One of my Fav Summer Evening Meal: Cold Shabu Shabu

Very easy to prepare Cold Shabu-Shabu for your home summer meal:

[What you need]

• VERY thinly sliced pork meat (as much as you want)
• Cucumber, Carrot, Tomatoes, Tofu, and Shiso (Japanese herb, if you have some)(as much as you want).
• To make how to make the dipping sauce, please see below.
  

[Direction]

1. Thinly slice cucumber, carrott and shiso.
   
2. Cut the tofu and tomatoes.
   
3. On a boiling water, cook the thinly sliced porn until cooked (does not take much time. Be careful not to over-cook it!). Place the cooked meat in a cold water (in a bowel). Drain the water.
4. Arrange, tofu, cooked pork meat, cucumber, carrot, shiso and tomatoes. Done!

Here is how to make kick ass dipping sauces:

[White Sesame Seed Dipping Sauce-can beat the 5 star quality sauce by Nobu of NYC (hahaha)]
-Grind white sesame seeds so that you will have at least 3 TBS ground sesame seeds. (perhaps, put the sesame seeds in a very durable plastic bag like the zip-lock type, and use a bottom of (very difficult to break something like a bin) to crush the seeds).

-Add following: 1/2 TBS of Rice Vinegar, 1/2-1 TBS of Lemon Juice, 1 TBS of Soy Sauce, 1 TBS of Mirin (if you have any), 2-3 TBS of Sugar, 1 TBS of CrushedGarlic. 1 TBS of Milk and 1/4-1/2 tea spoon of Salt. Mix well-ready to be used.

[Soy & Vinegarrette Sauce-SIMPLE!]

Mix soy sauce and vinegar: 1 Soy Sauce: 3 Rice Vinegar Ratio -done to be used. LOL

With all the right ingreidents, I bet even a single bachelor can prepare this healthy and yummy meal for a hot summer evening. Enjoy!

P.S.
This was one of the meals that I prepared for my parent's return home today :0)

Last day before having my parents back,

It was my turn to prepare dinner for my grandma and I.

Here are what we had:

1) We had these delicious tomatoes that were losing its freshness, so I wanted to use them up by adding in tonite's supper. I basically made a curry flavoured chicken and vegetables, adding a bit of yogurt for a mild taste. My grandma said she enjoyed it, so that made me feel relieved. :) Can't cook not pleasantmeals for my family. LOL

2) Japanese Dish called "Tsukune"-Chicken Patti

I like Japanese cooking, because we often focus on putting minimal amount of spices and condiment to be added in the main ingredients (meat/fish/vegetables).

Above dish was a typical example of it. Here is how I prepared. Very easy.

To make patti:

• 250 g of ground chicken (1/2 pound)
• 1 medium to small size egg1 TBS of Corn Starch
• 1 TBS of Soy Sauce
• 1 TBS of Mirin
• Dash of Salt

[Direction]

1. Mix everything noted above until it becomes sticky enough to make small balls (just like how you make the hamberger patti).
2. On a heated flying pan, heat 1 tbs of sesame or other vegetable oil.
3. Place the patti on the flying pan, and cook until both sides turn into a nice golden color. Remove the patti off the flying pan.
4. On a separate pot, put 1 1/2 cup of boiled water, 1 TBS of Mirin (can be found at an asian section of a decent grocery store or at an asian store), Sake and Soy Sauce, about 2 TBS of Sugar, 1/2 tea spoon of Salt. If you have Japanese dashi (stock), put about 1 TBS of it. Otherwise, perhaps adding half envelop (or cube) of Chicken or Vegetable Stock will be okay. Make sure that you taste it as you add the stock to make sure that it will not be too salty, but has just enough flavour.
5. Put all the patti and cook at mid heat until the meat is cooked throughly.
   
6. If you have Okura, wash it with salt and put it in the pot. I put some mushroom in mine, since I did not have any okura. Cook at low heat for about 1 minute (until the vege is cooked just a little bit).
   
7. Then Dissolve 1-2 tbs of cornstach with COLD water in a cup, put it on the side. Turn the heat high and pour the corn starch to the pot to thicken the liquid. Cook at med heat for about 1 minute, turn off the heat and put the rid to steam for about 1 minute. Ready to be served.
   

:)

I wanted to eat some healthy vegetable stew, so I made below dishtoo. Was very easy on my tummy :)

We also had tofu and spinach ohitashi (Japanese salad). Was very good. So who wants to come to my place for meals when I return to T-dot? I can be delivered as a special delivery to those who live FAR but are willing to pay my transportation. LOL :) hahaha

Well, I will definitely love to share my love of cooking with you people living in the west coast if I have an opportunity to visit in future! (hopefully soon).

Peace

Bathing with Brian?!

Since we were blessed with this gorgeous sunny morning, I gave our pet, Brian a really nice bubble bath (wash) today. It took over 2 hrs to complete (untilI dry him with towels), but was fun washing him.

He was very excited and surely got spoiled by ME hehe. I am worried how he will be like after my leave, now that he got so attached to me after my stay here since late January. Has anyone seen such smiley dog as Brian? He loves getting much affection and attention from us, and I sure do believe that it is healthy to get such warm energy from others (like we do as humans). I guess any livingbeing with soul deserves this: affection (love) and care (attention).

I truly hope that my family members will give him much loving after my leave, but until then I will give him much love myself :) Peace