ZOMG OKONOMIYAKI

Why hello everyone!! I am very excited to show you these pictures of my new recipe off the list! Okonomiyaki is one of my favourite Japanese dishes EVAAAAAA! Okonomi means 'whatever you like' and yaki is 'grill or cook'. Shiho came over on Sunday to offer her Japanese cuisine expertise, and here is a picture-heavy post detailing almost every step of the way :P 



cabbage (i used wombok)



spring onion

 

Shiho mixing the batter. We made it with 1 cup flour, about 1 cup Dashi (or you could use water), and 1 egg. You can also buy a batter mix at an Asian Grocer but we couldn't find it *frown*

 

heating up the teppan. Josh bought me this - what a sick dude :D

Cooking the yakisoba noodles. We found a $2.16 packet of yakisoba complete with yakisoba sauce at Safeway - enough to make 2 hiroshimayaki! crafty consumers!

the batter was a little thick the first time - needed more dashi!!

amazing photos by Corey - you can see the steam!!

On goes the cabbage!

In Japan they have super super thinly sliced bacon and pork but we couldn't find any so we chopped up some normal bacon cuts :S I jokingly called this Australia-yaki because of how improv it is.

bacon goes on too! i was looking for kim chi but the asian grocer was SOLD OUT!!! wtf

crack the egg

scramble it

now comes the tricky part. Watch me fuck this up....

scooping the filling back in. God i hope no okonomiyaki chefs are seeing this... how embarrassing...

on goes the infamous brown sauce. Okonomi sauce

then the kewpie mayo

then the spring onions or "negi"

then the fishy flakes. I call them bonito flakes but Shiho calls them Katsuobushi. We are both right in a way because bonito is the name of the fish (Skipjack tuna) which is dried and smoked and then turned into flakes called katsuobushi :) 

oh... yes... then we taught shiho some swears. She spelt this out on the fridge - cho kawaii!! I then corrected her and she won't stop saying it.. haha! Also she found out a worse one.. starts with 'c'... oh dear!

With the left over batter we made an osaka style one because we had no more noodles. This only has cabbage and spring onions in it but you can put anything!

oh yeah, then we went on the roof!

What a fun day :) Next I want to make sukiyaki - another of my favourite Japanese dishes :D mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Sunny Sat'dy with Leonard Cohen

Hi Everyone! Dunno about you guys, but I had such a nice weekend enjoying the lovely sunshine on both days! On Saturday I started off at Josh's place and he wanted to show me his garden! He is from here on to be known as "the courtyard farmer". He is showing me his desiree potatoes... that is not a euphemism...

Then after hanging out at his place, we went to Hanging Rock with a picnic to see a concert. His mum got tickets for him for his birthday - and i got to go along! If you haven't heard about 'Picnic at Hanging Rock'... it's this creepy movie. I haven't actually seen it... but i assume it is creepy... 

It was a really nice day! We were running late and missed Clare Bowditch and Dan Sultan, but we saw Paul Kelly and Leonard Cohen. Very chilled out day! We had a little picnic and listened to the tunes....

Biatch in the pink Akubra hat wouldn't stop dancing. And i'm talking inappropriate sexy bedroom dancing. And she was about... 50 years old and not the slimmest of creatures, her husband seemed rather indifferent to her behaviour. Everyone was yelling "sit down" at her but she kept on dancing, red wine in hand. At the end of the night there was some of that red wine all down the front of her white shirt too. Josh's grandpa was with us and his claws came out and he called her a 'fat bitch' OUCCHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!! it was pretty funny though!! Here's Josh...

I bet you don't know what that says :P Maybe Shiho will know ^_^ Let's just say that it's the title of a song by Air and it plays in my head every time I look at Josh hehe

That was our delicious picnic of wine, dips, cheese, fruit paste, bruscetta, and vietnamese rice paper rolls. Was great! Leonard Cohen read this poem aloud, and it was the best spoken poem I have ever heard. He is a genius.

It was just a shame how the night ended sort of. We were told not to drive there, but instead to get a V-line train and then get a free shuttle bus from Woodend Station. Well, it all seemed like too much hassle so I drove to woodend and parked at the train station and got the free shuttle from there. The driver said that at the end of the night he didn't think we should meet the buses at the drop off point, but instead at the other side of the venue. When the concert was finishing, we asked a staff member who told us definately to go back where we were dropped off. So we did, and we waited about 45 mins with a bunch of about 30 people. Then we found out that in fact we WERE meant to be at the other side of the arena so we circled it on unlit dirt tracks, stumbling through the freezing night air. I thought we really were going to get lost. The most disconcerting thing was that for every one of us walking towards gate 6, there were about the same number walking back from there.... but they were looking for a different bus. 

So we got to Gate 6 and saw a SWARM of drunk and angry people. Leonard Cohen soothed us with his peaceful words and then public transport dissipated whatever happiness there was. I should have taken photos. Anyway we waited in that crowd for a while and eventually at about 11pm or so we got pushed onto a bus. On the hour drive from Woodend back to Josh's I was sleepy so we stopped at Maccas to get a coffee. But then i couldnt sleep when i got home hehe! Oh what a night!!

DIY Bungalow Makeover

Well you all know I love a good DIY makeover, and boy have I got a good one for you! My friend Bec recently moved house with her mum and luckily there was a Bungalow out the back for her to call home. The only problem was that it looked like this:

Le Bachelor. No problem! All they had to do was go to IKEA and add some nice finishing touches and VOILA:

Those white boxes are great storage solutions - i need to get me some! It's such a nice little zone, very relaxing and pretty! If there was a kitchen, I totally would have been convinced I was in an IKEA display!! Needless to say I'm quite jealous of her little space, I wish I had something like that when I lived at home!! My brothers and I would have fought each other to the death for it. But one day my house will look as chic as this :D all I need are polished boards instead of my terrible blue carpet!! eeeeeyuckk!!!

two new recipes :)

Yikes, I am so behind!! I haven't got much to say about these two recipes I cooked last week, but here are some pictures. This... is damper:  

Tasted like a giant scone. Was not what i thought. Maybe it would be cooler if i ate it while camping in the bush...? But it was nice with just plain butter on it. meh.  Ok next, i made a Donna Hay Orange and Poppyseed Cake which had a nice orange syrup on top...

It was gooood! Really sweet and dense! So, those are dishes 22 and 23 folks! I am slowly getting there!! Weee-hoooo!! This is fun :)

double date *wink wink*

ZOMG hello everyone! Please lower your weapons, do not shoot! I repeat: do not shoot! I have been totally busy lately, which is why most of you are sick of seeing papayas by now. Some of the reason I have been busy is because I have been catching up with people I don't get to see much, and emailing Shiho heaps too :)

 

Firstly, last week I went out to dinner with Shiho to Tomodachi Japanese Restaurant, because Tomodachi means 'friend' and also because they have the best Takoyaki (which I call Tako-yummy - which Shiho thinks is hilarious!!) around. We were there for HOURS, oh and the waiter was so cheeky. For starters, we kept taking forever to order so when we were finally ready to order he said "Well I'm not ready for you!!" and walked off! Shiho looked so shocked. Then he came back thinking he was really funny. Then when we had just gotten our meals he walked over while we were eating and tried to take Shiho's plate away to which she giggled and said "no no no no no!" with a mouthful of food. She said that in Japan, nobody would ever do that. Haha! Now that I think about it, it doesn't really happen here all that much either!  

Shiho! She taught me how to say "very cute" in a more casual way than i normally speak: "totemo kawaii = cho kawaii" chooooo awesome!

They boasted the biggest Ramen in Melbourne. Yes, it was big. But Ajisen Ramen tastes yummier, fu fu fu! 

Anyway, as I said we were there for hours and talked the night away about Food, Japan, Australia, Movies etc. I told her she has to watch Kill Bill and hear Uma's japanese hehe :) She told me about a teen favourite of hers called "1 litre of tears" which involves a teen romance and a terminal illness. She is also fascinated by the concept of veganism and wants to go to the Vegie Bar! One more fun fact about Shiho: she cannot really distinguish between Italian, French, German and other European accents. She can pinpoint most Asian languages, but not English based. When I said that I thought French sounded beautiful, she said she thought English was the coolest sounding language :) Aww Shiho (^_^)

 

Also in that week I caught up with my old mate Sacha! This is her outside her new place:

You may remember her from the Good Guys ad, or perhaps 'The Hollowmen' (the ABC political sitcom) or even from an earlier post on this blog? Well if you haven't been keeping tabs on the cute Sri Lankan girl popping up here and there on TV, make sure you watch Episode 1, of Season 5, of CITY HOMICIDE next year! She will be playing the part of the victim, and I'm not going to tell you the strange and perverted way in which she dies - you'll just have to find that out for yourself!! The coolest part (for me) is that there will be photos of me in the episode.. unless they end up on the cutting room floor! Sacha had to supply heaps and heaps of pictures of her with friends which could be used as props in her character's bedroom. Apparently there were 2 photos of me - so I had to sign a release form! And she thinks one of the photos was next to her hand as she was writing in her diary - potentially a close up shot! Watch out world, here comes JADE! 

 

Yeah, so while i'm still not famous, I suppose I'll just keep blogging. Here are some pics of Sacha's cool house and her creepy druglord neighbours drug sheds...

Drug Sheds. She said one morning the cops raided the house and were yelling stuff like "cut open the mattress!" haha

Sacha's bedroom. She consented to me showing this, I swear. I was pleased to see Twilight there! Although her housemate's name is Edward so that could lead to some conflicting emotions... 

Weird Glasses/Nose man coming through the wall. I like it. Okay?

Yeah so we hung out there catching up for ages and then wandered down to a nice local Lebanese eatery and got this $14 vego platter to share. It comes with a heap of lebanese bread - good value IMO! We also ordered some little extras for like $1 each, it was quite the feast!

Delicious! Well there you go! I did have a third date last week but I am running out of time to explain it all so I will do a seperate post :) I hope you enjoyed this mini catch up, I promise to write lots soon :)