Sweet potato soup

Hello, how are you?

It is sad that the huge cold wave in Europe has influenced a lot of people who were supposed to spend a cozy Christmas in their preplanned place. I just hope that all the people stuck can sleep in a warm place with enough food and proper amenities.

Those airports are having the similar problems as the last spring when the Icelandic volcano exploded. That makes us reconsider about the worst case when we build a system, and also to maintain the system and learn up-to-date methods for maintenance.

Today I will make a nice and smooth soup with just sweet potato.

I won't use salt and spices, so that you can enjoy the true goodness of sweet potatoes.

Ingredients:

sweet potato (big 1 or small 2)

milk (2cups)

soup (1cup)

yogurt (1tbsps)

1- Boil the sweet potato or place it into the microwave until it is soft.

2- Place 1 into a blender with a cup of milk and mix until it becomes smooth.

3- Put 2 into a pot with yogurt and soup. Heat it during siring. If it's too thick, then add more milk.

4- Finish when it's warm enough.

It is also good for babies as it has no salt.

Milk stew with summer vegetables

If you are too tired to cook every day, why not prepare a special lunch or dinner once a week? Set up nice dishes and interior goods and enjoy the slow food's feeling with your family or/and friends. Or even by yourself.

It's always fun to eat out at a beautiful restaurant but you can reflect yourself more by home-cooking. You can work together with your company and take your time, being away from the busy world.

Also adjusting your usual diet by home-made cooking is important. Ex. if you had a lot of protein on weekdays, then try to take much vegetables with less salt and butter!

Ingredients:

capsicum

carrot

onion

bacon

milk (2cups)

consomme soup (1cup)

butter

flour (1tbsp)

bay leaf

salt & pepper

1- Cut the vegetables and bacon into about 2cm pieces.

2- Heat the butter and stir fry the bacon and vegetables.

3- Add the flour and stir well. Pour the soup and bay leaf in and mix all well.

4- When the ingredients are cooked, add the milk and adjust the taste with salt and pepper.

Itadakimasu.

Clam chowder

Hello!

I am going to travel to Vietnam this week for 14 days so I can't wait for that. It's always pleasure for me to travel Asian countries and one of the big reasons is due to their polished and deep food culture. Must be careful of gaining my weight.

However, I'm a little worried about another disaster somewhere as we see quite a few of those hapening in the world lately...

Today I will cook an American recipe called " clam chowder" which is popular in Japan as well.

Ingredients:
potato
onion
carrot
clam
bacon
flour(2tbsps)
salt/pepper
milk
consomme(dry)
(cheese)

1- Put the clams in the water and leave it for an hour or more. Boil with a cup of water and get the clams out of the shells. Keep the boiling water.

2- Cut the vegetables and bacon in 1cm cubes and stir fry.

3- Add the flour and stir fry. Put the boiling water from 1, milk and consomme, and boil till all the ingredients are cooked.

4- Add some Parmesan cheese if you want. Adjust the taste with salt and pepper.

Itadakimasu.

Soup lunch for diet

If you are on diet, why not take a vegetable soup for lunch as restaurants' food is usually high in calories.... Or even if you are not, you can add it with your usual lunch, so that you can have a full course lunch during the work lunch break.

It's not so difficult. When you cook a big soup for dinner, you can pack the left overs in a container and take it to work the next day. The ingredients absorb the soup stock with time to enhance the taste.

Ingredients;

-meat balls*-

minced pork

onion

nutmeg

salt

pepper

egg

bread crumb

-soup-

potato*

carrot*

cabbage*

boiled tomato can

paprika powder

consomme soup

rose marry

broccoli*

*Anything you like

1- (meat balls)Mix the minced pork with finely cut onion, salt, pepper, egg(1/2), nutmeg and bread crumb. Then make small balls. Fry 1 and keep it away.

2- (soup)Stir-fry the potato and carrot in the same pan and put the cabbage and 1 in. Add the boiled tomato, consomme soup, paprika powder and rosemary, then close the lid on and boil for 30 minutes.

3- Adjust the taste with salt and pepper.

4- Put the boiled broccoli on top of the soup.

You can add some colorful vegetables like broccoli on the top to make it look nicer.

I am using this practical container that hardly leaks any water but soup lunch is getting popular so you can easily find better ones that are cute or stylish in Japan.

Itadakimasu.

Broccoli and egg soup

Do you have anything you're trying to learn every day? I learn English every night just before sleeping. The difficult thing about foreign language is that you have to keep learning/using it, because it keeps slipping out of your brain all the time like a leaking tap. Also this  is due to aging. I noticed that my ability to memorize is worse than when I was a student. I must keep trying.

Learning English made me also realize that English had a lot of words for the concept of "duty" which doesn't have as many in Japan. Burden, calling, charge, chore, commission, commitment and so on... It means that this concept has taken some important role in the English society?

It's good to know the cultural background and also train my brain by learning foreign languages...

Today we are cooking a clear broccoli and egg soup.

Ingredients:

chicken

broccoli

egg
sake

salt

soy sauce

sesame oil

1- Cook the chicken in a boiling water. When the chicken is cooked, put broccoli in.

2- Add a bit of sake, salt and soy sauce to adjust the taste.

3- Pour the stirred egg into the soup slowly, then stir the soup gently.

4- Add some sesame oil in the end.

Itadakimasu.

Chicken ball soup

It snowed in Tokyo last night. Usually it snows one or two times in Tokyo per year but the snow doesn't usually stay much longer than a day. So it's popular for Tokyo people to go skiing in Nagano, Gunma or Niigata on the weekend.

You can take a night bus in Tokyo/Yokohama on Friday, get to the ski resort in the next morning, ski till Sunday midday and then take the bus back. The cheapest trip including ski lift pass, ski gear, 1 night stay, 2 dinners and 1 breakfast can be below 20,000yen. If the hotel has an onsen (hot spring), you can also enjoy the Japanese style bath after the cold day.

Don't worry about being naked in front of people at an onsen, because nobody is interested in your naked body and you should not be. Is it strange? But if you try, you will understand one part of the Japanese culture.

Today's recipe is the hot soup with chicken balls. It warms you up in a cold and snowy day...

Ingredients:

-chicken ball-

minced chicken

ginger

onion

soy sauce 

salt

-soup-

Japanese long taro*

sweet potato*

Chinese cabbage*

noodles made of konnyaku*

kimchi

miso

*Anything you like

1- Mix up minced chicken, grated ginger, shredded onion, salt and soy sauce.

2- Boil vegetables, kimchi and konnyaku noodles in a soup (konbu seaweed stock).

3- Make balls from 1 and put it into the soup.

4- When all ingredients are cooked, melt the miso paste in the soup.

When some soup is left, you can put rice in it and boil again the next morning. It makes a great breakfast.

Itadakimasu.

Miso soup on a cold day

Hi! Hajimemashite, people. Today is about 15 degrees in Tokyo. Warm, but cold!

The temperature lately is the coldest season in Tokyo (Jan-Feb.) varies from around 0 to 10 degrees which is not comparable with coldness found in Seoul, NY or Berlin, but I feel SO cold here because of houses built without proper insulation. The heat in a room escapes easily which is a complete waste of energy.

So let's cook something warm on a cold day....

Miso soup is probably one of the most familiar foods for Japanese people because the basic Japanese meal usually is rice, some other dishes and miso soup. Also it's very easy. You can boil any seasonal ingredients in a soup then add miso paste. Here you are..

Ingredients for 2 people:

cabbage*

tofu*

miso (1+1/2 tbsps)

soup stock (2 cups)

*whatever you like

1- Boil the soup.

You can make the soup stock with dried kelp (konbu) or dried sardines (niboshi) or dried bonito fish (katsuo). If you can't find any of them, then try fish powder stock or even other stocks are OK.

2- Put cabbage and tofu in the soup.

3- Dissolve the miso in the soup when the tofu and the cabbage are cooked. (Better to dissolve with a strainer)

Finished! If you feel unhealthy by eating too much meat, cream, and butter. Why not try miso soup with a lot of vegetables, seaweed or mushrooms!

Itadakimasu.