This is from Japanese Women Don’t Get Old or Fat: Secrets of My Mother’s Tokyo Kitchen which I’ve been enjoying.  I just used one small Japanese eggplant and half a green pepper because I was only feeding two people, and I cut back a bit on the sauce ingredients as well. It came out quite good. Well, I liked it. My youngest wasn’t so crazy about it but then she likes neither eggplant or green peppers, so I didn’t have high expectations!  I’ll post her quantities below since I winged and eyeballed my adjustments.

Oh, I just realized I forgot to garnish mine with the sesame seeds and oil!  Still tasted good.

• 1 pound Japanese eggplant
• 2 Tbs mirin
• 2 Tbs red miso
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp sake
• 1 cup canola oil
• 1 green pepper, cored and seeded, cut into bite size pieces
• 1 tsp toasted white sesame
• 1/2 tsp sesame oil

Soak the eggplant in some salted water while you prepare the sauce.

In a small bowl, mix together the mirin, miso, sake and sugar. Set this aside for the end of the recipe.

Start the oil heating in a wok if you have one. I used a medium saucepan so I could get by with using less oil and still having some depth. Drain the eggplant and blot dry with a paper towel. You want the oil about 350. If you drop a cube of bread in, it should sizzle.

Gently slide some of the eggplant pieces in and fry a few minutes until golden brown and cooked through. (A fork or skewer should easily go through.) Remove and drain on paper towels as small batches are done.

Now if you’re not frying anything else, drain the oil from the pan and reserve for another use. Since I was also going to fry some chicken, I just added a small bit of oil to a small frying pan.

Cook the pepper until crisp-tender, about 2 minutes. Add the eggplant back to the pan, then stir the miso sauce over it all and cook while stirring a few minutes to blend flavors and coat the vegetables.  Transfer to a serving dish and garnish with the sesame seeds and sesame oil.

You can see my whole menu here.

Three recipes from Japanese Women Don’t Get Old or Fat: Secrets of My Mother’s Tokyo Kitchen tonight.   The tricky part is always timing things.  The Zojirushi 6 Cup Rice Cooker / Steamer I bought a while ago comes in handy here, as I don’t particularly have to worry about the timing of the rice so much as when I cook it on the stove.

I thought it might be useful if I sort of detailed how I approached this whole meal first, then gave the individual recipes in separate posts. When I was first learning to cook, I could manage any individual recipe. The trick was learning how to get 3 dishes on the table at the same time! I had 4 recipes I made tonight:

• rice (using a rice cooker simplifies this tremendously, although you can get along without)
• Miso soup
• Eggplant and green peppers cooked with miso
• Tokyo friend chicken

I soaked the eggplant in salted water while I prepared the miso sauce and chopped the green pepper. Set everything aside (on a large dinner plate), while I went onto the next thing I could prep.

Started the Dashi broth (I’m using these instant packets) which meant bringing 3 cups of water to boil, then adding the packet and cooking for 10 minutes. Sliced some green onions to garnish the soup with.

Cut the chicken in bite size pieces and began it marinating in the ginger/soy/mirin mix. in a small bowl. Put some cornstarch in a small bowl.

Peeled and sliced the daikon into matchstick sized slices. Cut some tofu into small cubes.

I placed each of the piles of little things (green pepper, daikon, tofu and green onions) onto a large dinner plate, just separated into piles as I prepped them.

I started 2 cups or so of canola oil heating in a small saucepan. I wanted the depth and don’t have a wok so I opted for a saucepan so I could get by with using less oil while still having some depth.

At some point the rice needed fluffing and the dashi broth was done. I fluffed the rice, took the dashi bag out of the water and added the sliced daikon into it to simmer for 5 minutes or so.

Drained the eggplant and started frying it. I had the oil too hot so lowered the heat a bit and watched it. Removed the eggplant bits as they were done onto their eventual serving dish, lined with paper towels. Did the eggplant in batches until done. Heated a small saucepan with some oil in it and started the green pepper cooking for a few minutes.

I drained the marinade from the chicken and dropped large spoonfuls at a time into the cornstarch and mixed until coated, then added the chicken to the hot oil.

At some point, I added the tofu into the soup while lowering the heat as I just wanted the tofu to get warmed up.

As the chicken finished, I pulled it out onto a paper towel lined serving dish and then started another batch of chicken frying

When the green peppers had cooked a few minutes, I put the eggplant in the pan and poured the miso sauce I’d mixed up earlier into it and stirred it together.

I stirred the miso paste into the soup during the final batch of chicken.

The rice was done and waiting.

The soup was nearly done, just needed to mix in the miso paste.

The eggplant and pepper dish was done.

I finished the last batch of chicken and dinner was ready!

I’m linking to the individual recipes as I post them, but I just thougth this might help someone learning how to pull multiple dishes together. Basically, I looked first for what I could that could wait. Prep all the vegetables, marinade the chicken, get the cornstarch ready, make the dashi broth, make the miso sauce for the eggplant (which was delicious, by the way!). Then I thought about what could wait. Rice, especially in a rice cooker, can wait. Soup, to a point, can wait. I figured the one thing that really needed to be served fresh was the chicken so  I backtracked from that. Even the eggplant and peppers could wait a bit.

Thanksgiving Menus

Looking for ideas for your Thanksgiving menu? Here’s one Thanksgiving menu from 2004 and another from 2005 and another from 2008.

Thanksgiving recipes From past years:

Roast turkey -  Fantastic for smaller birds but impractical for larger ones as you turn the turkey a few times.

Roast Turkey with Wine Soaked Cheesecloth - Great for larger birds.

Olive Oil Dip and Marinated Olives - two fantastic appetizers that were a huge hit.

Cream of spinach – This is a nice side dish that is a bit rich but quite yummy.

Sweet potato streusel - This has become a must-have in my extended family. It was originally from Cooking Light magazine.

Collard greens - Cooked with a chunk of salt pork so not for vegetarians. These days with a vegetarian in the family I try to make all my side dishes vegetarian, but this was quite good!

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Apples - This is good and lowfat.

Roasted Beets - You could also serve some cold beets in this yogurt dressing.

Onions Stuffed with Breadcrumbs and Spinach – I made this for a dinner party but I think I might be adding it to the Thanksgiving menu this year.

Braised Red Cabbage and Onions – Use vegetable broth to keep it vegetarian.

Pureed Parsnips - I never ate parsnips growing up but it’s a great winter vegetable.  I think you could easily make these a day ahead and refrigerate, then reheat.

Thanksgiving turkey leftovers recipes:

Rainbow Turkey Soup with carrots, celery, spinach, kale, olives and red peppers. Very colorful and good!

The Ultimate “Leftovers”  Soup – Another great turkey soup with leftover roasted root vegetables, leftover green bean casserole and leftover creamed onions.

A Simple Turkey Soup – much simpler with fresh green beans and a can of diced tomatoes.

Turkey Hash - Chopped turkey, fried potatoes and gravy. Mmmm.

Turkey Pot Pie - Pot pies are a great way to use up leftovers.

Creamed Turkey with Cheese – Serve this yummy comfort food over toast, English muffins, noodles, or rice.

Turkey Enchiladas - these are delicious and a family tradition. Make your own enchiladas sauce, too.

Turkey Flautas - A simple blend of chopped turkey and Mexican cheese, rolled in a corn tortilla and fried

Turkey Shepherd’s Pie – chopped turkey, carrots and celery cooked with some gravy and topped with mashed potatoes

Hope that gives you some ideas!  Share your favorite holiday recipes with us!

This is from Japanese Women Don’t Get Old or Fat: Secrets of My Mother’s Tokyo Kitchen. She says salads are not traditional Japanese food but “sometimes modern is good”.  I didn’t follow her directions for the salad ingredients, but did for the dressing and it was really nice. I’ve been tempted to buy the Asian salad dressings I see on the grocery shelves before because I almost always like the salads in Japanese restaurants even though I know they’re not traditional, but this is so simple and good, why get stuck with a whole bottle when you just want one salad with the flavor?

• 3 Tbs rice vinegar
• 2 Tbs red onion (I had none so left this out)
• 1 tsp brown sugar
• 1 Tbs sesame oil
• salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Mix it all together and pour over 6 cups of greens and diced veggies. I did add some chopped cilantro as she suggested to my red leaf lettuce and baby spinach, which I thought added a nice touch. I also included some diced red pepper, diced celery and 1 green onion (scallion) diced.

Really quite nice and a nice counterpoint to the recipe for teriyaki salmon I made.

My youngest wants to eat a bit “lighter”, less beef for one. She toyed with being vegetarian for a bit but that was a bit strict for her.  She missed a few key things.    I’ve been reading Japanese Women Don’t Get Old or Fat: Secrets of My Mother’s Tokyo Kitchen, which I bought used on Amazon for $3, and it has some really good recipes that we’ve both been enjoying and it goes right along with her wish to eat lighter.  She loves rice and edamame so we’re halfway there.  Ha.  Last week I made this Dashi Soup with Mushrooms and Tofu, which was a hit but  a bit salty.

We had some friends over tonight, a neighbor and his daughter, and I made the same soup again, but cut back ( a bit too much!) on the saltiness. I added a cup of water AND left out the salt. Too much. We just added a bit more salt or soy sauce at the table and it was great. I also used rehydrated shitake mushrooms this time, since I’d picked some up at the store. They were good and chewy, very different than using the sliced button mushrooms.  Need to try this a third time to find the perfect balance!

To go with the soup, rice and a simple green salad I made some Teriyaki Salmon, from the same cookbook, with some frozen Alaskan salmon. I thawed the salmon by putting it in the sink full of cold water for a bit while I made the rice and salad. When it was thawed, I marinated it for 10 minutes or so while I made the soup. When everything else was ready, I cooked the salmon.

Salmon Marinade:

• 2 Tbs sake
• 4 tsp soy sauce (reduced sodium is fine)

Teriyaki Sauce

• 1/4 cup mirin (available even at my local Safeway in the Asian food section)
• 2 Tbs soy sauce (reduced sodium is fine)
• 1 tsp sugar

Each salmon filet should be about 1/2″ thick and about 4 ounces. You could also use farmed striped bass or Pacific halibut she says.

Blend the sake and soy sauce in a shallow dish and place the filets skin side down (if there is skin) and marinate for 10 minutes.

Make the teriyaki sauce by blending together the mirin, soy sauce and sugar.

Heat 1 Tbs of canola oil in a saucepan large enough  large enough to hold all the fish (or cook in two batches). Take the fish out of the marinade and blot with a paper towel to remove the excess. Cook skin side down for 5 minutes, then turn and cook another 1 minute. Remove to a plate and peel off the skin. (I fed this to the dogs and they loved it!)

Drain the excess oil from the pan and add the teriyaki sauce and cook for a minute until thickened slightly. Return the salmon to the pan and spoon some of the sauce over the fish. Cook another minute or so, until done. (Note: I overcooked mine a tad. I’m not used to cooking fish and thought a minute wasn’t enough! It was still good and moist but I think it would have been better with a minute less of cooking.)

Place one piece of fish on each plate and spoon the sauce over it.

Last year I wrote a page of my Thanksgiving tips and recipes, including a couple of different ways to cook turkeys and collected some useful links about turkeys. I shared some of my do-ahead tips and favorite side dish and dessert recipes as well.

I need to sit down and plan out this year’s menu and decide how I’m going to cook the turkey. I think I’ve only got about a dozen to cook for this year, smaller than our norm. I usually try out a few new side dishes and appetizers but have to keep a few old favorites around too.

What are your must-have traditional dishes for your family?  Are you also going to experiment with some new recipes this year?  Please share!

I am on a self-imposed challenge to use up some odds and ends, trying to make room for our Thanksgiving but also just something I do every few months to clean out the freezer of older things.

We had some hot dogs left from my daughter’s graduation party in June and some neighbor’s had a party recently and gave us their leftover hot dog buns, which I froze (having had a miscount for the party so luckily NOT left with too many hot dog buns!). Anyway, the menu tonight was for barbecued hot dogs and a can of Bush’s baked beans, which we love. I decided to augment that with a very simple vegetable soup, which I might spice up later in the week but left very simple tonight.

• 1 Tbs oil
• 1 onion, diced
• 3-4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 stalks of celery, diced
• 2 carrots, peeled and diced
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• salt and pepper to taste
• 4 cups homemade chicken broth
• 1 can of green beans, drained
• 1 potato, peeled and diced

This is the very simple version.

Heat the oil and saute the onion a few minutes, until softened. (I do this while I’m prepping the garlic, carrots, and celery.)  Add the garlic and stir, cooking a  minute or so. Add the celery and carrots and stir.  (At this point I peel and dice the potato, letting the other vegetables cook.)  Add the potato and green beans, if using, and whatever seasonings you like (thyme in this case). (I don’t normally use canned green beans and can’t remember why I bought these, hence they were great fodder for soup. I might also, at this point, add some chopped cabbage and/or zucchini and/or peas or corn or … you get the idea.)

I didn’t even bother thawing my chicken broth but just put the 4 cups of it in frozen and let it melt while the vegetables finished sauteing. I let the whole thing simmer 20 minutes or so, long enough to get the potatoes soft.

Had I wanted a heartier soup I might have added some rice or beans or pasta. If I’d wanted something spicier I might have added some salsa or pesto or even some spicy sausage.

If  you like, you can make this very simple the first night, as I did here, then spice it up a bit another night later in the week to go with something else.  Sausage and shrimp and okra could make it into gumbo. Chicken and black beans and salsa and some crushed tortilla chips could go great with a Mexican meal.

I do think the key is good broth. I haven’t bought chicken broth in years. I make my own homemade chicken broth or turkey broth and freeze it.

I had a few nights this week where it was just me for dinner!  Wow. Not used to cooking for one.  I had some ham so both nights ended making ham paninis with various fixings and a simple green salad with tomatoes from the garden.

Ham Panini with Roasted Red Peppers and Cheddar Cheese

First up was a Panini sandwich with some thinly sliced ham, roasted red peppers, mustard, and cheddar cheese. I think that was all but this was a few days ago. Unlike most of my posts, I didn’t note the recipe but DID take a picture! I was just rooting through the frig to see what would taste good.

I just used sweet French bread rolls, not a ciabatta loaf as usually called for in Paninis. And I made these in my very simple George Foreman Grill, Black.

When the sandwich is done. unplug the grill and then put a wet paper towel or washable cloth on it and close the lid. The steam will clean that grill in no time!

Ham Panini with Basil and Jack Cheese

Next up was the same ham, but this time with a honey mustard, some balsamic vinegar on one side, some jack cheese and some fresh basil from the garden. I was going to put some sweet pickled peppers on it but I couldn’t find them in the pantry  so opted for the last of the roasted red peppers again. Different with the basil and jack cheese, more mild and sweet somehow.

Both made a great simple meal with a simple tossed salad. I usually think of sandwiches as lunchtime affairs but don’t really want to cook at lunch, so these were a nice treat.

Cauliflower and cucumber pickles

This is from a Japanese cookbook, Bento Boxes: Japanese Meals on the Go but it could easily accompany any meal where you wanted a small side dish. I love little side dishes like this. I had actually steamed cauliflower the other night to make this cauliflower with salsa verde. I had some plain steamed cauliflower left over so this little pickle dish went together very quickly.

• a few small pieces of steamed cauliflower florets
• a few inches of cucumber, thinly sliced
• 2 tsp rice vinegar
• 1/2 tsp sugar

The recipe also called for 1 tsp citron juice and 2 slices citron zest but I had neither of those.

Sprinkle the cucumber slices with salt and rub in, then squeeze to remove as much liquid as possible.  Toss the steamed cauliflower with the rest of the ingredients.

Clear Soup with Mushrooms, Tofu and Daikon

I picked up a used copy of Japanese Women Don’t Get Old or Fat on a whim. I enjoyed the stories and her descriptions of various foods and cooking guidelines.  I didn’t really pick it up for the recipes but this easy soup was worth the $3 I spent for the book!  We all love Japanese soup and the instant miso packages are okay but not great.  This soup calls for dashi (made from seaweed and bonito flakes) but when I went to our Asian grocer I saw a packet of dashi soup base and used that.  Everything is in a bag and you simmer it for 10 minutes in 3 cups of water, then remove the bag. (The bag is like a tea bag.)   The soup was fantastic.  Her original recipe called for just tofu and shitake mushrooms. I used the regular small mushrooms from our grocery store because I had some and added some daikon (Japanese radish) cut in matchstick pieces because I saw that in another soup and it sounded good to me.

• 3 cups dashi (her recipe called for 4 but my instant stuff made 3)
• 8 ounces tofu
• 4 button mushrooms, sliced thinly
• 1/2 cup of daikon, peeled and sliced into matchstick pieces
• 1.5 tsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp sake
• 1 green onion, sliced thinly

Rinse the tofu gently and cut into cubes. She called for heating the tofu and cooking the mushrooms in separate pans, then placing the tofu in one half of the bowl and the mushrooms in the other half and covering with the dashi broth. I just heated the tofu and cooked the mushrooms in the broth.

So make the dashi by simmering the tea bag of goodies for ten minutes in 3 cups of water.  Take the bag out and add the soy, salt and sake. (Note: we found this a bit salty and I had already cut the salt back so you might even eliminate the salt. I think the fact that this was “packaged” probably meant they added salt), add the tofu and simmer gently for a few minutes, then add the daikon and simmer a few more minutes, and finally add the mushrooms and cook just another 3 minutes or so (so roughly ten minutes for the tofu in total, 5 minutes for the daikon and 3 for the mushrooms).

Oh, I think I had some dried roasted seaweed out because I was making onigiri too and threw in a few flakes of it. That’s the dark green.

She says that cooking the ingredients separately helps keep the broth clear. I might try that next time but it’s not very cloudy and it tasted great this way!

Ladle into 3 or 4 bowls and garnish with the green onion slices.

NOTE: I didn’t really want leftovers so probably used more tofu than needed if this is a side dish. It was fortuitous though. I was winging some steak to go with this, along with some rice and spinach. The steak had been frozen in marinade and was just blah. So we filled up on soup and rice!