Peppers are pretty

I keep it real simple when I cook. I might tell you it's part of some back-to-the-earth, respecting the ingredients world view, but it's just because I'm lazy. Every night I pick one meat and one (maybe 2!) vegetables, and go crazy with salt, pepper, and sometimes yuzu/soy sauce/miso. Tonight was some meat thing and some peppers! They're so pretty!!

Martin

BLT, no witty title required

This, hands down, has the highest ratio of deliciousness to preparation difficulty that I have encountered in my time in Japan. There's nothing like a BLT. Especially with a ton of Japanese mayo.

Still no instagram. Don't judge. The light in my apartment makes everything look clammy. People too.

Martin

Things with Sauce: A Thematic Dinner

Wednesday nights tend to be my least busy. So, I often go to a friend's house, or a bar, or consider going for a run before I ultimately decide not to. The previous Wednesday I managed to do all those things and still cook dinner.

First up is hamburgers. They're comprised of beef, tofu, lazily-chopped carrots, and other things. The store didn't actually have buns, so the bread is some roll filled with mayo and corn. As suggested by the title of this post, I made sauce!

Part 2 was supposed to be on the same plate, but I accidentally ate the hamburgers while the eggplant was cooking. Anyway, this is roasted eggplant (with miso sauce!)

I wish I could get a real pumpkin here. I really want some pumpkin.

Martin

Cereal, French Toast, Miracle

Sometimes you just miss the old country. Today was one of those days. So, I decided to reward myself in advance for all the cleaning I'm about to do.

I swear those eggs looked better in real life.

Possibly the only brand of cereal in all of Shimabara. It says "corn flakes." Apparently it's also good in salad. Nifty.

Martin

A Touching Story for All Ages

The other day I was at the supermarket, and there was a saleswoman trying to sell some sauce and noodles or something. And, suddenly, she called me over (!).

 I was very touched because it must have been scary for her to talk to a random foreigner who may or may not speak Japanese. But she did because she's very nice and she wanted my money.

 Long story short, we had a nice chat, and she showed me how to make food with the above-mentioned sauce and noodles. I felt joyful then so I bought them. And now I make them at home and it's delicious ever after.

 Don't laugh at the noodle-vegetable ration, 'kay? It tasted fine.

Martin

(Pie)ce of my heart

Kristin thinks she's so housewife-cool with her instagramed pie shots. Get out of town, gurl. I whipped this baby up with only a cake pan and a microwave. And a little love.

How about a Pie Throwdown next time we hit the lake?

Martin

Stir Fry Me to the Moon

So here's the deal. I'm obsessed with stir frying. You buy whatever the you want, put it on the stove, and BAM. It's fool-proof delicious. I love throwing stuff in the hot pan (no measuring), smelling my genius cooking, and feeling like a chef. Several of many minor variations below:

The basic blend: veggies with meat n' tofu. Martin's Kitchen Secrets #1: salt and pepper (and I think here some soy sauce and sugar) make everything good.

This is from the website "The Stone Soup," which provides easy and healthy recipes for the incompetent. It's zucchini and beef with some yuzu something substituted for the lemon. 

 Getting feisty here with some tumeric, chili powder, and cumin.

God I hate chopping. But I love when it looks profesh.

Martin

No Fridge No Problem

It's official! I have ordered my new fridge and it's on its way. At first my supervisor couldn't figure out why I wanted a bright orange fridge, but now she's jealous of how superficially quirky I am (she told someone so!).

Anyway, the intervening period has not been totally devoid of self-cooked food. It just might not have been the best food. The need to cook started when I was looking at pictures of french toast, and had a minor breakdown. I wanted it SO BAD. Just not 6 eggs and a carton of milk's worth of it.

My solution was to go to the supermarket, buy individual sized portions of various vegetables and nonperishable items, cook them all together in a pan, add some soy sauce, sugar, and mirin, and voila! The best tasting pile of vomit I've ever eaten.

Taste: 7/10 (can't go wrong with onions, garlic, mushrooms, and beef)
Difficulty: 3/10 (looks terrible, but was very easy and just my size. Maybe should've made some rice for it to go on top of....)
 
Next one up is all thanks to Jen Graham. She passed along a recipe for cup brownies you can make in the microwave. I kept it slightly undercooked cuz that's the way I like it uh huh uh huh.

Taste 10/10 (When I get my fridge I'll add ice cream!)
Difficulty 2/10

As a side note, through the brownie-making process I learned my microwave is also an oven. So much cake in my future. So many feelings to eat.

Martin

PotLuck

Martin and Debbie have arrived safely in Japan, and wont have internet for a little while, and I am on a month break from school and get to avoid preparing anything more difficult than a bowl of cereal! :D :D

I guess the blog's going to take a couple weeks hiatus. In the meantime, I leave you with some pictures from the potluck party I threw in my dormitory.

The good thing about potlucks is a lot of people bring food, and so you don't have to eat the food you yourself prepared for the potluck. The other people get stuck doing that. Ha ha! Plus, the added advantage of actually throwing the potluck means that you get to keep all the delicious leftovers.

Other people prepping food. That's what I like to see! Here we have pasta, egg plant, melting chocolate, and something green.

Mac prepares a spinach, strawberry, and fetta salad. OMG YUM.

Gorging on food. Sipping wine. Enjoying the Olympics. 

Kristin

"Rustic" Buttermilk Biscuits

I haven't been cooking much recently, but this morning I was inspired by a surprise ingredient in the family fridge: buttermilk! My dad bought some to make avocado soup, and it was just sitting there waiting to be whipped into some delicious buttermilk biscuits. I had never made these before, but when you're baking for someone with low standards (me!), I find that all you need to do is get some ingredients kinda mixed and in the oven, and you'll end up with something edible.

I used a recipe I found at food.com entitled "Southern Buttermilk Biscuits" (http://southern.food.com/recipe/southern-buttermilk-biscuits-26110).  

It was really easy and required almost no ingredients. My only problem was that I cut the butter chunks too big, so then they were huge and the dough (batter?) was really sticky and hard to work with. Also I had no circle cutter. Ultimately they looked nothing like the picture but tasted great. Case in point: you don't have to get better at baking, you just have to expect less from the results!

If I look at this picture too long, it looks like they're crawling towards me

Rating: 7/10

Prep Time: The recipe says 22 minutes, but recipe writers are always trying to impress you with their culinary skills when they estimate these things. More like 30 minutes. But still perfect as an "afternoon quickie"!

Difficulty: 4/10

Martin & Kristin Reunion Special

Martin came to visit me today at school and brought along the things he found in his kitchen pantry at home. We had assumed that all grocery stores were closed on the 4th of July, but found out later that every significant store in the area is open for business...

Anyway, we started out with simple spaghetti and sauce:

Rating: 9/10 (Kristin), 6/10 (Martin)
Prep Time: 10  minutes
Difficulty: 2/10

Preparation took hardly any time at all because although we suck at cooking, we can boil water, to an extent. It was pretty hard, not letting the water boil over, but somehow we made something edible.

Next, since we're really bad at timing and synchronizing our cooking/ multitasking. We had canned vegetables for desert:

Rating: 1/10 (Kristin), 2/10 (Martin)
Prep Time: 1 minute
Difficulty: 4/10

WTF canned vegetables. More difficult to prepare than you'd expect:

Martin & Kristin