A Rare Treat: Breakfast For Supper / Listen To Your Body

Song:  Hey You 

(Harp Guitar cover of Pink Floyd)

Artist:  Jamie Dupuis

Every month or two...

I will cook a meal typically associated with an American breakfast...

for supper.

We rarely eat sausages, bacon, or eggs...

but when we do...

we like to stuff ourselves with them  :)

I usually scramble 10 - 12 eggs at a time...

and I add one half quart of milk to the mixture.

This makes the eggs exceptionally light and fluffy.

I had my mother in charge of turning the sausages (Lil Smokies).

Once in a great while...

we just get a craving for the good old fashion smokey goodness of these great little treats.

I also made some fluffy biscuits.

The three of us polished off this meal

(my mother, Hana, and I).

We also had a glass each of this great 100 % pomegranate juice.

It tasted as if one just took a mouthful of pomegranate gems and bit down.

Although my mother loves this meal...

it is just a very occasional meal for us.

We had polished off this dessert bowl of fruit on the sofa as we watched TV...after supper.

These particular strawberries were so sweet and juicy.

They were the best I have ever eaten.

---------------

Although I ensure my mother eats a very healthful diet...

we sometimes eat a steak, breakfast for supper...etc.

Why?

The first reason...

eggs and red meat are very healthful if eaten in moderation.

They are high in certain compounds and fats which are difficult to get 

in other foods.

How often do we eat these meals?

I go by how my body craves certain foods.

Huh?

When you eat healthful meals for the majority of the time...

you will occasionally crave a red meat dish...

or lots of eggs.

If you eat them all the time...

not only will this not be so healthful for you...

you will not develop a feel for your body's cravings.

Eat mostly fish...

and lots of fresh fruits and vegetables...

occasional portions of poultry...

and eat red meat only when your body deeply craves it.

A few times a month should be about right.

What you shouldn't do is to completely neglect a food category

out of fear of any of it being unhealthful.

When you mostly eat healthfully...

sometimes your body is short of certain fats...

or the compounds readily available only in red meats...or eggs.

Once you do so...

you will find that the cravings are sated for weeks at a time.

If Americans would substitute the majority of breakfasts...

from eggs and bacon or sausages...

to fish, rice, and lots of vegetables, fruits, and nuts...

they will feel so much better...

in both...

the short run...

and in the long.

If they would also ensure they do not eat within 6 or so hours of bedtime...

and within an hour or two of bedtime...

they would exercise...

shower...

and then go to bed with nothing more afterwards but water...

they would lose excess weight...

and they would sleep the sleep of the gods.

In order to develop this body feel...

you must reset the body by eating healthfully for the great majority of the meals.

Kabocha And Natto Maki

Song:  Long Train Running

Group:  Doobie Brothers

This supper had turned out much better than did the disaster of the last article.

Kabocha is in the squash family.

However...

the rind on this vegetable is as tough as a Rino's hide.

This is an extremely dangerous vegetable to cut through with any ceramic knife!

As all of my mother's knives are ceramic...

I first sawed with the bread knife to start the cut...

and I then had to make certain I had placed the straight ceramic knife in the notch...

and I then had to put one hand on the sharp end of the knife...

and one on the handle.

I then applied my body weight to the knife...

and I gently rocked the knife so it would cut through the rind.

Never...never...

apply any lateral pressure on a ceramic knife...

or apply any percussive force to it.

It will shatter like glass.

The resulting shards could injure you in a quick and very harmful manner.

I will be ordering my mother a very large steel cleaver to handle

such tough kitchen tasks in the future.

Scoop out the seeds.

Then cut the Kabocha into wedges.

Place them into a pot.

Now for the recipe for the broth...

and the directions for cooking the Kabocha.

1 medium sized Kabocha

(the one I had bought is a large...

and so, I had doubled this recipe).

Hondashi (Bonito soup stock) - 1 Tbs

Water - 400 cc

Soy Sauce - 4 Tbs

Sake - 4 Tbs

Sugar - 4 Tbs

Mirin - 4 Tbs

Mix thoroughly in a bowl.

Pour over the Kabocha in the pot...and cook covered.

(ensure the broth covers the Kabocha completely)

Bring the pot to a high boil momentarily...

then bring down to a low boil to simmer for 20 - 40 minutes

(Test the texture every 10 or so minutes.

A chopstick should penetrate the rind without too much resistance.

When you bite into it...it should have a slight crunch when biting the skin of the rind...

and everything else should be soft, but it should not be mushy).

This Kabocha had taken 40 minutes to cook.

You must realize that as we live over 1 mile in altitude...

any boiling cooking times will be more than at sea level

(approximately one minute longer for every 1,000 ft in elevation).

The ingredients for Natto Maki (plus the rice).

Natto is a fermented soy bean food.

It usually comes with a sauce and mustard packet.

The other ingredient is roasted and seasoned seaweed.

Thoroughly mix the Natto.

It should have a slimy consistency.

Some people complain that Natto has an unbearable smell to it.

To me...

it smells and tastes slightly like roasted coffee beans.

I love Natto.

I have been eating it since I was a child.

Add the mixed Natto to a bowl of rice...

and thoroughly mix.

Then simply place a good amount of the Natto and rice mixture onto a sheet of Nori.

And then roll it so it forms a long roll.

After completing the rolls...

the Natto maki is completed.

This is how the Kobocha looks when it is done cooking.

My mother exclaiming how good the Kabocha was.

We also had miso soup to complete our meal.

Kabocha is a very nutritious vegetable to eat.

It is also very delicious when sliced into thin slivers...and fire roasted.

It should be a dark yellow inside.

When buying one...

thump it on its rind.

It should be almost rock hard.

The kabocha in this dish is infused with the broth...

and the delicious taste lingers on the tongue as it helps flavor the whole meal.

Again...

DO NOT ATTEMPT TO MAKE A KOBOCHA DISH

WITHOUT THE CORRECT IMPLEMENTS TO CUT THROUGH THE RIND.

I had to be very careful as I cut the kabocha...

and I have handled knives most of my life.

A ceramic knife must be thought of as a glass knife.

It will easily shatter as would a knife made of glass.

It is extremely dangerous to cut through a kobocha with any ceramic knife.

I am going to equip my mother's kitchen 

with a large, thick, and heavy, steel cleaver...(or sword  :)

just for this very tough veggie.

Blooper: Sea Food Chow Fun...Not So Fun

Song:  Daryl's Epitaph

From:  FF VI (III in US) Symphonic Re-work

I recently attempted to make sea food chow fun for my mother.

I will not be giving out this recipe...

only because mine was a recipe for culinary disaster.

Again...

I am not a talented cook.

I usually like to make very simple and wholesome meals.

My wife had recently made this dish at home.

It had tasted so delicious...

I wanted to make it for my mother a few days later.

We started out the day with a shopping trip to the local Asian market.

I had gotten ingredients for several meals to come from there...

along with some treats.

My mother loves manju (mochi covered bean paste).

I had gotten more shishito peppers...and daikon.

I will be making the kabocha on the morrow...

and the shrimp I would use on this night.

In the near future...

we will be making natto maki.

And...my mother loves to snack on dried anchovy.

We started out by snacking on the manju.

I then fire roasted the shishito

(I used my mother for demonstration purposes only.

This night's cooking disaster was all my doing  :)

When fire roasting shishito...

always have the stove exhaust fan on Max.   

The mist which is released from the peppers will irritate your eyes and sinuses otherwise.

We had the shrimp and scallops all ready to defrost.

These were primo shrimp and scallops.

I had all the cooking implements all laid out...

and ready to cook everything separately.

I decided to call my wife to double check on how she had cooked the dish.

She had used one pan to cook everything.

I had fool heartedly decided to try it her way.

My big mistake was not factoring in her far greater experience in the kitchen.

And...

this is where everything fell apart.

This would be my first time cooking this dish...

and my last  :)

I usually like to cook the meats in such dishes...separately.

This allows me to cook the meats without having to time the cooking

of the vegetables and the noodles, as well as the meat...all at once.

I was going to merely add the cooked sea food to the noodles at the end.

I was going to first cook the noodles with the sauce in the wok...

and then add the sea food without heat...

and mix them together thoroughly.

I should have  :)

My mother cut up the green onions.

I had bought some rice noodles for this dish.

I will never cook rice noodles again.

I had mistimed the cooking of the noodles.

I had to rinse the strained noodles with water to break up the resulting glutinous mass.

These flat rice noodles had over cooked so quickly

(I know...I know...a better cook would have had no problem :)

I will stick to wheat pasta from now on.

I had all of the ingredients all laid out.

I had placed the fire on high...

and I started out with the onions.

After a short while...

I added the sea food.

After the sea food was done...

I then added the sauces to flavor the meat

(with the exception of the oyster sauce).

I had wanted to flavor the meat with the sauce for a few moments.

I then drained the juice...

and added the noodles.

Now...

I had committed two major sins of the kitchen here.

First...

I had added the cooked noodles to the already cooked sea food.

With the fire on high...

I wanted to sear some of the noodles with the oyster sauce.

I hadn't factored in that the already cooked sea food would then...over cook.

The second kitchen sin I had made was to measure the amount of sauce needed...by sight...

instead of by taste.

As a result...

the whole dish was too salty...

to the point of almost complete inedibility  :(

So...

I said to myself...

hmm...the color is not as dark as it should be...

so I added more oyster sauce...

and then a little more...

and so, I had walked my way straight into food hell.

And this is where it had gotten so salty that I could only eat a few bites of the supper.

The supper was not a complete waste.

The shishito had turned out well  :)

My mother wanted to keep the sea food in a container for later on...

and so, I picked out the overcooked, salt mine tasting, sea food morsels...

and put them in the fridge.

Although she didn't say it...

I think my mother will feed the sea food to Hana (her dog) on the morrow.

I threw all of the noodles into the trash.

Usually my mother gets upset when I do such things with food.

However...

on this night...

she only put up token resistance to my throwing away 

almost a full 14" wok full of noodles  :)

Something had happened to me on this night that rarely ever happens.

After but a few bites...

I had completely lost my appetite for the rest of the night.

In the future...

whenever we wish to eat some good chow fun...

we will go to a local Chinese restaurant.

No more chow (not so) fun for me.

After saying this to my mother...

she had actually smiled...

and agreed  :)