Great Time at Wakayama

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cream Puff!
One day Erin said she is going to make something really difficult and of course comparing to what I make it is always difficult. It turned out she made 6 cream puffs (she said the recipe should make like 10 but we got 6 finally)They are so good! It is bakery level (and I like to ordinary cream ones more, the one with chocolate is very rich but indeed I like them both) and Erin had a though time making the whip cream to foam... it became watery and look gross (that's why we still need to read the instructions when you are not using the brand but the same thing) ^__^

Best ever quiche, and by the way, we did eat these four months
Erin declared that she was going to make me quiche for breakfast last night and I expected that would be something like I had a couple times. When I saw her making it it looked like a pie more than a quiche.
The most time-consuming part is absolutely the crust, which took her half an hour. The content part is egg, cheese and bacon. It tastes so good and I want to make an egg custard version of it, which will be an imitation to my favorite food in Hong Kong - egg tart.
And we did eat these days - we just didn't have time to renew out blog. Our apologies for not doing our work. Here is the recipe of the quiche:
Erin's Quiche Lorraine
Mix 1 1/3 C flour with 1/2 t salt. Cut 1/2 C Crisco vegetable shortening into the flour until the mixture resembles the texture of tiny split peas.
Add 3 T ice water and combine with a fork. Quickly gather the dough into a ball and flatten into a 4-inch-wide disk. Wrap in plastic, and refrigerate 30 minutes.
Using a floured rolling pin, roll dough disk on a lightly floured surface from the center out in each direction, until it forms a 12 inch circle. To transfer dough, fold dough in quarters then place dough point in center of pie pan and unfold dough.
Gently press against bottom and sides of pan. Trim overhanging edge of pastry about 1 inch from the pie plate's edge. Flute the edge. Refridgerate while preparing filling.
Break 4 eggs into a bowl. Add 1 1/3 C cream and a pinch of nutmeg, a pinch of sugar, 3/4 t of salt and 1/4 t of pepper. Beat until well mixed. Rub shortening over pastry and sprinkle with 6 slices of bacon, crisp fried and crumbled. Then sprinkle with 1 1/3 C shredded cheese. Pour egg mixture on top. Bake at 220 C for 12 min. Reduce heat to 150 C and continue baking until a knife in the center comes out clean. (Another 12 minutes).

Taco Salad by Erin
We invited the Watanabe's to come over and have dinner with us. Erin made this taco salad which is very unique to all of us. We saved some for Makiko. These Fritos were saved for a long time and being denied from Felix's access. Finally Felix could eat it and he liked it a lot (OK it is Felix writing this.)

Welcome back at LaLantern
I came back on Sunday and was totally dried out - I just didn't feel like cooking at all.
Erin agrees that we should go dining out and there are, still, restaurants around the area we live which we never visit before.
Here comes LaLantern, an Italian restaurant we had in our 'someday we are going to eat there' list for a long time.

Salad - The thing in the center is ham. It tastes like Chinese fried pork chop to me, of course the spice used is different. Surround the meat there are some white cheese which Erin likes a lot (it is very plain and has light smell)

Pizza - We chose the plainest kind which has only tomato sauce and onion and probably basil on the top. It is a little bit dry but I like it. Note that they have a pizza stove (or oven, or concrete pizza maker with a chimney, I don't know how to say) so the pizza is absolutely Italian.

Tiramitsu - I like the beans on the cream as decoration, and the chef tried his best to explain the layers of the cake but I didn't get most of the words... sorry about my crappy Japanese....

Saturday, Sakura Day
Erin invited me to go to the place she works and urge me to bring the nice camera dad gave me.
Yes I admit if I didn't bring a camera with me I will regret that a lot. Here you go!

The sakura trees just amazed me. That's why Japanese people are proud of it... and I agree it is something they can brag about.

The camera dad gave me is awesome.

Look this is my lovely soulmate! The unexpecting breeze made her hair a bit messy, but still beautiful (If you agree please make comments... hehehe)

Tulip - not the main character today, but she is trying her very best to compete!

Sakura with Erin's hand - sweet!

Sorry for my poor skill taking picture, dad... I will do my best to improve.

Felix's coming back to HK for a while
To all mankind,
I am coming back to Hong Kong from Japan for one week (Apr9 - Apr16) for my grandfather's funeral. Please call my cell phone if you are interested in having any activity with me. I will not be able to attend church activity due to flight schedule.
All the best,
Felix

Erin's Cabbage Rolls

Oh boy you must make us to cook this for you if you visit us. That is soooooo good. The stuff inside the cabbage is mixed minced meat (with probably 100 different kinds of meat probably - kidding, mostly beef I can say) and bacon on the top (supposed to be lenthy enough to roll the cabbage but stupid Felix didn't do the right thing [It's Felix writing this, by the way]).
It tastes heavenly good though. So two thumbs up... plus two toes - my wife rocks.

Erin's Potato Salad

Okay, despite the very unappetizing adjective the Felix just used to describe this picture of the potato salad, (I will just tell you that it started with a "p" and rhymed with "Snoopy") we thought it was pretty tasty!

Erin's Scallop White Sauce Bake

Sorry about that funny name,... the recipe was in Japanese and I have no idea what the katakana word "コキール(kokiiru)" in there actually meant, so this one is pretty self explanatory anyhow! The cup it is in are something we have been collecting for months now and we have quite the stock! It is from our favorite pudding shop in Japan. (Same as the name on the cup) and these cups come with their cheese pudding. NO ONE should die before having tried that pudding!! Oh, and the stuff I baked in it was pretty good too. :)
I soaked the scallops in white wine before baking them, which made it really nice. There is broccoli in there too, but you can't really tell from this photo.

Erin's Welcome Pasta Salad

I am calling this that because I made a nice salad with all kinds of vegetables from our vegetable drawer and gave some to my two new colleagues at school. One is from Canada and the other from Michigan, USA. They both live downstairs and both just arrived this week, so I thought a nice salad would be a good thing to eat after a long day of flying! They were happy and Felix and I liked it too!

Japanese Mushroom Rice and Grilled Fish (Pike)

Wow, this was one of my most favorite baked rice dishes I have ever eaten. SO delicious! (Probably since the mushrooms were sauteed in butter before adding them to the rice! Haha)
Felix grilled some fish and it was a great meal.

Taos Tumble

Felix prepared some BBQ chicken for me and I put it into a salad. I didn't have ground cumin, so I tried using cumin seed instead- I think that is why it was a little bitter. Pretty good, though. Felix made his famous carrot and potato soup to go along with our meal. My former host family who lives in Nigawa are coming to dinner tonight, and he is making that delicious soup for them- let's see how it goes!

Erin's Spanish Quiche

Yeah, I know it is burned a little, but the middle just wouldn't get done so I just kept on baking it! And no, that stuff on the top isn't mold, it is parsley! Not so attractive, but tasted great with some tomato sauce on top.