Update

Got an email from the HIA that I got into the Japanese language class, which is pretty exciting!! =D I'll be doing the catch-up class this semester (until Dec) two days a week for 2 hours. I am hoping that they won't spend too much time on things that I have already learnt but we will see.. 

Sam's school is having a sports day tomorrow. I get to come along tomorrow too! Really looking forward to it as I've been hearing some interesting stories about what they will be doing. E.g. dancing (that all the girls do), marching and human pyramids! O_O!

 

Sam's bento for today

Already packed my bento for tomorrow

It's Hamburg time!

Cooked hamburg Japanese style tonight. It's basically a meat pattie cooked in some sauce. The recipe I used had tofu in it, which I thought was a bit unusual. The sauce was red wine, ketchup, tonkatsu sauce and some water. The hamburg was really soft and moist and tasted YUM! Improvements can be made though... 

Dinner.. Mmmm..

Here are some photos of some of our previous dinners.

I tried a new recipe for doing tempura, but it didn't work out as I had planned. The batter wasn't crispy as it should've been. We were also missing a thermometer so it was a bit hard to tell where the oil was at. The broccoli ones were the best though!

Tempura

 We had some leftover eggplant and mushrooms so Sam made some yakitori skewers.. These were really good!

Yakitori (grilled chicken with eggplant and shiitaki mushrooms)

 Tamagoyaki - rolled japanese omelet. I really like this dish as it's not just plain egg but egg mixed with a little bit of dashi and sugar. You cook a thin layer roll it up, add some more egg to the pan, roll it up and so and so forth. Made it once or twice in Sydney after we found a tamagoyaki pan at Tokyo Mart at Northbridge plaza. The pan is rectangular with 3 straight sides and a curved edge to roll the finished product out of the pan. You can get them everywhere and for a good price! =D They're a good filler for bento!

Tamagoyaki

Tamagoyaki pan

We found a good recipe for teriyaki chicken at norecipes.com .

Teriyaki chicken

First tried tsukemen and Ichiban Boshi and loved it! Decided to make some here and it turned out surprisingly well. Braised a slab of pork belly for about 4 hours in a broth (I kind of made it up with two recipes in mind.. I hope I can recreate it =S). It was one of the tastiest bits of pork I think I've eaten! Made some marinated soft boiled eggs to go with it.

Tsukemen and gyoza

Tsukemen dipping soup

 We made dumplings (chinese style ones) back in Sydney from scratch and it usually took a while. Made some gyoza with some premade wrappers and it is SOO much quicker! These are the first gyoza we made where we randomly put together some ingredients and it was really good! Num num num...

Cook me!

Eat me!

First time... omurice..

Made omurice for dinner tonight. It is a tomato sauce rice with an egg outside. It was my first time cooking it and eating it. Had trouble doing the egg as I had the pan too hot for the first one and I think Sam's one had too much filling as it didn't wanna slide to the edge of the pan. It wasn't as tasty as I thought it would be. I was expecting it to taste really good hearing and seeing it in restaurants, dramas and mangas. It reminded me of a dish we used to get at this chinese/?honkie cafe in Chinatown, baked pork chop rice (literally translated) but not as good. Sam said that the ones he's had out weren't that great. I want to try one at a restaurant now and see if it's better.

My sunburnt omurice..

Sam's omurice

The inside

Kit Kat fun

The Kit Kats that we got have pretty cool wrappers. I've only come across two - running and bowling. I hope to find some more though! Haven't been able to get a strike on any of the bowling wrappers. It's kind of strange...

 

Running Kit Kat

Kit Kat bowling

Found another one!

Kit Kat Swimming

Costco and bolognese

Yesterday Sam and I rode up to Costco, mainly to get me a family card. It was huge and had some really cool stuff! It'd be really good if you had a car and a big fridge. They had a good range of fresh produce (cheese, meat, fruits and veggies) that were of good quality and cheap. Bought a big punnet of blueberries (about 4 of the punnets you would get in Aus) for a good price (about AU$7).

1360g packet of cranberries and 996g mini KitKats from Costco

  After church today we went for ramen again in Motomachi. It was just as tasty as I remembered! Sam cooked some spaghetti bolognese for dinner tonight. Tasted slightly different to what we usually have in Australia but still good! We forgot to buy parmesan too.. =( We received a package from Sam's parents on Friday (Thank you!) with some goodies including some (very missed) TEA!!! I've been missing my daily cups of extra strength tea.. I brought some loose leaf tea with me but we don't have a teapot yet. The invention of teabags was an awesome invention!

My much missed tea

Today's meals..

Have discovered how to set the rice cooker timer, so it is cooked when I wake up.. =) Don't know if it should be soaking for that long, but it definitely is convenient! Made some teriyaki beef this morning to put in our bentos. It is a good bento filler and will definitely be making it again.

Some other news.. I went into Kobe International Community Centre (KICC) in Sannomiya to apply for a Japanese class on Monday. I was told when I applied that it would take up to a month to find a volunteer, so I was expecting to be waiting for a while. To my surprise I got a call the next day to tell me they found a volunteer for me! I go in to KICC on Friday to meet them which is pretty exciting. 

Made some braised beef and burdock tonight. Have seen a few older ladies buying burdock roots at the supermarket and thought I'd try cooking with it. When you see it, it is a huge long (about 90cm) straight root. Was originally planning to make a side dish with it, but I have to many already. The burdock has an interesting texture as it is quite firm (even after cooking for about 4 hours). The texture reminds me of lotus root. It has a kind of woody? taste to it.

Tonight's dinner - braised beef and burdock