daily slice-of-life photo blog of a Gen-X dad
The weather is too warm for mid-November but that’s not going to stop us from enjoying a cold-weather favorite: nabe (hot-pot)! Tonight’s had hakusai, Korean noodles (like udon, but not quite as thick), chicken, and mizuna. So light but flavorful and yummy!
Mariko has been working on her baguette recipe, and while I don’t think she has found the baguette that she is 100% satisfied with, in my mind, these all are at least in the 85% area. Because of all the testing, we have a surplus of baguettes to eat… I tend to snack on baguette with butter throughout the day, but Koa has to have his sandwich for lunch, and the photo above shows what he likes: meat, cheese, pickles, and definitely NO mayo.
🥖❤
It was Taco Tuesday at the Fujimoto house! This time, we had carne asada from Trader Joe’s. It was yummy!
And before we feasted on tacos, we pre-gamed it with some Espolòn tequila. A combination for the ages. 😄
For several years I’ve been mentioning to my family how I used to always order Cherry Vanilla ice cream as a kid when we went to the Thrifty drug store. Since I have not been able to find it anywhere we have looked (and I do always check), they doubted that the flavor even existed and insisted that I must be making it up or imagining it. They even suggested that I should just have Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia, which is NOT THE SAME THING! Cherry Vanilla is simply vanilla ice cream with Maraschino cherries added… perhaps too simple a thing for today’s world.
Well, at a recent trip to HEB with Koa, I spotted the holy grail… Cherry Vanilla ice cream! Frankly, I was a bit stunned. And when I showed Koa, he was also in disbelief. 😃 With a huge smile on my face, I quickly put a container in the cart, snapped a photo and sent it to Bay and Mariko. At long last, I felt as though I had been vindicated.
The ice-cream was exactly as I remembered: simple and delicious. The brand (Blue Bell) might be different, and it’s not the fanciest of flavors, but it brings back good memories of getting 10-cent scoops from Thrifty as a child, which is special. 🍦
But the story isn’t over yet because there is a second flavor of ice cream that I am still searching for: Lemon Chiffon. Someday…
Here are a few photos of some oysters and hamachi (and buri) that our friend’s prepared for dinner. It was amazing! The buri is just a different part of the hamachi, and it was sliced thin so we could enjoy it in a nabe (hot pot).
You know, this is all food from the sea, but it would be weird to call it “seafood”. When I think of that word, my mind pictures Red Lobster and fried food. I wonder if others feel the same?
Anyway, I hope you had a good day!
Two Kegani crabs that we ordered arrived from Hokkaido (we picked them up from our good friends’ restaurant) and we prepared some sashimi from the legs, and then steamed the rest. It was interesting (and a little painful) to cut up but they were delicious and I enjoyed the new experience. I’ve only had live crab once before, back in Osaka when I met Mariko’s dad for the first time. We went to a “sunakku” which is like a bar that also has food/snacks, and the owner prepared the crab in front of us.
Mariko and I watched this video beforehand, and simply mimicked what he did. It reminded me of the time we took an oyster-shucking class. It was messy, wet, and smelled like the ocean. I thought it was great! 😀 And the kegani crab tasted excellent, by the way.
I hope you had a nice day!
My brother sent me a recipe for parboiled baby-back ribs a few months ago, and we liked the results so much that I’ve made them three times already! The first time, I used a plain barbecue sauce for the marinade and dipping sauce, the second time I used a Jamaican jerk rub (Walkerswood), and then this time I used a mustard-based barbecue sauce. All were good!
I found out later that parboiling ribs is considered blasphemy to many people in the barbecue community, who say it robs the meat of all flavor. I’m sure parboiling must take a bit of the flavor away, but it’s probably something like bringing it down from 100 to 90 on the flavor scale, and the advantages far outweigh any flavor loss in my opinion.
The ribs are fall-off-the-bone tender, with no gristly, chewy, or rubbery bits. I’ve tried many recipes before, including baking and grilling, but this parboil/baking has turned out perfect every time, and it is so easy – you just set it and forget it. Here’s the simple process:
That’s it! There’s plenty of room to make it your own (for instance, lessen the baking time if you like the meat less tender) so why not give it a try?
