home Fries) & Cookies :) And of course we're gonna eat it with chopsticks... Lol

Wafu Pasta Recipe:

Cook bacon, ham, various mushrooms (shiitake, shimeji, etc). Add pasta (cooked al dente), soba sauce*, and black pepper. Sprinkle kaiware sprouts.

*Bring soy sauce, mirin, dashi stock to a boil, then cool = Soba/Udon sauce :)

Peppered steak with dash of soy & garlic with Japanese hot mustard, Roasted red onion, Sauteed mushroom & sprouts, Caesar salad ;)

Good Steak at Home Recipe:

Preheat the oven to 325 F.

Rub steak with garlic-infused-extra-virgin olive oil/sea salt/black pepper/little bit of brown sugar or maple syrup mixture.

Sear the steak (both sides) in hot skillet. (Don't wash the skillet!)

Baste with olive oil and put the steak and onions in the oven. When almost done, take it out, preheat the same skillet used earlier with olive oil and sliced garlic, put the steak back in the skillet, add dash of soy sauce. After, cook mushroom or other vegetables with the remaining juice in the skillet.

Story:
Jesse Young (Alyssa Milano) is a girl who has everything and maybe too much of it when she finds herself falling for two seemingly perfect guys: sexy but struggling writer Ethan (Christopher Gorham) and button-down advertising exec Troy (Michael Landes). Can she find true love with two men at the same time, or is somebody going to get a broken heart?

Cute movie. I was very pleasantly surprised. This was unexpected. Very sweet through out and clean. So you can watch it with your daughter ;) You may get frustrated with Jessie, but keep watching. You'd not guess the ending!

Sometimes it takes more courage to say "I'm unhappy" than to say "I'm absolutely content." I'm not brave enough to look  inside. I feel my heart empty, yet so heavy that it's sinking. I wanna fly away, to soar away into the sky, higher and higher until I can't see the world any more...