daily slice-of-life photo blog of a Gen-X dad
I made the family-favorite char-siu style Hawaiian chicken today. I usually do these on the barbecue, but it ran out of gas right after I put the chicken on. Not great timing. So I moved the whole operation indoors and finished them on the grill pan, and I was genuinely surprised at how well it turned out. It didn’t have that smoky barbecue zing going on, but it was still delicious. 😋
This summer, our Scotch Bonnet and Jalapeño plants have been giving us lots of peppers to eat. In fact there are too many for us, so I have been drying a lot of them out to use as pepper flakes. I am also going to try to make some chili crisp oil. I’ve found a few recipes that look good. We’ll see how it goes! 🌶️
Our friend brought us the most delicious temaki sushi to help out while Mariko recovers from her hip surgery. And as a total surprise, she showed up with taiyaki too! 🐟 Everything was so yummy, we felt so taken care of.
The everyday scene at our espresso machine. ☕️
This summer’s pepper plants are thriving! A friend recommended watering plenty and fertilizing often, and it’s really paid off. I’ve never harvested so many peppers from our Scotch Bonnet plant before, and the others are doing amazing too. I’ve been enjoying them every day, little by little. They’re super hot, but I love it. Yay! 🔥
We had a few friends over for dinner tonight. I always enjoy having them over, but it felt a little soon since we just got back and I’m not acclimated to Texas yet, physically from the jet lag and mentally from the post-Japan blues. I’m afraid I wasn’t the most lively host, though I tried to stay awake and keep smiling. After 30 to 45 minutes I was pretty much ready to check out. Oh well, that’s just how it goes sometimes.
The food was delicious of course, and I definitely had more than my share of the desserts. 🍮
For our last dinner in Japan, we went to Sushiro. This was my third time going this trip, though Mariko insists it was four (I still disagree 😅). Either way, it was satisfying and cheap, exactly what we wanted. Bonus points for spotting a cute Dokinchan in a car in the parking lot. 🍣
