Lazy Loco Moco

A lazy Loco Moco I cooked up. The beef patties were bought premade from the commissary though I did cook two thin patties together sandwiching a piece of cheese in between (ended up with thick 3/4" cooked patty). Topped with two sunny side eggs and with Campbell's Mushroom Gravy (to which I added more mushrooms) poured over. Was OK, can't be choosy over here, but needed more salt. No rice, ate it with King's Bakery Sweetbread Rolls.

Still searching for the best tasting canned, bottled or package gravy. Cooking small meals for myself is difficult when gravy is involved. The Campbell's is OK but could be better.

Flank Steak w/ Garlic 2

Tried serving a different way tonight and I feel it's a better way. Put the steak and lettuce in separate dishes. And tore the lettuce in larger pieces. The lettuce doesn't get wilted by the heat of the steak, so stays crispy.



Put a piece of steak and garlic on a piece of lettuce and easily wrap and pick up with fingers, dip and eat.







Definitely very, very tasty!

Flank Steak w/ Garlic

A recipe I got over 10 years ago from a Vietnamese cook. He was ahead of his time! Very popular dish on the West Coast, especially San Francisco. Called ''Shaking Beef'', was made famous a couple years ago by The Slanted Door restaurant there. Now almost everybody serves it. But I believe it is a typical home recipe cooked by the Vietnamese.

Just cubes of flank steak marinated in oyster sauce, Maggi Seasoning, sugar and a little cornstarch. Stir-fried until caramelized then a lot of garlic slices garlic are added (really a lot). Wrap a piece of steak and garlic slice(s) in lettuce, dip in a sauce of black pepper and lime juice. The difference of this version is the use of garlic slices. Also very good using baby spinach leaves. So simple, so ono!

Flank Steak w/ Garlic
Duc, Club Heavenly

1 lb. flank steak, cut in 3/4"~ 1" cubes
2 Tbs. oyster sauce
2 Tbs. Maggi Liquid Seasoning
2 Tbs. sugar
2 tsp. cornstarch
6 lg. cloves garlic, thinly sliced
oil
lettuce, coarsely chopped (or baby spinach)
Chinese parsley, chopped, for garnish

Dipping Sauce
1 tsp. black pepper/diner
juice from 1 lime/diner

1. Put meat in bowl or ziploc bag w/ oyster sauce, Maggi, sugar & cornstarch.
2. Lomi, marinate in refrigerator few hrs. ~ overnight.
3. Heat ~1 Tbs. oil in wok over high until very hot.
4. Add beef, stir-fry until browned & caramelizing, 4~5 min.
5. Add garlic slices, stir-fry another min. (don't burn garlic).
6. Serve over bed lettuce, garnish w/ parsley.
7. Wrap meat & slices garlic w/ lettuce, dip in Dipping Sauce.

Easy Lunch...

Easy lunch yesterday, just a bowl of dried Chinese imitation egg noodles that I bring back from Hawaii. Wanted to use a couple slices Spam I had but they went bad and had nothing else for garnish. So just plain noodles in S&S dashi broth into which I put some dried shrimp while heating. Then topped with green onions. Still hit the spot!

Pork Hash with Hum Nyee

Had this feeling for salty fish (hum nyee) yesterday so made pork hash with hum nyee last night. I've posted about pork hash before, here and here. It was just how I like it cooked. Not a hard patty of pork like you usually get in a restaurant but something that broke apart easily when eating. It was really ono with rice!

Soki Nitsuke 3

Made Soki Nitsuke from K&S's recipe again. Used these ribs I can only find in the San A market here. Very young rib ends with undeveloped bones that after cooking can be eaten. Very delicious! The pieces of ribs come frozen and are about 1-1/2'' long. Have to find out more of this cut of ribs.

Other stuff I made this weekend were Rainbow Drive-In Shoyu Chicken and Chinese Herbal Chicken Soup.

Corner of my lanai...

Just a picture of a corner of my lanai. There's my planter of green onion so I always have some fresh available (also grow Chinese parsley - not available locally here in Japanese markets except occasionally in the commissary), there's my 50 gallon fishtank in back that has a quickly growing school of "moons" or "platies" (along with guppies they are the rabbits of the freshwater fish world), and my connection to American TV.

It's a satellite dish provided free of charge by the U.S. to active military and DoD civilians living off-base (with no monthly fees). Since if you live on base, you get cable free, it became a quality of life issue. You have to pay for the installation though. I set it up myself and just paid a local company to tune it into the AFN (American Forces Network) satellite. If you have a local company completely install the system, it'd run at least 17,500 yen or $150. I spent about half that, mostly for the support parts.

There're 10 AFN TV channels plus 13 radio channels, compared to just one AFN TV channel normally on regular over-the-air TV. Such a delight! Was like a new world when I got it! There's pretty much all current popular TV series, sports (including ESPN), and live U.S. and World news (CNN, Fox). Plus a family channel and a movie channel.

Also a delight is to be able to tell the NHK flunky who keeps coming around to go fly a kite, that I'm not paying the so-called "voluntary fee" for Japanese TV, that I don't watch it. What a pain that guy is. But he has been showing up less freguently.

Kiawe Grill going downhill!

A note I received from a friend about Kiawe Grill:

"I went to Kiawe Grill to get Kalbi takeout. Very disappointed. First off the sides are now reduced to 14 oz., not 16 oz. and they only put 4 slices of flanken ribs instead of 5. When I got home I found that the ribs I got were 1/2 FAT...boy, are they going down hill, too?"

Sabani Revisited

My daughter and grand daughter have been visiting with me the past week. They will be leaving to return to Hawaii today. As an Aloha dinner we went to Sabani that I wrote about before. What we had:

Unagidon with miso soup (daughter had this instead of her batayaki, unagi is her second favorite)

Tempura Teishoku with miso soup and a couple tsukemono (my usual)

Udon with sushi and tempura (shared as my grand daughter is only 2-1/2, she ate udon and inari sushi).

Will miss the company and the good times, most shopping with them, buying things for Naomi-chan, my grand daughter! Especially spending time with her. Such a cutie and very smart cookie!

Didn't cook much at home. Went out a lot. My daughter had her sushi fix, which she says is better than that available in Hawaii, even at the non-expensive places here!