Curry!

Today has been an interesting day.

It was deliciously fine, so I decided to take my textbooks (notice I say take, not lug; they are perfectly sized and hardly heavy, so I do not need to lug them up hills) to the Botanic Gardens and read them in the sunlight. I chose a nice seat in the sun...


Well, it looks much nicer when you sit on it anyway.

And I spent about two hours textbook reading in the sunlight. As well as watching people walk past and listening to the birds. It was a very productive hour in the end. I'd like to always do this to do my readings, but being in Wellington, I can't always trust the weather to permit me to do so. I'll just enjoy it while it lasts!


Then, this evening I attended a public lecture done by Ann Tickner. From the sounds of her introduction, she is a very esteemed scholar in the US. She talked to us about International Relations from a feminist perspective and about how feminist influences have been good in the IR realm. It was thoroughly interesting, I thought ^^

Aaaand, then I came home to cook another lovely Japanese recipe. A tofu curry.

Here's the recipe:
Ingredients (serves two)
300g tofu
150g beef
1 onion
1 carrot
4 mushrooms
a handful of beansprouts
1tsp curry powder
2 Tbsp sugar (mixed with 2 Tbsp water)
3 Tbsp sake
3 Tbsp soy sauce
3 Tbsp dashi stock (in water)
1 Tbsp tomato sauce

Basically, just cut everything up how you like it. Cook the onion in some oil, add beef. Cook. Add all the other veges and curry powder. Mix it all together so the curry powder coats everything. Add sugar (with water), sake, soy sauce, dashi and tomato stock. Cover and simmer for 5-10 minutes. And eat!

It was reeeeeally good.

Tofu is amazing.

The cooking adventures continue here on the Terrace.

And they are lots and lots of fun too :)

Today I made two new things. First: Onigiri. In English: Rice balls.

Onigiri are a kind of snack food in Japan. In New Zealand one could buy a savory or sausage roll. Perhaps a muffin for a snack. In Japanese convenience stores, you can purchase a wide variety of onigiri. They can come with a range of different fillings, often with seaweed somewhere. Or they can just constitute another way to eat plain white rice, except on the go. There's something very satisfying about making and eating your own onigiri, which I discovered today.

The process is simple: Cook some rice (I used sushi rice - it's stickier - I doubt long grain rice would mold the way sushi/short grain(?) rice does) cool it down a little, not so it's been chilled in the fridge just room temperature or warm. Then you put a clump of rice onto a sheet of glad wrap and using your hands mold it to shape. You can add a filling in the middle or you can mix furikake (like different kinds of seasoning) to the rice and mix it together.

The ones I made (pictured above) include: Two with a tuna and mayonnaise mixture in the middle and two which have been mixed in with furikake. They were delicious :)

And tonight for dinner I made a tofu vege soup stir fry thing.
Here's what I did:

Ingredients:
Tofu
1 carrot
1/2 an onion
2 mushrooms
clove of garlic
1/2 a capsicum
1 chili
tofu
(for the sauce)
1 cup dashi
1 1/2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp sake
1/2 Tbsp sugar

aaaand, salt and pepper to season.

Method:
1. Cut up garlic and cook in a pan with some oil. When the garlic-y smell rises, add onions. When onions are cooked, add other veges and stir fry until carrots are slightly softened.
2. Add the sauce/broth mixture and simmer for 4-5 minutes.
3. Add tofu. Just scoop it in with a spoon. Then simmer for another 2 or so minutes.

The original recipe didn't have the chili but I had one, so I just used it. Phew. Did that chili work. It was slightly painful to drink the broth part, so to those of you with faint hearts, DO NOT ADD. I though it was delicious though. Definitely something for you to try dad! The original recipe also had beef in it but I didn't have anything suitable so I omitted it.

Salmon success?

Today was my first day of semester two. Or rather trimester. But I'll stick with semester cos I'm only doing two.

I woke up nice and early because my first class was at 9am. Which means I have to leave Stafford at 8.30am. Actually, most of my days start at nine this semester, which is perfect for early birds like myself. Anyway, today I had Linguistics, Japanese and International Relations. Mostly it was all admin stuff in all of the classes but we got into the content a little and they all (although, of course Japanese will be) seem really interesting. IR is a gigantic class, like expected. The lecture theater is crammed full to the brim. There's not really much else I can say about my classes yet. Apart from that they sound like they'll be immensely interesting.

Dad: Today I bought some salmon. I did it. At the supermarket. There were two piles: salmon steaks and fresh salmon. I got a steak. Although I swear that it said boneless steaks and the other pile had bones. But perhaps I read it wrong because when I went to cook it to my horror it had bones in it :( So I was like OMG WHAT DO I DO?!?! And I kind of just got the bones out the best I could. There were still some left in but I just had to deal because it was getting to the point where I was massacring it, not merely pulling the bones out xD

After that disaster, I cooked the salmon in the same teriyaki sauce we used for the chicken in the weekend. It was good. I was a little concerned about cooking the salmon and ruining it, but it came out OK in the end.

Salmon = conquered
...
kind of anyway.

XD

Long time, no post

Back to Wellington and into the blogging spirit already!

First I'd like to say a big thank you to everyone that made my holidays awesome :) I had a great three weeks. Although it probably doesn't seem to anyone like I did much, I had a really enjoyable time. It was good to just hang with and talk with everyone again for such a long period of time. I'm missing the serenity of Palmerston North already!

As you all know, I got rather obsessed with my Japanese translating over my holiday and now that I am well equipped to cook with a whole lot of recipes up my sleeve, I am utterly determined to try my hand at Japanese cooking. As well as the three Japanese cookbooks I have from Japan, I have also built up a collection of cookbooks that are in English. From all of this, I should be able to come up with some things to cook for quite some time.

I started tonight actually. I was going to have something simple like soup and toast for dinner because I was unpacking this afternoon and unprepared to go all the way to the supermarket to get some things. So I had to look for a simple recipe that I could cook with what I had. I cooked a side dish for my dinner. The recipe was from a mini Japanese cookbook I have by Keiko Ishida. It was a recipe for pumpkin but I thought it looked good and decided to try it with kumara instead. So this is my version of the recipe. I adjusted the ingredients a little accordingly.

Simmered kumara
Ingredients:
1 kumara
150ml water
2 Tbsp sugar
1 1/2 Tbsp mirin
1 tsp soy sauce
toasted white sesame seeds (to taste)
salt and pepper

Method:
1. Cut up kumara into pieces about 2 x 3 cm.
2. Put kumara, water and sugar in a pot, cover and bring to the boil. Simmer for 2-3 minutes.
3. Add mirin, soy sauce and season with salt and pepper. Reduce heat and simmer for 5-10 minutes or until kumara is cooked and most of liquid has reduced.
4. Serve and garnish with sesame seeds.

This tasted good. And it required me to toast sesame seeds too which was a little scary. But they are much more tasty now.

And I had this with a gigantic bowl of rice and egg :)

Sweet relief

I've never been so glad to have my exams over.

Three hours of torture. Resulting in one very sore hand but also one very happy Erin. I'll think about the results when they come.

For now it's time to par-tay!

Or in my case, lie in bed and watch movies with lots of chocolate all night long.

Heaven!

bing bong

Days are ticking by at the moment. Wake up. Eat. Study. Procrastinate. Eat. Study. TV. etc etc.

Oh oh! Strawberry Fare totally has a website! Have your taste buds tantalized... http://www.strawberryfare.co.nz/welcome/ ;D If you will notice there are actually only like 4 mains. Mmmm. Dessert....

Really looking forward to getting a visit from mother dearest tomorrow~ I've been looking forward to it all week! I'll probably discuss when I'll be back home then as well. Cos I'm really looking forward to being home for a while! Although I'll probably be back and forth a little - Maja's having her party on the 3rd in Wellington and also Luca is leaving on the 28th and I want to say goodbye to him and paint him a picture cos he always comes in and admires mine.

Here are some of the sticker photos I've taken here in Wellington. Originally Ryan and I thought there was only one machine, but there are actually two. Both have their ups and downs. One is probably a little better for decoration but you have like five seconds to decorate them so it's really stressful!

Me and Ry-ry. Taken on the 2/06:Me and Maja, taken on the 14/06:

So Claire, and Alice? We are doing that when you're down. Timezone is a bit of a dodgy place... But it's totally worth going there to do that~! Besides, it's only dodgy later on in the evening... near the weekend.

I made chili con carne last night for dinner. And it was really good too! With some spinach on the side. Yum yum chili beans (not mince, I'm saving that for another meal) on toast for breakfast this morning too. I like beans. They have a pleasing texture :)

Love Erin

Strawberry affair

Sunday is here.

My weekend has been fairly fabulous so far. Lots of socialising and relaxing.

Yesterday I went to have coffee with Momo (Ryan's Japanese language buddy) and I had a really good time too. At first we spoke mainly in English but then she started talking a bit in Japanese - she knows that my listening is quite good - and I even managed to pluck up the courage to speak a bit of Japanese with her. We went to that supermarket you told me about a while ago grandma, Moore Wilsons. It was really big and there were heaps of things there quite a few Japanese goods too, cheaper than other Asian shops but still expensive in the scheme of things. But I guess that can't be helped. She also lent me a Japanese magazine of hers.

Yesterday was Vanessa's birthday! Her sister is visiting at the moment. It was a surprise visit and Vanessa knew nothing about it. She was pretty stoked when she showed up. I think her sister is 24, and I'm not entirely sure, but she might be a teacher. Anyway, we went out for dessert as a celebration. I have been introduced to the best place for dessert in the world... It's called Strawberry Fare and is like a normal restaurant. There is one page for mains and starters and then two whole pages just of desserts. The selection is amazing! We all shared ours because they are quite large and about $16-20 each. I got a banoffee pie with Helen. It was amazing~

This is the one I had:

This is another; hazelnut caramel torte:

And Luca, finishing everyone's leftovers...

Basically, it was a very magical place :)