Purple Kappa

Corned Beef Okonomiyaki

Okonomiyaki is a sort of savory Japanese pancake. It usually has grated yam, flour, egg, cabbage and water. You can add other things such as bacon, bean sprouts, green onion or shrimp. The yam is different from American yams, it's a starchy root vegetable called nagaimo in Japanese. The okonomiyaki is cooked on a griddle, then topped with any combination of finely shredded seaweed, bonito flakes, tonkatsu sauce (a sweet/salty brown sauce), mayonaise and pickled ginger. If you live near a Japanese grocery store, sometimes you can buy an Okonomiyaki set, which has packets of nagaimo powder, seaweed, bonito flakes and sometimes dried shrimp.

I've been mulling over the idea of a potato pancake with corned beef, and thought the addition of grated cabbage would make more like okonomiyaki. I used two grated potatoes, about a cup of cabbage, and a leftover chunk of corned beef--maybe half a pound. One egg, and a cup of flour, then enough water to make it sort of pancake consistency--maybe a cup? (my recipes are never precise). Put a thin layer of hot oil on the griddle, and pour a ladleful of batter. I just let it brown on one side and then flipped it, but checking a recipe online I should have put a lid on it and let it steam cook before flipping.

I ate it with Japanese mayonaise. It was pretty good, but I think it would have been better with only one potato. And I omitted all the other toppings, I think they might have been a good addition, especially the pickled ginger.

Now I'm hungry for more!

Gator Gumbo

One of Ivy's favorite books right now is Gator Gumbo by Candace Fleming

Monsieur Gator has gotten old and slow and can't catch any of the bayou creatures for dinner. Possum, Skunk and Otter delight in taunting the poor guy, until he cooks up a spot of spicy gumbo and gets a tasty revenge.

I showed Ivy what okra was at the grocery store since the book mentions it and she wasn't familiar with it. She wanted to buy some to make Gator Gumbo, and since I'm pretty happy when my kids actually ask me to buy vegetables, I agreed

I'm not sure how traditional this recipe is, since I thought I had file but was mistaken, and I didn't cook a roux, but then sometimes I wonder what is really traditional when it comes to cooking. Especially if it gets your kid to eat okra.

Throw It In The Pot Chicken and Sausage Gumbo, a sort of recipe

1 piece of sausage. I used some regular smoked kielbasa, about half a package

Some chicken. I used what was left in a package of chicken breasts, about 2 big ones

One large onion

One carrot

One stalk of celery

Half a sweet red pepper

3 cloves of garlic, chopped

Some okra. About a cup chopped?

One carton Trader Joe's Chicken broth. (I think it's 32 oz.) Obviously, you could use another brand. Or make your own broth.

Paprika. One tablespoon? Two? I just shook it in the pan out of the container .

One 15 oz. can whole tomatoes. Chopped would probably be fine as well

One 15 oz. can black beans, rinsed. I rinsed them because I didn't want the broth to taste like beans, but you can do as you like.

a few sprigs of oregano. I have it growing in my garden, but dried would be fine. A teaspoon should do it.

Okay, chop the onion, the carrot, the celery and the sweet pepper. Put a little olive oil in a pan--I used a dutch oven, use whatever you like to make soup in. Cook until the onion is translucent and the other stuff is a little soft. Add the cut up sausage, and some paprika. I probably put in about 2 tablespoons. Add the chopped up chicken, brown a bit. Add the chopped garlic, cook a little more. The chicken was cut up pretty small, so it was pretty much cooked by this point. Now add the chicken broth, the can of tomatoes and the can of black beans. Oh, and the okra. And the oregano. I forgot to mention in the ingredients one bay leaf, put that in as well. But don't eat it when the soup is done cooking, take it out, it's just for flavor. I like the okra soft, so I simmered it about an hour and a half. Serve over cooked white rice, I used jasmine rice. Shake some hot sauce on top if you like it spicy--I like spicy stuff, no one else in the family does so I try and save the hot stuff for my own serving.

Little Cupcakes

I found a set of a dozen mini cupcake silicone liners in the clearance rack at the grocery store today and decided to give them a try. I don't have a mini cupcake pan, but I thought they might stand up on their own on a cookie sheet, and if not I could use them as candy molds, for 1.99 I was willing to take the chance.

I used the chocolate cake recipe on the back of the Hershey's cocoa can, only I used butter instead of oil and divided the recipe by 1/4th since I just wanted to try the mini cupcakes. The liners worked fine standing on a cookie sheet.

I had some batter leftover so made use of the little cake pan from Ivy's baking set for the last bit

They baked in about 20 minutes (the little cake needed to stay in longer)

I didn't think anyone would want to use the sprinkles left over from Christmas, I thought they were kind of boring but I underestimated the appeal of shake-able colored sugar

I didn't grease the cups, since I thought they'd be nonstick by maybe I was confusing silicon with teflon because they pulled apart when we tried to take them out of the liners. Since they were only about two bites it wasn't such a big deal, but should I have greased them, or did we just try to take them out too quickly? I think we'll try banana nut muffins in them next, a dozen mini muffins should be just right for breakfast.

Miso Soup

I've been in a sort of rut lately regarding cooking and as a result haven't been eating as well as I could, especially fresh vegetables. I've been trying to buy things in season, and there just isn't that much available. I've had such a craving for spinach, and they haven't had any at the Asian market where I usually buy vegetables.

Miso soup is something that always makes me feel as though I'm taking care of myself when I eat it. It's so quick and easy, and yet I get out of the habit of eating it regularly. I don't make my dashi stock exactly right--I just boil a piece of kombu, without adding the bonito flakes. I use white miso--I guess in winter it's more appropriate to use a stronger miso such as red, but I like the taste of the white best. I also boiled an egg with the dashi, and then set it aside to add back to the soup when I was ready to eat it. I also put in sweet potato, mushrooms and several different kinds of seaweed. After letting everything cook for about 10 to 15 minutes, I stirred in a handful of arugula and let it wilt--it was baby arugula meant for salads so it cooked in the boiling soup fairly quickly. Then I added the miso, peeled the hardcooked egg, broke it in half and added it to the soup. Delicious!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ever since Miranda was a baby I wanted to be the sort of mom who always had the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies in the house. When I was growing up we made cookies at Christmas and that was it. Unfortunately, I'm rarely organized enough to actually pull this off and lately I've been relying on the cookie dough you can buy at the grocery store--something that made me feel guilty, until I rationalized that I wouldn't feel bad about buying a package of cookies, so why not cheat a little with the dough? But while cookies with the pre-made dough aren't all that bad, they are much better when I make them from scratch. And when I make them myself I can use things like real butter and add walnuts.

I just used the Tollhouse Cookie recipe. I think I might need some new cookie sheets, these are looking pretty bad...

Now I need to figure out what to have for dinner--cookies and milk?