Delicousness: Ice Spice

My friend, Ann, and I headed to an off-base liquor store last week called Liquor Land (more affectionately known as Riquor Rand) to check out what they had. Turns out hey have pretty much everything! I grabbed this guy cause it looked interesting and it turns out it was delicious too! It is a Ginger Ale flavored malt beverage. Oishi!

Yokohamaya

One of Glenn's favorite restaurants in Japan in Yokohamaya, a ramen shop. It is a chain restaurant that we called shinshinmen for the longest time because we didn't know the name and that was our favorite thing on the menu. Now when we go, we don't even have to look at the English menu, we always order the same thing!

     "Ichi shinshinmen betsu betsu, set B to gyoza. Arigato!"
     "One spicy ramen, split with fried rice and friend dumplings. Thank you!"

It was one of Glenn's requests to go here before he leaves for deployment so we went last Monday before I went to Bingo night with Nicole. Always delicious.

Notice that Glenn is now sporting his "cruise" haircut. I gave him a buzz cut last weekend before he left for Iwo Jima. Easier when you're wearing a helmet every day I suppose!

What's for Dinner? Pantry Pizza

Glenn and I hosted a pre-party before the Badman Ball on Saturday where we made a spread of Greek inspired food. We had chicken and lamb mini gyros, hummus, curry shrimp wontons, Greek guacamole, antipasti, fruit pizza and a few other goodies.

We had a little bit of leftovers so I was trying to figure out a dinner idea that would use up some of it. We made two yummy pizzas!

The first pizza didn't use leftovers from the party, but from our pantry. First, we cut the premade pizza dough in two. On one half we used some spaghetti sauce we had in the fridge and some smoked turkey sausage that Glenn puts in omlets. We used whatever cheese we had which I think was some mozzarella and cheddar.

For the second pizza, I first spread some of the left-over hummus on the dough, then I put some chopped up artichokes (leftover from an appetizer I made for my Tuesday night class). I topped that with some of the lamb (from the gyros) and the feta cheese from the antipasti platter.

The hummus pizza was definitely my favorite- very different from pizza we usually have! I made a ginger-mint fruit salad on the side. Easy dinner and all from things we had in the fridge/pantry and party leftovers.

Kelly and Laura's Adventure Days - Ramen Museum

On Sunday, Laura and I had been planning to go to Chiba to check out the fall foliage, but another tropical storm came our way and it rained all weekend and in to Monday. Instead, we went with Plan B and checked out Yokohama's Ramen Museum and went shopping with Gizelle and Annie.

The Ramen museum claims to be the only food themed amusement park in the world, but I think calling it an "amusement park" is a slight exaggeration. I'd go with "themed restaurant with gift shop" instead.

The museum consisted of 8 or 9 Ramen shops, each from a different part of Japan. Some have seafood, some are soy based or miso based. Different veggies, noodles, etc. We went with an area of Japan southwest of here called Hakata and their raman is described as Fukuchan. This type of ramen has basic seasonings, soy sauce, seafoods, chicken, garlic, ginger and pork. They had garlic chips and fresh garlic and a garlic press so you can flavor your soup more if you'd like.

The shops were located in a scale model of Tokyo from 1958. I think our favorite part was the sound effect of airplanes flying overhead. When you walked down in to the museum they even made it look like you were walking down in to the subway.

You can see how many people they fit into this place. They even had signs for each of the shops telling you how long the wait would be. It reminded me is Disney. You could order a smaller sample size of a bowl of ramen in case you wanted to try multiple places. We decided one line was long enough and went for the regular size. The ramen was delicious and perfect for a cold and rainy day!

Busy Week & Grapes

Sorry I have been lacking on my usual once-a-day posts. It's been a busy week between my classes and meetings and appointments and after last weekend, I've been taking it easy at night.

Here's a picture I took a few weeks ago that I forgot to share.

Apparently, I have gone 27 years in this world without knowing there were multiple types of grapes. Well, of course I knew there were green and purple, but honestly, I thought it stopped there. These are some kind of grape from Japan and even though it is grape season around here they still cost about $4.00 per bunch. So for a bag of grapes like you would buy in the states, you're looking at spending about $10-$12.00. These grapes are much bigger (1" diameter or so) and had small seeds in them and were much sweeter than the grapes I am used too. My student who gave them too me also doesn't eat the skin. She says it is tough and too bitter so she eats the inside and spits out the skin. She was much better at being polite while doing this. I was making a mess all over the place.

Anyways, who knew? Well, a lot of people probably did, but now all my readers know! I wasn't a huge fan of this variety. It was a little too sweet. It tasted like that fake grape juice stuff too me. Next grape season, I'll have to try another variety!

What's for Dinner? Tequila Lime Shrimp Tacos and Spicy Black Beans

A few nights after Glenn got home, we tried this recipe for Sauteed Tequila Lime Shrimp Tacos with Mango Pineapple Salsa and Spicy Black Beans. I don't think I really need to include the recipe because holy cow, that title has almost every ingredient in it.

We made a few alterations, like omitting the mango because I would have had to go to the Japanese grocery store for that and they're expensive this time of year. Second, we only used 1 tablespoon of red pepper flakes in the black beans and I'm glad we did because they were crazy spicy as it was.We ate the black beans in the taco unlike the picture on the website which was better in my opinion because the pineapple cut the spice factor in the beans.

Overall, very delicious. I would make these again!

Lunch with Keiko

One of my favorite students, Keiko, invited me over for a traditional Japanese meal in lieu of our typical class. You may remember Keiko from the awesome tempura dinner she made me. She is a genuine and sweet person. Whenever I have a strange question about Japan, I know she will answer it for me.

Glenn was suppose to come to lunch but of course work got in the way, so my friend, Lauren, came with me instead.

Keiko did not hold back when making lunch. All of it was delicious!

• Tempura (eggplant, green pepper, sweet potato, lotus with nato filling, carrot)
• Miso soup
• Eel with sweet sauce over rice
• Green tea and mint tea
• Inari (sushi rice wrapped in fried tofu)
• Cheese cake (not really Japanese, but even better, she made it in her Magic Bullet :) )
  

Here is a picture of Keiko and I in her living room. I'm glad she decided we should sit down because otherwise I am over a foot taller than she is.

What's for Dinner? Roasted Butternut squash and bacon pasta

I only made one homemade meal for Glenn while he was home (I know, bad wife) but it seemed we were always going out or meeting people...or ordering pizza like we did on Friday night...but regardless I made a recipe from Cookinglight.com that I got from Laura. It was delicious- Roasted Butternut squash and bacon pasta. Since I totally botched the last butternut squash recipe, I thought I would try again. And don't worry, this time I definitely got the right squash.

I would give this recipe a 8.5/10. My only critiques were that the cheese (provolone) was a little plain. I think a sharper cheese would taste better because the provolone gets over powered by the bacon. Maybe a provolone, white cheddar mix would be good. If only we had white cheddar cheese in Japan. That's a big ol' negative. Laura said she uses half a butternut squash, but I used the whole thing- probably more than the 3 cups the recipe calls for but the more the better I thought. I also used more bacon (8 strips instead of 6) because, well, it's bacon and my husband is Glenn. The only other bad part was the time the recipe took. Roasting the squash takes about 45 minutes and the other prep and cooking took about an hour (but can be done while the squash is roasting). I hope you enjoy it!

Banana Peanut Butter

OMG is this stuff awesome. My momma gave it to me for Christmas but I finally busted in to it a few weeks ago. It's like if you put bananas on a peanut butter sandwich, but without the bananas. It's already in the peanut butter! I may sound as though I've smoked something or that I am pregnant, but neither is true. It's just that awesome.It tastes delicious with jelly, as seen here, or my personal favorite, on waffles. Swoon.