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Sho (匠) Japanese Restaurant

What perfect timing!  I was assigned to do a restaurant review more like introduction as a free-lance writer for local Japanese newspaper called Yuuyake Newspaper (夕焼け新聞) last week. As more time has passed, it’s getting more difficult to prepare food while the kitchen remodeling is underway. It seems our family didn’t have decent meals in what… a week? Funny, it feels much longer but whatever. Anyhow, I could sit down and have nice, hopefully free, meals. I was psyched! Habanero roll

On day 3, I give up on the idea of eating healthy food during construction. We welcomed frozen pizza because no-washing-required food is our first priority. Sure, crock pot and pressure cooker are great but large pots need to be washed in big tub sink in the up-stairs laundry room. And where are the all the fats and food debris supposed to go?  I was soaked just get two things from the refrigerator the other day. Currently it is housed inside the garage. I had to go out the front door to the garage and visa-versa.  It must be Murphy’s law. The harder it rains the more things I forget to get from refrigerator. Maybe I am just getting old. Memo to myself-make list of what I need before going out the door. 

Because I can’t cook… let me rephrase that. I meant to say I can’t cook in these circumstances. I’m a good cook. Once in a blue moon, I’m a fabulous cook but because I can’t cook… oh my word! Let’s move on, I try not to look at other food blogger’s blog for fear that I start drooling on my keyboard. I can’t help peeking sometimes however. Many food bloggers take such glorious food photographs. Oh, oh I think I’m falling in love… I must make it as soon as my kitchen is back…Wow! Incredible! Fantastic!…. Two hours later, my recipe file (actually just a pile, I don’t know where my recipe file is. One of boxes I assume) plus the printer is out of paper.Canyon

I checked the Sho Restaurant web site the night before. I must do homework, right? Substantial number of colorful pictures grace the pages. It’s promising. I drove in the rain for only 15 minutes, it’s closer than I thought without getting lost. Thanks to my GPS. I should have invested in the company. Anyway, Sho restaurant offers a variety of Japanese foods for all ages, roomy interior and kid friendly menu. I had the deluxe bento dinner which is filled with fish dishes. I usually don’t care for cooked fish but interestingly enough I really liked the fish head cooked in sweet soy, ginger sauce. Original sushi rolls are colorful and have memorable names. Bird of Paradise, Route 66, Canyon, Hawaiian Sunshine and Hanabi (fire cracker). Names are so enticing.Yellow tail cooked in soy ginger sauce はまちかまの煮付けMackerel cooked in miso さばの味噌煮

I tried the pork cutlet curry rice too. As I mentioned in my blog before, I love fried foods. I gave two thumbs up for both the curry flavor and the pork cutlet. Sho offers a number of desserts on the menu too. imported from Hawaii, Mochi ice-cream. Ever popular in Japan, green tea roll cake. What I want is strawberry shortcake possibly available in the near futurePork cutlet curry riceGreen tea mousse roll cake

My left over was doggie-bagged. Good! I don’t have to cook tonight. Do you feel lucky? Do ya? You are allowed to say that like Clint Eastwood.

I hope you had a fun St. Patrick's Day! I only made the table settings, the green drink and bought a shamrock.

Today was a messy day with sheetrock work – new sheetrock, sanding and put on texture.Here is the new window over the sink.

Cool!

Rice cooker cheese cake

Whoever first thought about making cheese cake in a rice cooker was brilliant! Although I can not claim this is the best cheese cake ever, but for someone who does not have an oven, it has decent flavor. I read the rice cooker cheese cake recipe in a local Japanese newspaper a few years ago and have kept it in my recipe file ever since. Now that I don’t have an oven, I remembered the recipe. But Voila! The recipe is in one of the boxes I packed for kitchen remodeling!  I didn’t waste time looking, I just Googled it in Japanese and found several at cookpad.com - the Japanese version of allrecipes.com.

Just for this one time I’m glad that I didn’t have a IH (Induction heat) rice cooker which is the latest, high-tech and high performing rice cooker. Time to make this cheese cake differs from one rice cooker to another. I pushed the ‘cook’ switch three times to completely bake and it is more difficult to do with IH model won’t allow you to re-bake-Request denied is what the rice cooker is saying.

The recipe is simple and simpler if you mix all the ingredients in the rice cooker. I am trying  to avoid washing dishes as much as possible because of the sink situation yet I used the other bowl to combine first afraid that I will scratch rice cooker inner pan which is more expensive.  The cake out of the rice cooker is warm, fluffy and good but it’s best to eat after chilled over night. Lucky me, I had blueberries and made sauce in the microwave. It was not bad at all.

Ingredients for cheese cake

Special equipment-3 or more cup rice cooker

• Cream cheese 1 box 226g room temperature
• Sugar 80g
• Heavy cream 200ml
• 3 eggs
• All-purpose flour 2 Tablespoon
• Lemon juice 1 Tablespoon

1. Put cream cheese in a large bowl and stir until creamy with wooden spoon. If the cheese is too stiff to handle, warm up in a microwave for about 10 seconds or so.
2. Add rest of ingredients in and mix well
3. Pour cream cheese mixture into the rice cooker and cook.
4. After cooking is done, check doneness by inserting wooden skewer. Push the button again if it’s not cooked. Like I said I had to push it three times.
5. Turn it over onto a plate. 

We had snow today. I brought out a plate of cheese cake and took photos.

My neighbor across the street told me about strange mushroom growing on her fence. I went to see and here are some pictures I took. They are like little alien village. They are only about an inch tall.

Her back yard backs up to green belt and is so serene.

Our remodeling project is underway. Make-shift kitchen(s) have some challenges.This looks like jelly fishes in the ceiling.

My husband made curry rice other day in the crock pot. We ate left overs for the next three days. We made a pantry under the dining table.Sink area A.K.A. powder room.

I will post more photos of remodeling project next Tuesday.

Homey

Omelet rice/オムライス

My kitchen is a disaster! Not really, wait, yes it is. We’re getting ready for remodeling and taking out all the stuff from our kitchen. The inconvenience is driving me insane! I am constantly mumbling “Where in the world did xxx go?” I open boxes which I just packed to hunt for it. No, not here. I move on to box number two. OK this is not a really good system. The other boxes that my husband packed he written its contents - Above fridge cabinet - Honey, I don’t want to play the guessing game. When I cleaned out pantry I saw something. What are those specks of black thingies? Kylie! I yelled to our 18 year old cat. She does not care for mice either, as matter of fact she doesn’t care for anything except vacuum cleaner. She jumps when I turn it on. This is the only time that she moves very fast.

Everybody knows what omelet rice is in Japan. It’s fried rice wrapped in an omelet. Though it’s a staple menu in many family style restaurants, it is better to make it yourself, to create your own version of it. Today is a good day to make omelet rice because I need to clean the refrigerator too. Also my friend gave me fresh eggs collected from her hen house. Earthy looking eggs are a real charmer. The yolks were very bright. I wanted to make something extraordinary with these but I am hindered by missing gadgets and pans. Her chickens look healthy and plump… I mean nice.

In the refrigerator, I had one green and one half-used red pepper, onion and bone in ham but anything goes with this recipe; bacon, sausage, mushroom, frozen peas… breast chicken is another popular people’s choice. I mentioned this in an old post blog but I don’t like onion so I mince it really fine. I don’t have to but my guys like it so I usually include it in the fried rice filling. Although I like frozen peas, that has to be excluded because my son despises them. I’m so nice!

Ingredients for fried rice filling for 1 person (times how many in your household).

• Oil and butter 1 teaspoon (or more) each.
• Roughly 1/4 cup each of 3-4 vegetables. minced or chopped.
• Your choice of meat. chopped
• Cooked rice
• 1 teaspoon (or more) chicken bullion paste or tomato ketchup
• Salt and pepper to taste

1. Heat oil and butter in a non stick wok or pan at medium high.
2. Add vegetables and sauté until onion is transparent.
3. Add cooked rice and quickly combine and keep stirring. You could also shake the pan back and forth to cook like Iron chef.
4. Add bullion paste or ketchup and stir to combine.
5. Salt and pepper to taste.

Ingredients for omelet- 1serving

• 2 large eggs
• 2-3 tablespoon milk or cream-egg mixture should not be watery.
• Salt and white pepper
• Butter 1 teaspoon-may substitute vegetable oil.

1. In a medium bowl whisk eggs and milk together.
2. Add salt and pepper, whisk to combine.
3. Heat butter in nonstick frying pan over medium heat.
4. Pour egg mixture and rotate pan to distribute egg evenly over the bottom of the pan (I used a 12 inch pan).
5. Bake for about 10 seconds to slightly set but egg is still raw.
6. Filled with fried rice on the center of egg. 
7. Gather the egg around rice and turn over to encase the rice.
8. Flip onto the plate -  you could use paper towel to shape omelet neatly. Put some demi-glace sauce or ketchup over the rice. I like ketchup personally.
9. Eat with a spoon!

Before packing

After packing

We had faint snow this morning. 

I took a break from boxing. I loved raspberry truffle chocolate from friends.

What can I make for next week without kitchen? Eat out? That sounds about right.