Oreo Cheesecake Fudge Cupcakes

Mix the following together. 

1 package cream cheese

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 tsp. vanila

1 large egg

pinch salt

1/4 cup sour cream

Pour into Oreo "crust". Swirl with the fudge recipe below. 

Fudge. Boil the following then whip.

1/2 cup butter

1/3 cup cocoa powder

2/3 cup chocolate chips

2 cups sugar

354 ml evaporated milk

1 tsp vanilla

Photo from YouTube

Upgrade Your Ramen Eggs

A hearty bowl of ramen wouldn't be complete without an ajitsuke tamago, that perfectly boiled egg with a golden gel of a yolk, and delicately marinated on the outside. For a long time, I thought it was impossible to cook eggs like these -- I either end up with hard boiled eggs with powdery yolks or soft boiled eggs with runny whites. Here is how to make these eggs to upgrade your ramen bowls, or simply to enjoy them on their own.

Boil enough water to cover your eggs completely. Prepare eggs by piercing them with a pin on the flatter end. When the water comes to a rolling boil, add the eggs by lowering them one by one into the water. Lower the heat until just barely boiling and start timing for exactly 6 minutes. Turn off heat, take out eggs and run them through ice cold water. Gently peel the eggs under running water.

In a bowl, prepare the marinade consisting of soy sauce, mirin and sugar, in approximately 1:1:1 or 2:2:1 proportion. Soak the eggs. Turn them every so often to coat the eggs evenly. You can soak them overnight.

Glazed Sweet Potatoes

Given the choice between potatoes and sweet potatoes, I'd pick potatoes anytime. My parents used to put chopped up pieces of orange sweet potatoes into their rice gruel. I don't doubt it was nutritious but it just didn't excite me. Until I discovered glazed Japanese sweet potatoes. Done well, these beautiful morsels had a slight crust on the outside which gives way to a soft inside. I have two versions of this and the difference is only in the sauce you toss the sweet potatoes in at the end.

For both versions you need 1 big or 2 medium sized Japanese sweet potatoes, oil, and black sesame seeds.

Glaze for version 1: Taste like apples. 
1 T sugar
1 T lemon juice
cinnamon powder
salt to taste

Glaze for version 2: Savory sweet. 
1 T sugar
1 T mirin
1 t soy sauce

Wash the sweet potatoes. Pat dry. Wrap in aluminum foil and bake in 350-400°F for 40 minutes. Cool. Chop into bite sized pieces.

Heat oil in pan. Toss the sweet potato pieces until slightly browned and crisp outside. Pour the sauce for glaze. Toss quickly coating all pieces. Add the black sesame seeds. Remove from heat and serve.

Better than Market O Brownies

I confess I used to buy those individually packaged Market O Real Brownies Original (from Korea? Japan?). At almost $2 for a small square inch piece of sweet, I only bought it to celebrate something and they were always too small to satisfy. Then I graudated to making brownies from Trader Joe's brownie mixes and you can only get a package or two to last you until your next trip to the US. Then one day I decided to make them from scratch. My neighbor said brownies are hard to mess up but that's not true. I've baked hard and dry brownies and overly sweet messes. I've made brownies that were sorely lacking in nuts. My dad likes to say all those mistakes are our tuition fee. I've paid my way to Better than Market O Brownies. 

½ cup butter
¾ cup sugar
2 eggs
1 t vanilla
½ cup cocoa powder (Dutch process is best)

⅓ cup flour

1 cup chopped walnuts

⅓ cup chocolate chips

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla. Mix in cocoa and flour. Fold in chopped walnuts and chocolate chips. Pour in parchment lined pan. Bake in preheated 350°F oven for 20 minutes. First 12 minutes covered in foil and last 8 minutes uncovered. After exactly 20 minutes take out of the oven to cool. Do not leave in the oven to cool or the brownie dries out. 

Restaurant Style New York Cheesecake

Gone are the days when I used to make cheesecake with unflavored gelatin. I got ahold of a proper cheesecake cookbook and learned how to make ちゃんと chanto (Japanese for "doing things properly") cheesecake. This is the classic cheesecake made even more tempting with tart raspberry sauce. It can be made in advance and frozen. A timeless treat sure to impress.  
Crust
1 cup flour
¼ cup quick oats or rolled oats processed in a food processor
4 T sugar
2 T butter 

450g cream cheese
1¼ cup sugar
4 eggs
2 T all-purpose flour
2 t grated lemon zest
⅓ cup heavy cream

Raspberry sauce
1 cup frozen raspberries
sugar to taste

Mix together all the ingredients for the crust and press into the bottom of a lined springform pan. Bake in preheated 325°F oven for 8 minutes or until lightly brown. Cool.

Mix softened cream cheese with sugar. Blend in eggs. Add flour, zest and heavy cream. Mix until smooth. Pour over the crust. Bake in preheated 400°F oven for 10 minutes. Reduce temperature to 250°F  and continue baking for 35-40 minutes or longer until just barely set. Turn of the oven, leave the door ajar and let cool in the oven for 1 hour or longer. Chill. 

For the sauce, put frozen raspberries in a food processor. Add sugar to taste. I like it on the tart side so just a little sugar works for us. 

Not Quite Apple Pie

Also known as apple crumble or apple crisps. If you're craving the homemade goodness of an apple pie but do not quite feel like rolling pastry, this might just be what you need. I love the sweet crunchy granola-like topping which contrasts with the tartness of the lemon and apples. Celebrate autumn with this dessert. This recipe serves 2-4.

1-2 apples, peeled, cored, sliced/diced

1 t ground cinnamon

1 T lemon juice

¼ cup sugar or taste

2½ T cold butter

¼ cup oats

¼ cup flour

¼ cup chopped pecan nuts

Toss apple in lemon juice, half the cinnamon and half a tablespoon of sugar. Spread in a baking dish. Combine butter, sugar, cinnamon and flour in a bowl until well incorporated. I use a fork and then work it further with my hands. Add the oats and the chopped pecans. Spread this topping over the apples. Bake in 400°F for 15-20 minutes until topping is browned and apples are tender. 

Pecan Addiction

Considered a nut in the culinary sense, pecans are actually a drupe or fruit with a single pit surrounded by a tough outer husk.  Before European settlement, pecans were widely consumed and traded by Native Americans. They were a natural choice of food source as they can provide two to five times more energy per unit weight than wild game and require no preparation. A rich nut with a buttery taste and texture, pecans are considered a super food high in protein and low in carbohydrates, and an excellent source of fiber, vitamins and minerals. A favorite in pies (pecan pies are traditional to southern US), pecans are also the main ingredient in pralines (candy). I have posted a recipe for glazed almonds, but our family prefers the "softness" of pecans. In this stovetop recipe, I toss pecans in butter in a wok and this results in a moister nut than the baked and no butter version.

1 cup pecans

1 T butter
1 T maple syrup
1 t cinnamon powder

Heat pan or wok. Melt butter. Toss pecans and coat. Add maple syrup and cinnamon and mix until well incorporated. Be careful not to burn. Entire process takes less than 5 minutes. Eat as is or top on your favorite breads and pastries.

If Popeye were Japanese

My kids are not particularly excited about spinach, except when I make this dish. Then, there's never enough and they fight for the last bits. So easy to prepare -- it is my go-to dish when I want to add some green to our meals.

1 bunch of spinach
1 T soy sauce
1 T sesame oil
1 T sugar (or less)
1 T ground white sesame seeds

Mix all the ingredients for the sauce in a bowl and set aside. Blanch spinach in boiling water for 20-30 seconds until just wilted. Drain. Rinse in cold water until cool. Slice into 1-2 inch long strips. Squeeze out excess water. Mix with the sauce. Serve. Good even when cold.  

Ironmom Bar

I love fruit and nut bars like Raw Bite and Nakd but only get them when they're half-priced. Then I learned how ridiculously easy they are to make. These three-ingredient bars are chewier and more pliable than the commercial bars and I found that I actually like them better that way. You can make your own variations by adding coconut chips, or cocoa, or adding different dried fruits and nuts. We take these on road trips as they keep well. I'll be seeing a lot of these in the next two years as I train for the Ironmom.  

13-15 pieces medjool dates, pitted (deglet dates work fine but I find medjool more moist)
1 cup dried fruit (I love the tartness of dried cherries and cranberries)
1 cup nuts (my go-to nuts are pecans)

Put all the ingredients in a food processor and pulse until everything is broken down fairly well and the ingredients form a ball, pulling off from the sides of the container. Transfer it to an 8x8" pan or glass dish lined with baking paper and press it flat with a spoon. It helps to use a small piece of baking paper to press the bar flat as it can be really sticky. Refrigerate. Slice into bars. 

Chicken Salpicao

Chicken breast is the cheapest cut of meat in Japan so I do collect recipes that manage to bring out the best in chicken breasts (i.e. keep them juicy). I grew up associating salpicao with cubes of beef and it is usually an appetizer or pica-pica (finger food to go with beer). For us, this is a main dish that goes with plain rice. 

500 grams chicken breast cut into bite-size pieces
3 cloves garlic for marinating + 3 more for sauteeing
3 T worcestershire sauce
3 T Bragg's Liquid Aminos 
1 T ground black pepper
2 T butter
Button mushrooms sliced (dish is still great without mushrooms)

Marinate chicken in garlic, pepper, worcestershire sauce and Bragg's Liquid Aminos for at least an hour. Heat butter in pan. Saute garlic and mushrooms. Toss in chicken but do not put in all the sauce. The dish might end up too salty. Cook until chicken is done and serve hot. 

Punjab Eggplant

Summer's here and a neighbor gives me a HUGE bag of organic eggplant she proudly harvested from her garden. I do not like eggplant. In fact when I was younger, it's the one vegetable I avoided in Pinakbet (a popular Filipino mixed vegetable dish my Dad loved). I was determined though to make good use of vegetables given to me. At the organic center where I work, we sell Tasty Bite's Punjab Eggplant. I looked at the ingredients and kind of worked out how it was made and added my own twists. Now, I find myself buying eggplant just to make this dish. It's that good!

 2 eggplants

oil for brushing on the eggplants

butter for sauteing

1 t grated ginger

1 small onion chopped

1-2 cloves garlic crushed

½ t turmeric

1 t cumin

½ t coriander

½ cup crushed tomatoes (I use half a box of Italian tomatoes)

salt and pepper to taste

chili or cayenne pepper (optional)

chopped fresh cilantro for topping (cilantro is not usually available in Japan so I usually make this dish without but it's wonderful if you have access to cilantro!)

Brush eggplants with oil. Roast for 30 minutes in the oven (roast or broil setting). Cool and peel off skin and discard. Chop up eggplants. Heat pan/pot, melt butter. Fry up onions, garlic and ginger in butter. Add the spices. Add the tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper. Simmer. If you have a Thermos Shuttle Chef, leave the pot inside until ready to serve. 

Goodbye Nantucket Cookies (Pecan Chocolate)

Every time I pass Costco's snack aisles (a dangerous place!), I feel Pepperidge Farm's Nantucket Cookies call my name. They look so scrumptious. I love Pepperidge Farm's Milanos so I know these would be just as addicting. But I refuse to spend ¥1,500++ on cookies. Fortunately, I can make cookies so good I don't feel Nantucket beckon me anymore. I know a lot of cookie recipes say the nuts are optional but in this recipe, they are absolutely essential.

½ cup butter
¾ cup sugar
1 egg
½ T vanilla
1 cup flour
½ t baking soda
½ t baking powder
½ cup oats
¾ cup chopped pecan nuts
¾ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Cream butter and sugar. Add egg and vanilla. Mix in flour, baking soda and baking powder. Fold in oats, pecan nuts and chocolate chips. Put balls of dough on a pan and freeze (After they have frozen, you can put the dough balls into a freezer bag for later use). To bake, put dough balls in a cookie tray spacing them properly. Bake in 350°F for about 12 minutes or until done. 

Vietnamese Wrap and Roll

I recently visited Ho Chi Minh with my colleagues at the organic center that I work at. Vietnam is home to these wonderful pork and shrimp salad rolls. I can eat these everyday. They are healthy and do not leave you feeling heavy.  Since I couldn't bring my family to Vietnam, I brought Vietnam to our dinner table for my family. Put some lemongrass oil in a diffuser and enjoy a gastronomic trip with these rolls.

1-2 small packs glass noodles or harusame or vermicelli noodles
200 g thinly sliced pork
5-6 T The Best Grilled Meat Marinade (for cooking the pork)
1 carrot, sliced into long thin strips
200 g shrimp
a couple slices of ginger (for cooking the shrimp)
lettuce leaves (1 leaf per roll needed)
Vietnamese roll rice paper sheets
fresh cilantro (I didn't have these and they're usually quite expensive in the supermarket so I substituted with nira or garlic chives and it worked wonderfully -- but if you have access to cilantro, these are the cat's meow!)
cucumber, sliced into long thin strips (optional)

Pan fry pork in The Best Grilled Meat Marinade until done. Set aside.

Boil ginger slices in salted water. Toss in peeled and deveined shrimps. Cook until done. Slice in half lengthwise. Set aside.

Soak glass noodles in water for at least 20 minutes. Blanch in boiling water. Cool in running cold water. Drain. Set aside.

Dip two sheets of rice paper in water until completely damp on both sides and they have become soft and pliable. Lay on a plate one on top of the other. Put a piece of lettuce on the bottom half of the paper. Layer with carrots, coriander or garlic chives, cucumber (if using), pork pieces, and a clump of noodles. Fold bottom portion of the paper over the filling and fold in the left and the right sides. Place 2 shrimp halves over the top of the roll. Roll wrapper tightly until the edges seal shut. Serve with the dipping sauces below. 

Nut based dipping sauce

2 T soy sauce

1 T nut butter (I've successfully used peanut butter and almond butter, smooth and crunchy both okay)

1 T honey

1 T lemon or lime

1 T vinegar

1 T sesame oil

dash of pepper

1 clove garlic minced

chili powder (I eliminated this to make it kid-friendly)

Combine all ingredients and blend well. 

Fish sauce based dipping sauce

You may not be a fan of fish sauce but do give this sauce a try. The final sauce does not taste too strong or too fishy and is in fact a really delightful blend of sweet, salty and sour. 

2 cloves garlic peeled and finely chopped
1½ T sugar or honey

2 T lemon or lime

1 t vinegar

2 T fish sauce

¼ cup water

chili paste or sliced fresh chili (I eliminated this to make it kid-friendly)

Combine all ingredients and mix well. 

The Best Grilled Meat Marinade

Every Saturday between 11 a.m. to 12 noon, the supermarket we go to sets up several tasting stations. There would usually be a station near the meats featuring a yakiniku (grilled meat) sauce. The ingredient list does not match the price (Really? This much for mostly soy sauce?) and often includes MSG. Then I chanced upon a priceless recipe on Cookpad which yields a really lovely sauce. That recipe included MSG. I don't know why the author felt the need for it -- the sauce was perfect without it. I keep a bottle of this in the fridge and just add a new batch with the strained old sauce.

300 ml soy sauce
100 ml sake
100 ml mirin
5 T sugar
2 T honey
¼ apple or pear, sliced in half lengthwise
8 cloves of garlic, crushed
4 knobs of ginger, sliced

Put everything in a clean jar and mix well. Screw the lid on loosely. Leave in room temperature for about 10 days to age. Mix with a spoon from time to time. After 10 days, refrigerate. The sauce tastes better with time. You can mix a new batch of sauce with strained old sauce. 

Cheapo Aussie Bites

Costco sells bite sized snacks called Aussie Bites. They're absolutely delicious but also very expensive. A simple Google search yielded a copycat recipe, but I encountered a number of problems with it: I didn't have all the ingredients. I didn't have muffin tins. I was not too excited about the extra step of cooking quinoa. And it was a tad too sweet. The fruits were already naturally sweet and honey is needed to bind the ingredients so the sugar in the copycat recipe was superfluous. I also eliminated oil as there was already butter in it. So here is my cheapo take on a nutrition packed pick-me-up snack. Making them into bars worked fine. My kids absolutely love this and kept asking for more. 

1¾ cups rolled oats
¼ cup dried apricots
¼ cup dried cranberries (copycat recipe used raisins but I only have dried cranberries and I find they add a nice tartness)
¼ cup + 1 T flax chia blend 
¼ cup unsweetened coconut flakes
(¼ cup sunflower seeds - I didn't have it for this time but if I did, I would add this in. It's still fab without)
¼ t baking soda
½ t vanilla extract
¼ cup melted butter
¼ cup honey or less (maple syrup works well too)

Pulse 1 cup oats in a food processor until pulverized. Add the rest of the oats, dried apricots, dried cranberries, flax chia blend, coconut flakes, sunflower seeds and baking soda and pulse until dried fruits are reduced to small pieces. Add in the wet ingredients and pulse till blended nicely. Press into a baking pan and make sure to pack it in tight. Bake in 350°F for 10-12 minutes until browned. Take out of the oven to cool. Midway in the cooling, slice into squares. They may feel like they're going to crumble but rest assured that when they cool completely, they will be pretty solid. 

Not Exactly Shepherd's Pie

The first time I've had "shepherd's pie" was at a children's party. Someone brought a meat-based mashed potato and cheese topped casserole and I liked it a lot. The person who made it said it was extremely easy and recited the recipe right off the bat. I made a mental note to make this dish when I have a surplus of ground meat and potatoes. What I learned as I researched more about the dish is that technically, shepherd's pie uses lamb. If beef is used, it's called cottage pie. If topped with bread crumbs, it's called Cumberland pie (see more technicalities on Jamie Oliver's 10 things you didn't know about shepherd's pie). Jamie Oliver has his own recipe with a difficulty rating of "Showing Off".  I usually like Jamie Oliver's recipes but this list of ingredients sound too alien (almost snobbish) to me. It includes shoulder of lamb, bone in (which cannot be found in any supermarket in Japan), 1 medium swede (what in the world is that?) and Maris Piper potatoes (not to be confused with Anastasia Beeverhausen potatoes). A mix of ground pork and ground beef is widely available in Japanese supermarkets so this is what I used for my Not Exactly Shepherd's Pie. A British friend remarked that traditionalists might see this strange combination of meats a violation. He might also be further horrified by the worcestershire-ketchup-soy sauce combination of many a Japanese "shepherd's pie" recipe.  But violation or not, this has become one of our comfort food. It has the difficulty rating of you-can-make-it-while-Facebooking.

5-6 medium potatoes
1-2 T butter
½ cup milk (or more)

500 g ground meat

½ -1 cup frozen mixed vegetables (carrots, corn, green peas mix)

1 onion chopped finely

4 cloves garlic crushed

3 T worcestershire sauce

1 T tomato paste

½ cup tomato chunks

1 t Better than Bouillon soup base

rosemary (not critical)

salt and pepper to taste

oil for sauteing

cheese

bread crumbs

Boil potatoes in salted water until soft enough for a fork to go through. Drain water then mash with butter. Add milk until you reach desired consistency. Add salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.

Sauté onion, garlic and meat in oil. Add mixed vegetables. Add worcestershire sauce, tomato paste, tomato chunks, bouillon soup base and rosemary. Add salt and pepper to taste. Cook until most of the liquid has evaporated.

In a casserole, layer meat, then mashed potatoes. Top with cheese and bread crumbs. Bake or use the broil function of your oven for about 10-20 minutes in 350°F or until the top is nicely browned (since most of the dish is already cooked, we're simply grilling and browning the top of the dish). Give it some 30 minutes to cool off before serving.

Everyday is Christmas Glazed Almonds

Cinnamon and maple glazed almonds spell Christmas but you need not wait for Christmas for this seriously addicting but thankfully healthy treat. So easy to make you will toss out this recipe after reading it. It's just 1-1-1 and multiply it as many times as you want. You can also use these to top a salad.

1 cup almonds
1 T maple syrup
1 t cinnamon powder

Toss almonds in maple syrup and cinnamon. Line baking pan with parchment paper. Bake for 12-15 minutes in 350°F. Cool and enjoy.

My Japanese Table's Terriyaki Chicken Balls

Not all cookbooks are created equal. Debra Samuel's My Japanese Table: A Lifetime of Cooking with Friends and Familyis one of the few cookbooks I enjoyed leafing through.  A good cookbook inspires me to get on my feet and try making new dishes. These chicken balls were quite easy to make and delicately tasty. Great for bentos too.

½ cup cornstarch or katakuriko

500 g ground chicken

½ t salt

1 large egg white, beaten until foamy

2 t grated ginger

¼ t pepper

2 green onions finely chopped

Mix ground chicken, salt, egg white, ginger, pepper and green onions. Scoop up a spoonful and shape into a ball. Roll in cornstarch. In a pot, boil the following:

3 cups water

2 t dashi powder (optional) or 1 sachet of natural dashi

2 slices fresh ginger

Drop the chicken balls in. Move them a bit so they don't stick to the bottom of the pot. Boil until they change color (to white) and float easily in the broth. Remove the balls. Toss them in the terriyaki sauce below. Serve them as is or skewered in a stick. 

 

Terriyaki sauce (I made 1/4 of this recipe for the chicken balls above)

2 cups mirin

2 cups sake

6 T brown sugar

1 cup soy sauce

6 slices ginger, smashed

In a saucepan, bring mirin and sake to a boil. Add sugar, soy sauce and ginger. Boil on medium heat for about 15 minutes or until sauce thickens. Store in airtight container in the refrigerator. It can keep for months. 

Essence of Japan Moist Matcha Pound Cake

Every now and then I get a craving for a green tea-ish dessert. The bitterness of green tea balances nicely with things sweet. This craving sometimes takes the form of a cake. Pound cakes are probably the easiest cakes to make: just mix and bake. I can make this cake in 30 minutes (including baking time!). If you hate dry crumbly cakes, you will love this recipe. It yields a wonderfully moist cake, thanks to the yoghurt. I usually make half the recipe else I get tempted to eat the whole thing. 

½ cup butter

¾ cup sugar

2 large eggs

2 T plain yoghurt

1 cup flour

1 T matcha

½ t baking powder

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs and yoghurt. Add the dry ingredients. Mix well. Pour into a lined pound cake pan. Bake for 10 minutes in 350°F. Take out and use a knife to draw a vertical line on the cake's surface. Put back into the oven and bake another 10-20 minutes in 325°F (if baking just half of this recipe, 10 minutes will do. If doing the full recipe, longer time might be required. Use a toothpick to check the doneness of the middle). 

Abunai Chocolate Cookies

Abunai. A word uttered frequently by Japanese moms. It means "dangerous" or in the imperative, "Look out!"

It also describes this chocolate cookie. It is what my neighbor said when I gave her some. One has to look out lest an entire batch is consumed without thinking. It's that good.

½ cup butter

1 cup sugar

1 large egg

1 vanilla

1 cup all purpose flour

⅓ cup cocoa

½ t baking soda

pinch of salt

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Cream butter and sugar. Add egg, and vanilla extract. Mix in dry ingredients. Fold in chocolate. Bake in 350°F for 9-10 minutes. Cool and enjoy with coffee.