Recipes

Nappa cabbage soup with meatballs, bamboo shoots, and carrots, with a side of spinach with ponzu sauce and fish flakes.

Cod with shaved diacon, steamed broccoli, tofu soup, black sesame tofu (which was really good) with a miso sauce, kinnpira gobo (carrots and gobo sauteed in sesame oil, sugar and sauce sauce), and white rice.  Gobo is a long skinny root vegetable, and I know this because Ellie and I just learned about it in Japanese School not too long ago.

Udon noodles topped with vegetable tempura for lunch.

Dinner: Jyaga-buta, yuba, sauteed eggplant marinated in ponzu with jyako fish (tiny fish), and rice.  Jyaga-buta is like a dumpling and a meatball combined in one in a broth based soup with napa cabbage, onions, and carrots.  Yuba is similar to tofu.  When you make tofu you have to boil soy milk, and when you do, it forms a pudding skin on top.  That is what yuba is.  My first trip to Japan we actually went to a restaurant and had a five course yuba lunch.  I had no idea you could prepare it in so many different ways.

Just another typical breakfast.  This is one of the parts I miss most about going home.

Vegetable beef curry over rice, and a salad for lunch.

Hamburg (like a hamburger without the bun) with miso sauce, steamed broccoli, tofu soup, salad, and rice.  Hamburg is kind of like a meatloaf and you can get them seasoned a billion different ways.  They are very common at places like Denny’s and Big Boy in Japan.

I love Aya’s mom’s breakfasts!  She makes a little bit of everything.  There is usually some sort of egg thing, a fancy bakery bread, homemade yogurt with fruit, a mini salad, orange juice, freshly ground and brewed coffee, and a Japanese drink called Yakult.

We went out to dinner and I ordered this set.  Katsudon (breaded pork and egg over rice), soba noodle soup, Japanese pasta salad, and pickled vegetables.