sweet & simple with shallots

Tonight's fare is another suggestion from my friend Ginny, which I plugged into Google and then found this as a guideline for, but honestly it's pretty hard to screw up.

You getcha six shallots and a packet (or two!) of baby tomatoes. Some olive oil, salt & pepper, and a splash of white wine later, and you've got deliciousness ready in under 15 minutes!

I decided to toss the pasta in there because I didn't feel like making anything else more complicated as a separate side, and it seemed the thing to do, given there was already olive oil and tomatoes in the equation. And ho mans, those tomatoes really soak up the wine juices! I wish I'd put more in, they are like little flavorsplosions wreaking tasty havoc in your mouth.

On a completely unrelated note, curling is actually kind of a mesmerizing sport...obviously I am suffering from the lack of new Caprica eps last week.

today's adventure in foodcraft: tomato basil seafood soup

...and by "seafood" I mean "shrimp and clams" because I didn't have the patience to pick through the fish at Max Value today.

Thanks to Ginny (and I guess Boston Market) for the recipe! I'm not sure why this is supposed to be "intermediate" level - maybe because it involves more than two ingredients and no microwave?

But seriously, this is so quick and easy and simply tasty I am going to be going through EVEN MORE cans of tomato sauce than I already do. I probably account for like 40% of Kagome's sales in this town (so for those who are wondering, no, I cannot in fact get Boston Market stuff in Japan, nor would I really want to since generic garlic-onion-tomato sauce does just as well - plus, less fat content since it's non-creamy)

And I FINALLY found a locally-sourced supply of seafood what I can eats without worrying over the heavy metal content. Hooray for clams /o/ I do feel a little bad about boiling the little dudes alive, though. They never hurt nobody. But they are dericious, and in this case I feel more hungry than I do guilty.

foto trifecta

Not quite a photo-dump, but some odds & ends.

I had some heavy cream in the fridge that was gonna expire in a few days, so I decided to make some veggie korma couple nights ago. Got everything chopped up, sorted out, had the onions & garlic frying in the skillet, and then I reached for the tomato sauce. Which was totally NOT there. Too late to go to the store, and too late to stop cooking even had it still been open. Sooooo I tossed in a splash of water to disperse the curry powder and the last of my garam masala, and this is what I ended up with. Actually, I think I might prefer this to the version with cream. The snap peas and bell peppers and cashews made for a really pleasing mix of flavors c: It's nice when unexpected set-backs turn into delicious discoveries.

This town takes the usual counter-measures against pigeons and their ungodly mess (and as usual, they fail spectacularly). And yet people here seem to be remarkably accommodating towards the swallows, who make just as much of a mess, at least on whatever is directly below their nests. There's a nest above the vent on the front outer wall of the konbini near school, and the store clerks went to the trouble of putting a box beneath it to catch all the droppings. Today I was heading to the school lunch office when I heard a lot of loud chirping very near the student entrance downstairs, and I caught sight of these little guys. Judging by their size, they're nearly ready to strike out on their own, but for now they still snuggle down together while momma's away.

Finally, my latest order from Kawachi came tonight. I...couldn't help myself. But I make no apologies. This sketchbook's paper is just as good as any more "traditional" book's, and I won't brook any intolerant slurs against it.

blips

I haven't made a real picture-laden post in a while now, I think not since I put up those terrible and pity-evoking shots of my empty apartment when I first moved in and had no clutter stored up around the edges like cushy, subcutaneous fat deposits.

So here be some things:

1) wee-tiny kwabs be back in town. This one don't take no sass!
B) a gecko I found chillin' on the stairway handrail one afternoon. He'd just recently lost his tail, as you can see, little bud's just starting to come back in. He let me poke him and pet him a bit, probably thinking the whole time ohgodohgodohgod what is this horrible thing touching me please don't eat meeeeeee;

iii) a birdbatterfly. They seem to be all over Mie - I just saw one in Kumano over the weekend (I will look up their real name some day, wait no of course I won't, it can't be as good as this one I made up) They are generally not very obliging photo subjects, but this one had some flowermunchies to snack upon and keep it (relatively) still. It was the size of my hand, fingers splayed, and it was so drunk on nectar it nearly bumped smack into my head quite a few times;

and Δ) something NOT alive but flora-related, sorta, a painting I started a humiliatingly long time ago. It's going to get done and then it's going in a closet somewhere, and meanwhile I am starting a new project or two and not letting this old thing haunt me with its staleness and my failure to make it better.

Tomorrow I'm making a day-trip into Osaka that can't get too expensive, because I forgot that when Japan has public holidays, Japan's ATMs take public holidays as well; they dun' work and you can't get to 'em anyway 'cause the banks and bank-corners are all closed. Konbinis still operate, obviously, but Nicole and I have had some issues with finding Hyaku-Go-friendly stores in O-town. Helps when the ATM actually services your bank.

Anyway I am stocking up on chili-beans and diverse&sundry food-goods, for in a recent attempt to make myself some delicious chili, I inadvertently created the best Sloppy Joe recipe ever. EV-ER. No, internet, you can't have it, I'munna make a million dollars. ...Also I have to remember exactly what I did first (.__.)a

Chaahan (fried rice) tonight was in general a success (it was DELICIOUS, thanks for finally getting me the recipe, AJ!), only gum in the gears being that I tried to add some chopped bok choy to it and it weren't havin' none of that, taste-wise. Silly rabbit, bok choy is for stews.

and on the 3rd day he became ZOMBIE JESUS

Today the Easter Bunny left a basket - okay a big brown box - at my door...okay the delivery-man knocked 4 or 5 times and probably rang the doorbell once or twice but I was in the shower and I completely horrified/mortified ("horrtified"?) him by answering in my towel because gjfshkdlt I need a bathrobe. Inside the box were several types of candies, a piece of sheet music for piano, Maruchan ramen (which you can't get in Japan, but I have found that Nissin ramen is almost exactly the same stuff except it obvs does not have "Oriental" flavor packets), and Vol. 45 Issue 14 of The Onion. Apparently President Obama has been depressed and distant since the Battlestar Galactica series finale. I probably would have been, too, had I been following the show at all. I will have to pick it up sometime when Hulu is actually available in my region.

Anyway, thanks, Easter Bunny :B

Also today, I started cooking again. Like real cooking, not boil-some-noodles or fry-up-an-egg kinda "gorramit I dun' feel like eating :c" cooking. I am attempting to grow some hhhhhherbs in little earthenware pots so that I may have fresher things with which to cook in the fall, but the seeds I bought were kinda old (packaged last year), so I 'unno if they'll sprout or not. According to the internets, I may have to wait 1 - 8 weeks to find out.

Also also today, before I started cooking again, I was a spectacular dork and got to snark at comics-universe Nightwing as comics-universe Talia al-Ghul while animated-universe Nightwing got sassy with Booster Gold over shacking up with said al-Ghul crazy/awesome manipulative ho-bag and letting her convince him that the ninth Doctor of Doctor Who fame has, in fact, kidnapped and spatio-temporally dislocated the anthropomorphized embodiment of madness and mania, Delirium of The Sandman fame, the consequences of which include but are not limited to the unbalancing of the entire multiverse and Batman becoming "normal" again, i.e. not-Batman-anymore. Yeah.

As a prelude to this nerdomancy, Nicole and I drove to the Meiwa Aeon center to see "The Watchmen" yesterday, and I am pretty sure we were the only two people in the entire theater, besides the American dood sitting next to us, who could A: appreciate the historical contexts referenced by an alternate-history-1985, and 2: track and discuss the film's deviations from the comics. Then we spent a good 10 minutes trying to decide who would have better-suited the role of Laurie.

3 things

1: There need to be more women (ok and men) in the music industry and in all walks of life with that kinda attitude.

-2- Nabe (NAH-bay) is the bestest and healthiest lazy-man's dinner in the world and even though I had a big ol' clay pot fulla it last night I might just make it again.

3) A proposal for the Ministry of Education and any government body that oversees work being done in a shared office type environment: Anyone who pulls shit like sneezing into their hand and then using that hand to open a door or otherwise touch all over a piece of oft-touched office property should have 10% of ALL employee health costs docked from their current month's salary.

that last one wasn't AT ALL based on observation at my workplace, oh no of course not... (¬_¬)

Sweet, merciful Vishnu . . .

My taste buds are all a-tingle. I seriously just made the most delicious effing dinner I have ever attempted to whip up in my short cooking career.

Anyone who is allergic to peanuts or cashews or can't handle even mild spices should probably not try this at home. The rest of you who have no excuse (I'm looking at you, pigeon . . .), GET ON THIS SHIT RIGHT NOW

I deviated from the recipe somewhat in that I (1) left out the potatoes completely, (2) substituted peanuts for cashews, and (3) put in equal parts garam masala and curry powder with just a few sprinkles of chili pepper. But I'll bet the original is just as good in its own way, and any variations you may feel inspired to try out will probably only make it more freakin' tastetacular ( ☆ ∇ ☆)b