Christmas 2010

For my family, we always buy presents for each other and exchange them on the Christmas day.

These are the presents I've got from my family (mom, dad, sister and brother)↑

I think that Christmas is a very good occasion for me to think about my family and get something nice for them.

lunch with my friends in Kichijoji

I went to Kichijoji with my friends from elementary school.

We went there by bicycle. (about 30-40mins ride)

I haven't ridden a bicycle for a long time so it was really tiring!

We found a very cute cafe and had lunch there.

This is the cafe ↑

We had special lunch menue for women!!

1,200yen ish?

It's a hamburg steak in a beef stew with a croissant, a big piece of macha chiffon cake and 2 drinks Y

I had iced latte and fruit juice.

My friend had lychee　tea.

I tried it a bit and it tasted so nice Y

I should have gone for the lychee tea!

Maybe next time...

The hamburg steak in beef stew↑

So much sauce, beef and veggies that I can hardly see the hamburg steak!

The macha cake with chocolate sauce, strawberry and whipped cream↑

おいしかったY

Hamburg steak toast

Today's brunch

Menu

*veggie sandwich

*hamburg steak pizza toast


Ingredients

*pipe loaf (from baker's delight) where I

*cucumber-1/2

*tomatoes-1/2

*mayonaise- some

*hamburg steak (from last night's dinner)

*tasty cheese (I use some Mexican cheese)-some

*tomato sauce-some

Instructions for veggie sandwich

1. toast the sliced pipe loaf

2. put viegges and mayo in between the loaf

Instructions for hamburg steak toast

1. spread tomato sauce on the toasted pipe loaf

2. place some hamburg steaks and cheese on top

3. bake it for few minutes in the oven

New tips for the Japanese style hamburg steak

Today's dinner

I was so hungry after coming home from work that I cooked too much...

Menu


*onion gratin



onions became soooo sweet!

*Japanese style hamburg steak




New findings for the sauce- see below


*seafood chijimi (supposed to be korean pan cake)





*Taiwaneese pickled cucumber (made by my housemate yesterday)


I love this

*boiled cabbage with sour sauce and shaved bonitos




*seafood in milk soup

*spinach miso soup






***New findings***

This time, I didn't boil the hamburg steak sauce with radish.

In this way, you can enjoy the texture of the shaved radish better.

I also used a microwave to heat up the sauce rather than boiling it in a pot.
Then the sauce becomes sweeter than last time.

Japanese style sweet egg breakfast

Today's breakfast





I had some time in the morning so I cooked full breakfast today.


Good breakfast gives you a lot of energy for a day.


It took me less than 30mins to get everything ready.




Menu

*BBQ pork (this was cooked by my bf)

*Pickled cucumber



*Pickled radish

*Kimchi (from Oriental Spoon- their kimchi is the best)

*Japanese style sweet egg (dashimaki tamago)

*tofu and onion miso soup

*white rice

***Pickles are easy to make and are good for breakfast.
You can cook them a night before and eat it on the next day :)
You can also preserve them for a long time. It's a good side dish for a busy morning.

Japanese style sweet egg recipe

Ingredients

*3 eggs
*milk 2 table spoons

*Japanese fish soup stock 2 tea spoons

*suger 2 tea spoon

*soya sauce 1 tea spoon

Instructions

1. put all the ingredients into a bowl. stir well

2. heat up a non-stick pan (preferably square shaped one) with some oil (mid-low fire)

3. pour 1/3 of the mixed ingredients to the pan. make sure you spread it evenly.

4. once cooked, fold it 3 times.

5. pour some more oil into the area of the pan where there is no eggs.

6. pour another 1/3 of the mixed ingredients into the pan, to the area where you just spread some oil. once cooked, fold it 3 times

Continue this process and you can create a nice layers of eggs.

Crispy beef salad

Today's dinner

*Crispy BBQ beef salad

*Agedashi tofu

*Stir fried carrots and deveil's tongue in sweet sauce

*Sweet potatoes

and White rice

BBQ beef salad recipe

Ingredients

*thin sliced beef (Pork is also ok) 200g
*Korean BBQ sauce 3 table spoons

*garlic 1 piece

*mirin (Japanese sweet sake) 2 table spoons
*corn flour 1/2 cup

*radish 1/3

*tomatoes 2

Instructions

1. Mince the garlic

2. Marinate the beef with BBQ sauce, mirin and the garlic.

3. Put corn flour on both sides of the beef

4. Heat up a pan with some oil, fry the beef. Try not to move the beef too much while cooking so that the beef becomes crispy.

5. Once the beef is cooked, place it on a plate, shave the radish on top of the beef

6. cut tomatoes into eatable sizes.

Eat with refreshing salad dressings!

August, September and October

I just realized that I hadn't updated my blog since my graduation in August!!!!


It's been a while...


2010 is almost finishing!

How scary is that...


I can't wait for Christmas and New Year though!




Let's look back what had happend after my graduation

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Few days after my graduation, I realized that my visa was expiring within 1 day.



That was one of the scariest moment in my life.


I didn't know what to do.


It was almost midnight.


I was panicing but I didn't wake up my mum who was sleeping comfortably in my room.
(My mum was in Australia at that time because she came to visit my graduation).




I was panicing really badly, but at the same time, I started to think that it might be my destiny to go back to Japan since I already graduated from uni.




"If... If I leave Australia tomorrow, I can go back to Japan with my mum... Hmmm."


I suddenly felt happy and started looking for air tickets to go back to Japan, imagining all the fun things I can do once I go back to Japan.


:)





...




Wait a minute.

No NO NO, that is not good.


I should think about a way to stay in Australia first.

I decided to stay in Australia and look for jobs.

I shouldn't just give up so easily, change my plan and go back to Japan.





I ended up asking my boyfriend and housemate for help, and somehow, I manged to apply for a new visa just in time!!!


I thought I could not apply any visas at this stage... but I could!!





Well, everything went alright at the end, but I must be careful from next time.






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In September, I started working part time at Baker's Delight near my house.

I used to work in a Bakery in Japan for more than 3 years and I loved it.

So I thought it was gonna be fun to work in a bakery in Australia too.


It was not that easy at first though, I found it difficult to remember the names of the bread such as pane di casa, pasta dura, continental, sourdough etc... because I was not familiar with such types of bread.



Also it was difficult for me to distinguish the types of loafs:the ones with chia seeds, country grain, sesame, poppy...

At first, they all looked the same to me.



In Japan, we sell many kids of souvery rolls but only 1 or 2 types of loafs. They are also all white without seeds. So I was overwhelmed by the numbers of different kinds of loafs.



But after working there for almost 2 months, I have no problem distinguishing and remembering the names and types of the bread!






Oh, however, there is another difficulty which I could never conquer...

That is, everything was built so high in the bakery.

The counter, the shelves, sinks and a mirror... everything is set too high for me that I always have to stand/walk tip toe.



I wonder I can still grow taller in my age...




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In October, there was my friend's wedding in Japan.

I really wanted to go back and attend her wedding!!!

However, I couldn't.

It was soooo frustrating...especially because I know her since the first year of elementary school!!!


So I sent her a video speech.


I never recorded myself like this before --dress up nicely and talk to a video camera alone at home-- so it was kind of an embarrassing yet, interesting experience for me.


Anyway, I heard from my another friend who attended the wedding that many poeple liked my speech and some were even crying while watching my speech.


I was happy to hear such news.


I hope the bride loved my speech too.


I saw some of the pictures from the wedding.

She looked really beautiful :)



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In October, I also started learning driving .


I've got my leaners' permit long long time ago...in March

but I was too lazy to start actual driving lessons.




After 7 months, I finally booked driving lessons with RACV.




And you know what,





Driving is fun!!!!!!




My instructor was friendly, funny and patient.





When I told this to my boyfriend and housemate, they said...

"I told you to start your lessons so many times!!!! After 7 months, finally you are learning!!!"


haha


Thank you guys, for always being patient with me.





My second lesson is day after tomorrow!

I can't wait!

My graduation!

Thank you dear my family, friends, teachers, everybody who supported me to go through my 3 years of university life.

Without your support, I just could not do it.

Thank you, I love you all.

Be healthy! Eat vegetables!

Yesterday's dinner

*spinach marinated with sesame sauce(ほうれん草の胡麻和え)

*boiled sweet sweet pumplin (かぼちゃの煮物）

*chinese cabbage and pork in bonito soup

*miso soup

*white rice

plus

*spicy pork with mushroom & carrots by damien. very very tasty!!!!

Today, I boiled 4 of huge bunches of spinach.

It looked huge when I bought them but after boiling them, it became really tiny.

This is one quater of the huge bunches of spinach. ↓

Can you believe it??

Boiled spinach with sesame sauce

Recipe for 4

Ingredients
*spinach 4 bunches
*Japanese noodle soup sauce (mentsuyu)2-3 table spoons
*grinded sesame 1 small package

~if you do not have mentsuyu, you can substitute it with soya sauce and mirin (Japanese sweet sake, 2 table spoons each)~


Instructions


1. wash the spinach carefully, wash off sand
2. cut them into eatable pieces and boil them till they become soft
3. Once become soft, take them out and pour cold water on them.
4. squeeze out water out of the spinach (make sure you take little bit of spinach and squeeze them tightly so that there is almost any water left inside of the spinach)
5. marinate the spinach with 2-3 table spoons of men tsuyu and grinded sesame

It is hard to eat a lot of veggies when it is raw (ex. salad) but it becomes so much easier once we boil them.

*boiled pumplin*recipe




Kent pumpkin is really sweet. so usually you don't need to put suger at all.

Ingredients

*a quater of kent pumplin

*2 table spoons of soya sauce

*1/2 package of bonito soup stock

*2 cups of water

Instructions

1. cut the pumpkin into eatable sizes and wash them.

2. put all the ingredients in the pot and boil them with mid-low fire till pumplin absorbs all the sauce.

Chinese cabbage and pork in bonito soup recipe

Ingredients
*minced pork (100g)
*small chinese cabbage (half)
*bonito soup stock (1/2 package)
*men tsuyu (2 table spoons)
*soya sauce (1 table spoon)

Instructions
After washing and cutting the chinese cabbage into eatable sizes, put all the ingredients into a pot and cook the with low fire.

Miso mayo Eggplant

Today's Dinner

*Miso mayo eggplant
*radish & pork soup
*white rice

*peanuts sauce chicken

*tofu and cabbaage in soup

I thought there were some carrots left in the fridge!

But... what I thought carrots were actually oranges....

Why...

Miso mayo eggplant Recipe

Ingredients

*eggplants - half (if you are using the huge one which we often see in Australia) or 2 (if you are using small ones which we always use in Asia)

*garlic (2 pieces)

*miso (2 table spoons)

*mayonaise (2 table spoons)

*sesame oil (1 table spoon)

Instructions

1. cut the eggplants into thin and small pieces, leave them in a bowl of water for a while.

2. cut the garlic into tiny pieces.

3. heat up a pan with some sesame oil, fry the garlic. Take the eggplants out of the water and fry them together with the garlic.

4. put the mayonaise and miso in the pan. cook them till the eggplants become soft. Blend the sauce with the eggplants well.

My friend's cooking

Spicy meat sauce on Japanese somen (noodle)

Tofu salad

Thank you, Yoshie!

They were very tasty!

Sovereign Hills, Ballarat

Red coat soldiers

My friend from Japan came to visit me in Melbourne :)

We went to Sovereign Hills on Sunday last week.

It was a steam day. There are many cute steam traisn on the street.

Tug-of-war with the steam train　↓

people against




the steam train













There was a tiny steam train like this as well!