Friday, January 8, 2010

Homemade, Homegrown food New Years

For New Year's we had some Homemade Mochi(pounded rice cakes) toasted for...
Ozouni:Bonito & soy sauce based broth with mitsuba(Japanese Wild Parsley), carrots and a variety of mushrooms. Homemade, but not homegrown.
Japanese style New Years dishes. Normally there's sashimi served as well, but this year we decided to keep it in budget. Front left dish: Kohaku Sunomo (Daikon Radish and Carrot julienned and seasoned with vinegar, sea salt and agave. Front right dish: Kinpira Gobo (Burdock root and Carrots julienned, sauteed with soy sauce, sake, agave and sesame oil), In the back on both sides are bowls of Ozouni mentioned above, and the back middle dish is: Nimono(Lotus Root, Daikon, Carrot, Burdock and Peas simmered in Bonito and soy sauce base. The peas are homegrown.)
This is Furikake: a condiment for rice made from shaved Bonito flakes, sesame seeds, nori(seaweed), and aosa(another seaweed). The New Year's dishes required a lot of Bonito broth, so this Furikake was made from the flakes that had been boiled once to get the broth flavor. Using the "discarded" bonito flakes means no waste! Soy sauce and agave were added to flavor this, and heated in the wok until it was dry.
Guacamole for one of the dinners. The avocado was a trade with our mandarin oranges. Yum!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I know you don't know me, but can I come to your house for dinner?

Gwen said...

Your food is so beautiful! If you wrote a cookbook, I would buy it. Definitely.

AJK said...

Thank you Marisa! It's so cute that you invited yourself over for dinner! Our meals are simple, something that doesn't take hours, but still nutritious and filling. Often times it gets mundane, same stuff every few weeks....

Thank you Ginger! I'm not a chef, but it's an honor for you to say that! I'm slowly learning about Japanese cooking from my Mom, I hope to keep up the traditions of simple, yet delicious foods. She never had a "recipe" it's all by taste, "a little bit of this and a little bit of that, oh and dash of this."