food

Japanese flavoured pesto and tuna salad spaghetti

Main, Noodles, Sauce & Dressing, Seafood, Summer

Hi, guys!

I received the result of IELTS (International English Test System) I recently took and it was fantastic(L7.0, R6.5, W6.0, S8.0). Of course, I need even more effort to get the desired score, but I am pretty relieved that my English has definitely improved! (As I didn’t think my writing score was right, I had requested EOR on my writing test.)

Anyway, how are you all doing in these extremely scorching days ?

I have completely lost appetite and prefer to eat less hot foods, for instance, salad. If this is the same case as yours, the recipe I am going to share with you in this page is the solution. This sauce is absolutely gorgeous!! Please try once!

[Ingredients] 2 servings

*** For pesto ***

  • 2 garlic cloves
  • A few pinches of black pepper
  • A pinch of salt
  • 10-15 basil leaves
  • 1.5 tbs of soya sauce
  • A tbs of cider vinegar
  • A squeeze of lemon juice
  • 3 tbs of extra virgin olive oil

*** For tuna salad spaghetti ***

  • Spagetti for two (about 220g)
  • 50g of tinned tuna
  • A avocado – cut into cubes
  • A tomato – cut into cubes
  • A quarter of red onion – thinly sliced
  • A piece of  cucumber – shredded

[Instruction]

  1. Smash all the ingredients for the pesto sauce in a mortar until it becomes smooth.
  2. Cool spaghetti with cold water immediately after cooking spaghetti.
  3. Mix spaghetti with tuna, vegetables and sauce in a big bowl.

 

 

When you try my recipes, please leave comments and give me feedback. There is no need informing your email address to leave messages so if you are not happy to give me your personal information just skip that question. (I can not remove that question due to the worldpress system.) You can also contact me on my Contact Page or you can also share your attempts on Instagram with #jhomerecipes.

I hope you find this information useful for your happy healthy life!

Chickpeas and Barley Broth *(v) possible

Chicken, Main, Soup, Vegetables, Vegetarian

Hi guys!

I suppose that many of you are planning summer parties this or next weekend! So today, I would like to share a wonderful recipe, Chickpeas and Barley Broth, which is useful to fulfil your guests. For vegetarian or began guests, ignore chicken and swap chicken stock with veg stock.

The key to make lovely broth is making stock by yourself whichever chicken or vegetarian stock you use. I have tried several types of stock cubes for the broth and they definitely worked, but they could never beat my homemade stock which were made from various vegetables including carrots, potatoes, onions, leaks, mushrooms and chicken wings etc. I will not put the recipe of stock as we all know that there is not a certain way to make nice stock and I don’t think mine is the best either. Use what you have in your cupboard, and add a bit of salt, black pepper and white wine. But if you don’t have enough time, then don’t worry and use cubes.

This is not “Aisan-Asian” broth. My English husband actually loves it so do not worry to serve non-Japanese food fan! I hope you guys will find this recipe helpful!

 

[Ingredients] 4 – 5 servings

  • 3 tbs of olive oil
  • 1/2 onion – diced
  • 3 garlic cloves – chopped
  • 1/2 red chilli – chopped
  • 2 chicken thighs – chopped, with the skin removed
  • 1/2 red pepper – cut into 2cm²
  • 1/2 yellow pepper – cut into 2cm²
  • 2 tomatoes – sliced roughly
  • 5-8 chestnut mushrooms – cut into half
  • 50ml of white wine
  • 300-400g of chickpeas tinned
  • 1300ml of chicken or veg stock
  • 100g of barley – washed
  • 50g of quinoa – washed
  • A pinch of salt
  • A pinch of black pepper
  • A bunch of coriander – chopped

[Instruction]

  1. Pour olive oil into a hot large sauce pan and stir fry onion, garlic and red chilli. Add salt and black pepper.
  2. Add chicken thighs into the pan and panfry them.
  3. Add all other vegetables and cook them, stirring for 5 minutes.
  4. Pour white wine into the pan and reduce the juice for a minutes.
  5. After adding chickpeas and mix them well, pour the stock into the pan. Leave the pan with the lid on for 20 minutes.
  6. Add barley and quinoa into the pan and simmer 30 more minutes. Add seasoning if necessary.
  7. To serve, put coriander on the top of broth.

 

 

When you try my recipes, please leave the comment and give me feedback. There is no need entering your email address to leave messages so if you are not happy to give me your personal information just skip that question. (I can not remove that question due to the worldpress system.) You can also contact me on my Contact Page or you can also share your attempts on Instagram with #jhomerecipes.

I hope you find this information useful for your happy healthy life!

A summer berry cake

Dessert, Summer

Hi, guys!!

Do you have a sweet tooth? I usually do not eat sweets but sometimes I really can’t help having some, you know, this is a kind of the female matter!!hehe

Yesterday I baked a berry cake which was very easy and also satisfied my husband who has an extremely sweet tooth. Since I got married to him, I have been trying to help him to fix his sweet addiction, which a majority of English people are suffered from without awareness. I am not criticising the English diet, and I believe that having sweets by itself is not that bad. What I concern about my husband is he is taking too much chemicals from fizzy drinks or cakes he intakes almost everyday.

This is why I sometimes make homemade cake or lemonade for him. I have been pretty busy these days so I don’t bake cake that often. To be fair I am not that good at baking so I often struggle to find easy baking recipes. This recipe I am going to share with you today is, however, quite simple so I can confidently recommend all of you, especially if you are too busy to make a lot of effort to cut down your chemical intake.

Hope you will enjoy my recipe!xx

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[Ingredients] -20cm round baking tin

  • 240g of plain flour
  • 2 teaspoons of baking powder
  • 1/3 teaspoon of salt
  • 150g of unsalted butter
  • 190g of granulated sugar
  • 200ml of milk
  • 2 eggs
  • 200g of berries
  • some unsalted butter to cover the baking tin

[Intructions]

  1. Mix plain flour, baking powder, salt and butter in a large bowl. crumbling with hands. Take 150g of this mix away. You will put them on top of cake just before baking.img_4778
  2. Break eggs and separate them into yolk and white. Mix yolk and milk and pour the milk into the remained mix of step1. Use spatula and mix them gently.
  3. Whip  the white of step2. until it gets hard.
  4. Add the whipped white to the mix of step2. and mix well gently.
  5. Pour the mix into buttered baking tin.
  6. Drop about 80% of berries on the mix in the tin.
  7. Cover the top of mix in the tin with the crumbled mix which was taken away in step1.
  8. Sprinkle the remained berries on top of the mix in the tin.
  9. Bake the cake in a preheated (170 degrees) oven for 45 minutes.
  10. Cool it down for at least a few hours before you serve.

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When you try my recipes, please leave the comment and give me feedback. There is no need entering your email address to leave messages so if you are not happy to give me your personal information just skip that question. (I can not remove that question due to the worldpress system.) You can also contact me on my Contact Page or you can also share your attempts on Instagram with #jhomerecipes.

I hope you find this information useful for your happy healthy life!

Kimchi Nabe(hot pot)

Hot pot, Main, pork, Soup, Vegetables, Vegetarian, Winter

Hi, guys!

Have you heard of word, Kimchi? Kimchi is spicy Korean pickle which is now world famous. In Japan, these days the idea of adding Kimchi into Nabe has been featured among young people. Actually, this is my husband’s favourite ingredients for Nabe. If you are keen on trying a different flavour, try my  Soya milk nabe(hot pot) (available as (v) too) , which had much more mild flavour than Kimchi nabe.

[Ingredients]

  • 4-5 leaves of Chinese cabbage, roughly cut
  • 25g of mushrooms
  • 20g of leeks, thickly sliced
  • 6-8 pieces of cod cheeks
  • 100-150g of tofu
  • 100g of white radish, sliced
  • Ramen noodles (as much as you want)
  • A bit of shichimi spice (if you need, as a topping)
  • A pinch of chipped spring onion (if you need, as a topping)

Kimchi nabe soup

  • 3-5g of kombu
  • 500g of cold water
  • 200g of Kimch
  • 2 tbs of soya sauce
  • 1 tbs of sake
  • 1 tbs of mirin
  • 1 teaspoon of sesame oil

[Instruction]

  1. img_4318Make Kimchi nabe soup. Leave kombu in cold water as long as you can. In this process, you can make lovely kombu stock. If you do not have enough time, make sure you put kombu before you start to heat the cold water. Boil the stock in a sauce pan for 5 minutes. Add soya sauce, sake and mirin.
  2. Place Chinese cabbage, mushrooms, leeks, cod cheeks, white radish, tofu and Kimchi in another sauce pan. Pour Kimch nabe soup in the sauce pan with vegetables. Bubble it with lid on top until they are all cooked.img_4320
  3. Drop sesame oil, spring onion(if you want) and shichimi(if you want) just before serve. Make sure you do not finish soup.
  4. Once vegetables in nabe has been finished, start to cook ramen noodles in boiling water for 1 minutes. Add the noodles into the Kimch nabe. Add more vegetables or seasonings if you need. Serve nabe ramen once again.

 

Nabe is an absolutely fantastic option for party menu as well. Why don’t you trying Kimchi nabe with your family or friends this weekend? And if you do, please share your kimchi nabe with #jhomerecipes or #japanesehomerecipes to share our passion!

Thank you for reading my article today too! I hope you all have a lovely weekend!x

Zosui (Aromatic Japanese rice porridge)

Breakfast, Main, Rice, Side dish, Vegetarian

Hi, everyone!!

Whenever I try new kinds of recipe, I am always in trouble to figure out how I can finish the ingredients left over. Originally, I always avoid to use double cream because cream is not familiar to Japanese cooking and I have poor knowledge of these ingredients. I imagine that same things would happen to you when you try to cook Japanese foods. This recipe is pretty good for these situation.

Zosui is a Japanese rice porridge in dashi flavoured soup. Japanese people eat it when they feel tired or need something good for digestion after you drink/eat too much.  Also, this can be good breakfast in early morning when you are not ready to have a big meal. Zosui is very light and nutritious so that desirable for children and elderly people too. the funny thing is, to make nice zosui, we prefer old rice rather than fresh hot rice (I will explain why later). Now let’s have a look!

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[Ingredients] for 2

To make zosui, there is not rule about ingredients. The key is; good stock, sticky rice are not sticky, fluffy egg and some extra seasoning!

  • A few pieces of konbu
  • 1 bowl of cooked sticky rice (about 180g)
  • 3 bowls of water (about 400ml)
  • 1 tbs of soya sauce
  • A pinch of salt
  • 2 tbs of mirin
  • 1/2 tbs of sake
  • 1 egg
  • Vegetables
    • Spring onion (as a topping)
    • 2cm of carrot
    • 1 tbs of sesame seeds
    • A bit of grated ginger
    • 1/4 onion
    • A handful Chinese cabbage

[Instruction]

  1. Leave konbu in the water in fridge over night.
  2. Cut all the vegetables finely.
  3. Boil the water with konbu and add all the vegetables except spring onion.
  4. Add soya sauce, salt and mirin.
  5. When vegetables are cooked, wash sticky rice with water. This is very important step to make zosui. If you do not wash sticky rice, your zosui will be too thick. By washing cooked rice with water, the soup will be nice and watery. And this is exactly why you do not have to prepare freshly cooked rice.
  6. Break an egg in a bowl and whisk.
  7. Make sure the soup is being boiled. Turn off the heat, and pour egg into the soup drawing an arc.
  8. Leave it for a minutes and turn on the cooker again.
  9. When it starts to be boiled again then stir gently.
  10. Place your zosui into the bowl with spring onion on top.

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If you think that it tastes too plain (although it should be very plain), drop some grated ginger or sesame oil. These extra seasonings bring you more strong flavour so that you can enjoy it more!

If you try any from my recipe, please show me or tell me how it was. I am looking forward to hearing from you!xx

 

 

Soya milk nabe(hot pot) (available as (v) too)

Hot pot, Main, Noodles, pork, Soup, Tofu, Vegetables, Vegetarian, Winter

Hi, guys!!

Thank you for visiting my website today too!!

Woo, this is very cold winter, isn’t it? I heard it would be snowing in the south of England next weekend. I am so excited!! In such a cold day, I can’t help wanting “nabe” which is one of the most traditional Japanese culture in winter. Nabe is a kind of hot pot which has many kinds of vegetables, meats and seafood in soup.

The thing that makes nabe culture so special is the style we enjoy it. When we have one, we share a big pot with your family or friends. In Japan, having nabe together means you have a good relationship with them. This is why first year uni students often hold nabe party to make new friends!

Although there are many kinds of flavour for nabe, today, I would like to share my favourite recipe of soya milk hot pot which I made for the party last week. This is quite healthy and you can make it suitable for vegetarian or even vegan.

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[Ingredients] for 4

  • 1L of soya milk
  • A few pieces of dried konbu
  • 400g of water
  • 2 tbspoons of sesame oil
  • 2 tbspoons of soya sauce
  • 1 tbspoons of sake (white wine is fine if you do not have any)
  • A few pinch of salt
  • 1 tbspoon of sesame seeds
  • Pork (if you would like)
  • Vegetable
    • leek
    • mushroom
    • carrot
    • Chinese cabbage/savoy cabbage
    • onion
    • Tofu
    • sprout
  • 300g of Udon noodles
  • A teaspoon of grated ginger

[Instruction]

  1. Leave dried konbu in the water over night. (Konbu make lovely stock in the cold water.But if you do not have time, you can just put them in the water and start to boil it immediately. This is not the best way, but you can still have konbu stock.)
  2. Boil the water in a big pot.
  3. Add 600ml of soya milk and keep cooking until it starts to boil.
  4. Add soya sauce, sake and salt.
  5. Cut pork into pieces you like.
  6. Chop vegetables into pieces you like. I recommend to cut into tofu quite big pieces, otherwise they will break int the soup and you will never see them again! Do not add udon noodles yet!
  7. When all the vegetables are cooked, add 1 tbspoon of sesame oil and sesame seeds just before you serve.
  8. Serve.
  9. When you finish almost all ingredients, add 400g of soya milk and udon noodles and heat it up for 10 minutes again. We call this style “shime” which means “finally end”.
  10. Add ginger and 1 tbspoon of sesame oil.
  11. Serve again.

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Spaghetti in original tomato sauce with Brussels sprouts and aubergine

Main, Noodles, Vegetables

Hi, everyone!!

Today I will share an example of how you can use my tomato sauce paste.

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tomato sauce

First, I will explain how to finish tomato sauce. Like I said in the article “Lovely tomato sauce paste“, this paste is not tomato sauce. To complete making tomato sauce, all you have to do is add 2-3 tbspoons of paste into the300-400g of tin tomato and cook. You can use this for soup and pasta sauce, or it is also good to cook fish in this sauce.

The reason I think it good is, you can always cook with this paste in a little time. If you feel too busy to cook by yourself or too tired after working all day, this tomato sauce will help you to stay healthy and save money!!

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 [Ingredients] for 2

  • 1/3 of aubergine
  • a handful Brussels sprouts
  • 200 g of spaghetti
  • 300g of tin tomato
  • 100g of original tomato sauce paste
  • 30ml of olive oil

 

[Instruction]

  1. Cut aubergine into the shape you like, and leave them in the cold water for a few minutes.
  2. Marinate the aubergine with 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a bowl.
  3. Pan fry aubergine on a frying pan.
  4. Boil the water and cook Brussels sprouts.
  5. Boil the water in a tall sauce pan and cook spaghetti.
  6. Pour tin tomato into a frying pan and cook it with high heat until the colour become vivid red.
  7. Add the tomato sauce paste into the frying pan. When the sauce gets too dry, add some water from the sauce pan of spaghetti.
  8. When spaghetti is cooked, add spaghetti, aubergine and Brussels sprouts into tomato sauce. (If you can finish cooking all of those, it would be good!)
  9. Mix well and plate your spaghetti.
  10. Dress with olive oil on top.

Then, here is the spaghetti!

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It was amazingly simple and so tasty. Please try once!

 

Now, I am thinking to make video to show the recipe more simply. I am preparing for the camera or equipments etc at this moment. I will let you know if this plan goes well.

 

I hoe you enjoyed this article too.

See you soon!xx

 

Spaghetti in tomato sauce with tuna and spinach

Main, Noodles, Seafood

Hi, everyone!

It has been one year since I opened my website. Time flies so fast! Although my life has changed so much in such a little time, my passion for foods had never died. I have got visa, found a job, started volunteering and got another job again, decided to go to school…but the most important is, I AM A CHEF NOW!!!! (amazing, isn’t it?)

Anyway, today I want to share one of my favourite recipe of spaghetti sauce. In Japan, combinations of ingredients are very important as well as how it looks or how it tastes, because it is believed that they affect your health either in a good way or in a bad way.

Spinach is one of the most controversial ingredients about this, because, for example, everyone loves the combinations of spinach and bacon and never wants to believe that it might cause cancers, (neither do I!!)  Whether if it is true or not, there is one fact; the combination of spinach and tuna is absolutely fantastic!!

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[Ingredients] for 2

  • 3 cloves of garlic
  • 1 onion
  • 400g tin tomatoes
  • 100g tin tuna (in water)
  • A handful spinach
  • Spaghetti for two (200-300g)
  • 50ml of olive oil
  • A little bit of salt & pepper
  • 1 tbspoon of sugar

[Instruction]

  1. Chop a garlic and onion finely.
  2. Pour 3 tbspoon of olive oil into a hot frying pan.
  3. Pan fry onion and garlic until they get soft and smell good.
  4. Add tomato into the frying pan.
  5. Boil water in a tall sauce pan and cook spaghetti.
  6. Add olive oil into the sauce and keep cooking until the colour of the sauce changes into blight red. Add some seasoning.
  7. When the sauce gets dry, add some hot water from sauce pan cooking spaghetti.
  8. Add tuna into the sauce.
  9. When you finish cooking spaghetti then add them into the sauce.
  10. Add spinach just before you serve, and mix well.
  11. Plate your spaghetti nicely. Dress it with olive oil on top.

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Making pasta sauce is always simple but it is difficult to make it nice. The key is; garlic, onion and tomatoes. In fact there is my original recipe of tomato sauce paste which can be used in various way. I will write a article about it next time.

Thank you very much for reading my recipe today! I hope you enjoyed it!

See you soon!xx

Travel to Yamaguchi – 2. Kintai-kyo Bridge

travel, Yamaguchi

2. Kintai-kyo Bridge

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Kintai-kyo bridge is a hitsorical bridge which have been playing an important role to lead this area successful. In a past, here was a center of a small country (Japan consisted of many small countries at that time) which located in this area. “Joka machi” means a small town which surrounded a castle, and was often busy of many markets or other business. But unfortunately, this joka machi was surrounded by a big pond or more like river and people had to take boats to get there. This was really annoying, because this river often overflew and people can not take boats. Thus a big strong bridge was needed for people to get to joka mechi. You can learn interesting history of this bridge from their website.

 

You have to pay a few hundreds yen to pass this bridge and there you will see many Japanese cultural buildings.

 

Of course, if there is a castle, there also should be beautiful garden that a king could see from his room. There was a small pond and you could see some pretty turtles. My husband was so excited and talking to a turtles and then turtles was staring at him back!

 

There are a few popular ice cream shops there.

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We tried three kinds of flavour from more than 100 options. They were amazingly nice!

 

I hope you can enjoy this article! xx

 

Travel to Hiroshima – 3.Countryside

Hirohsima, travel

3. Countryside

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In the countryside, you are always welcomed with heartwarming atmosphere. I have a few recommendation to go but please note that these places are little difficult to get to with public transport. At least you can see these rice field very easily from trains as well.

 

I. Takehara

Takehara is pretty town where you can see Japanese traditional building or so. You can get train to Takehara station from Hiroshima station. You can visit their website and learn how beautiful their town is.

If you use Hiroshima airport, you are so good! You can get there wonderful hotel, Hotel Kamogawaso (one of the best hotel I like in Hiroshima) in 15 minutes by taxi from the airport. 15 minutes from Takehara station by taxi, but you can also ask hotel to arrange a  car and they will pick you up at the station or airport. Visit their website and I can help you to book the hotel if you want to ^^

Once you arrived at the hotel I think you want to explore around the hotel because you can see beautiful Japanese countryside. You can learn how Japanese rice fields work!

There is another hotel, Kanpo-no-yado next to Kamogawaso and we stayed there this time, in fact, although they do not have a website written in English so I decided not to push this hotel. But this hotel is also good. To me Kamogawaso isthe best option if I am with guests and want to have a luxurious night. But Kanpo-no-yado is good option when I am with my family and want to spend relaxed time.

The foods were amazing in both hotels. (The photos are taken in Kanpo-no-yado. Please imagine that even better options are available in Kamogawaso!)

 

 

See? You should come to try these fabulous foods!!

 

II. Saijo

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Ah!!! Maybe I should not pick this town up now because I do not think my English skills is good enough to explain how wonderful this town is!

But once obvious thing I can say is people who once lived here say they never wants to move anywhere! Well also this is where I was born… this is not the reason I like this place so much!haha

Saijo is a very famous big town in east Hiroshima. This town is so mysterious as well, for instance, there is very countryside but you can get anything you need to. Very peaceful and quiet but still successful town. There are some things which make Saijo famous and popular.

First, there is a national Hiroshima University I graduated from, and there are always young students in the town. I do not why but people in Hiroshima have been cherishing students of Hiroshima University so you are treated very well. In fact, Hiroshima university students have good reputation of “good at focus on things” or “try very hard”. Do you know why? That is because Hiroshima University is in the mountainous area and there is nothing that amuses students! People from urban city say they would be depressed if they had to spend all day!!

 

Second, Saijo have several Japanese sake brand and you can visit their factories in the sentre of the town. Often you can try some of their products and you can buy very fresh sake from them. the factories all locate near Saijo station and you can also find some restaurants which sells foods using these sake.

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Third, there are so many nice restaurants in Saijo. To Japanese person, if I can have nice sake and some sashimi, then nothing can beat this! You should visit this place.

This place is called “Yatai mura”. In this small place, there several small restaurants are located, and you can experience a nice and warm service. In this restaurant you can try grilled fresh fish or meat.

 

If you are very hungry I recommend this restaurant. Restaurant “Hanagokoro” is always amazing! If you try very Japanese food, this restaurant is highly amazing. If you can’t speak or read Japanese, do not worry. University students are working here so they will always help you. To get there, take taxi from Saijo satation and you will be there in 10 minutes.

 

It is sad but most of traditional places in Hiroshima had destroyed during WWII. Hiroshima city is very urban and successful city and we are proud of it, but still something is missing. In countryside you can still see how Japanese people have lived and helped each other there. That is why I love countryside and recommend you to visit. You can see many colours in the same prefecture.

There are many many more things I want to tell you about Hiroshima, but I will stop here today. I know that traveling to Japan is not cheap so that I want you to have a best time you have ever experienced.

If you are interested in something about Tokyo or Hiroshima or anywhere else, please feel free to ask me. I can not promise but I am sure I can help you some how!

 

I hope you enjoyed reading this article!xx