Happy Thanksgiving Day!

Day started off with a couple grilled ham/cheese sandwiches and when it finally came down to decide for dinner, just ended up making Kālua Cabbage for my Thanksgiving dinner. Thought about going to one of the bases to an officers' club or a restaurant for the turkey buffets they have but decided against it. Not much fun eating by yourself. Plus gotta dress good. Also toyed with the idea of a turkey TV dinner but decided against that too.

So kālua pork made last weekend, cabbage, onions and julienned ginger quickly cooked was my Thanksgiving dinner.

But have a good one to all of you out there. Will be thinking of you folks enjoying dark meat, stuffing and gravy!!!

Spam and Fried Egg Sandwich

Your regular Spam/fried egg sandwich with a twist. Growing up just fried Spam and put it in the sandwich, and ate with ketchup. But here coated the Spam with a teri sauce. Ono! Almost like a Spam musubi with bread instead.

Sauce is a kabayaki/teri sauce that I make a supply of to coat Spam for Spam musubi, or to coat Vienna sausage or hot dogs for an easy pupu or meal. Good for any kind meat. Regular use is for basting yakitori, unagi or teri beef skewers.

Pork Hash Ready To Steam

Made two 1/2 pound servings of pork hash ready to steam. One is Pork Hash w/ Lup Cheong, the other is Pork Hash w/ Hum Nyee . Deciding which one to steam for tonight. Each is enough for one meal with the leftover for another.

The pork hash has chopped shiitake mushrooms and Szechuan pickles, plus an egg, some cornstarch, oyster sauce and shoyu.

Also making crockpot kālua pork right now too. That I'll just portion and freeze.

Update - Dishes as cooked:


Pork hash lup cheong


Pork hash hum nyee

Meatloaf

Meatloaf tonight. Got some new ground beef after work to make. No sauce, just beef, egg, chopped up bread and onions, little peanut oil, but flavored with oyster sauce and shoyu. Was moist and tasty without anything else, no sauce, ketchup, or gravy needed. Actually was surprised with result!

Campbell's New England Clam Chowder

Original plans for dinner went south. Was going to make meatloaf but the ground beef I had didn't look or smell good. But had bought some of this chowder so decided to make it.

In a recent taste test I read about in the San Francisco Chronicle, canned clam chowder was blind tasted by their food panel. And what came out best - Campbell's New England Clam Chowder. Beat out all - including Progresso and Snow's - and cheapest of the lot.

It was really good! The taste panel was right! Different, real clam taste, plus unlike the milky, creamy Progresso or Snow's types. Could have a little more potatoes but still good! Enjoyed with a ham/cheese sandwich. The price per can was mentioned at $1.69 per can in San Francisco, but here from the commissary it was only $1.09! Definitely going to become a regular of mine.

Garlic Oregano Ribeye Steak

Today's my birthday so treated myself to a ribeye steak. I pan-fry it from a method I think I saw on "Let's Go Fishing" maybe 15 years ago, think Hari was just a sidekick on the show. Was some musician's recipe.

Pan-fried in butter, with chopped garlic, Hawaiian salt and dried oregano. Delicious! My daughter loves it, from the first time I made it years ago. Always still wants it this way. Cut I used to buy at that time was called Spencer steak. Garlic is burnt but I really don't mind at all.

Veterans' Day

Nothing much going on but enjoying the long weekend. Been watching college football Sunday, listened to the UH game against Fresno State, and NFL football today. Right now making Pot Roast. Probably cook something else later. Brunch today was just scrambled eggs with anchovies and fried Spam.

Lamb Chop Dinner

Simple dinner - a lamb shoulder chop smothered with garlic then broiled. Been a while since I've had a "piece of meat". Thoroughly enjoyed it with sweetbread rolls and corn! Lamb is a favorite!

Okinawan Oden 3 - Oden Chibana

Treated again by one of my foreman's wife to her homemade oden. Last time it was for Okinawan Oden 2. Again it was delicious! She must put in a little extra ingredients now so she can give me a pretty good size serving each time. I always give the foreman (I'll refer to him or his wife as Chibana-san) - Pot Roast, Beer/Miso/Shoyu Chicken, Rainbow Drive-In Shoyu Chicken, the usual stuff. Latest was Chicken Alice's Wings.

My cooking of a lot comes from cooking more than enough for one person, because if I did just for one, it wouldn't taste the same. Especially for braised, stewed or marinated dishes. So I cook for 4~6 servings, eating one serving, saving another for the next day's lunch, but give the rest away.

But I love the oden - pork shank, konnyaku, tofu, konbu, shirataki, potato, carrot, daikon, egg and chikuwa. And the jiru is terrific! What could be any better!

Okinawan "Spam" Musubi 2

This is a continuation of my first spam musubi post. Said I was going to get a chikina filled one from the same place and here it is. My breakfast this morning.

Lunch was some of last night's wings and a couple regular ume paste musubi. And brought the rest of the wings to give to a couple of my foremen. They gladly took it to eat later with their biru.

Chicken Alice's Wings

For dinner tonight I made Chicken Alice's Wings which I had written about a while ago. Only if you're an old fut like me would you remember this Korean-style chicken from the Ke'eaumoku Street area, either from a bar called "Korea House" (used to be on the Ewa end of Kamaile St. near Sheridan St. about where Sam's Club/Walmart sits now) or a plate lunch place called "Chicken Alice" (used to be near the corner of Ke'eaumoku and Kapi'olani, where the construction of Nordstrom is underway).

It is very, very delicious! Nice and spicey! Great as pupu with beer! My Okinawan friends love it! This was 2 pounds of wing parts. Will be taking a lot of it to the office to give away.

Sunday Breakfast

Just your ordinary bacon and sunny-side eggs with King's Hawaiian sweetbread rolls that you can have anytime back in Hawai'i, but oh so special when here in Okinawa.

The bacon is the thing!. There's no thin crispy American-style smoked bacon in Japan. Only from on-base. If available off-base it's very expensive. Ask Kat of Our Adventures in Japan. Japanese bacon is not smoked or cooked crisp.

Imagine a McDonald's bacon/egg McMuffin with a piece of ham instead of crisp bacon. That's what you get in Japan.

I usually cook up a whole package. To eat some then freeze the rest for BLTs, grilled cheese/bacon sandwiches,salads or whenever the urge comes and I don't want to have to cook it. Take slices I need and zap it in the microwave 10~15 seconds and it's good to go. The usual 1 pound package you find in the U.S. costs $2 on-base.

Aaah, crispy bacon!

Another musubi

Went shopping this morning and was checking out the cooked food area of San A, a department store. Saw their version of the spam musubi. So decided to try.

Regular triangle shape but with a diagonally cut piece of luncheon meat. You've probably seen those very large cans of luncheon meat whose cross section is square.

This has the luncheon meat, egg and stir-fried chikina (actually a typical dish in Okinawa cooking, usually stir-fried with canned tuna). Picture below shows the chikina better. This costs 189 yen (~$1.65). Oishii!

Okinawan ''Spam'' Musubi

I've been sick since Monday and haven't done too much of anything. A guy was sick the previous week, sneezing and coughing and then at least a dozen folks including me got sick too. But with mission requirements, deadlines, gotta go to work.

This morning I bought Okinawa's version of a Spam musubi though they use luncheon meat instead (Spam is too expensive). Size is based on the length of a Spam or Tulip (another brand) slice but squarish. So there's the slice of meat, egg and instead of furikake they put in various other things. There's that little pocket at the bend where they put most of the other filling. My foreman's wife makes hers this way. He's given me before.

This one I bought and particularly like has cooked flaked salmon. Very ono! Other fillings include stir-fried chikina - leaf mustard greens - (I'll add a picture later, I've tried it and it's pretty good too), a couple different ume pastes, and others I don't know what they are, some kinds of tsukidani. Have to bring someone with me when there's a chance.

There's also another musubi that they use a small pork katsu instead of luncheon meat. Haven't tried that one yet. Must not be that popular cause when I stopped at this place this morning there were only 3 spam ones left but about a dozen of the katsu ones. I've stopped there at earlier times in the morning and there's usually an equal amount of each.

Pretty good and tasty for breakfast. And is 150 yen (~$1.35).

But it's Friday! And I'm feeling much better and thinking of what I want to eat!