kelseydo The Internet

The internet is an amazing distraction from real life. Social media was really invented to help us think that we are doing something productive while on the internet. Here are my last couple weeks on the information superhighway-on Instagram, twitter, Pinterest and my new tumblr account- to see how productive I’ve been.

My week on instagram

Kimchi Nabe with Penny & Matt

Raw Daikon dish at Acorn on Main Street

Messing around with Amanda & Yoko at Gelato on Robson Street

Mancakes for Nick’s birthday: in rum & coke, breakfast, wine, apple camembert and more flavors

The moustaches came out for Nick’s birthday party at Colony bar in Kits

My week on twitter

1. Nick’s Birthday!

Happy Birthday @NickCarota xoxo pic.twitter.com/7vRPyEoGNL

— kelseydo (@kelseyjanewood) March 21, 2014

2. Trying to win tickets to Sakura night at Tojo’s Japanese restaurant

Win a pair of tix to @OfficialVCBF’s #SakuraNight with #Vancouver’s best Japanese chefs via @VancityBuzz http://t.co/JfNBYrmeyy RT to enter!

— kelseydo (@kelseyjanewood) March 17, 2014

3. Debating going to a public pillow fight at the Vancouver Art Gallery

If it’s your first time, you have to fight at the 9th Annual #PillowFight on Apr 5 at #Vancouver Art Gallery http://t.co/wNoa0LGOYZ

— Super Vancouver (@supervancouver) March 16, 2014

My week on Pinterest

1. Must-make: Chicken Avocado Lemongrass Salad

2. Must-have: Hipster Pillows

3. Must-try: Yoga for runners

My new blog project is called Say Hello to my Little Friend. Please visit this link to see my latest posts: ohhellolittlefriend.tumblr.com

Productive? I think not. Creative? Maybe. Distracting? Definitely.

kelseydo cooking with mom

One of the best things to do during the holidays is to spend time in the kitchen with friends and family. My kitchen at home is so small that Nick and I are always elbowing each other when we both want a snack. I hardly ever cook at home, Nick is an amazing chef and is constantly stocking the freezer with homemade breakfast burritos and preparing gourmet dinners for me.

I always thought the BCL’s Taste magazine had some delicious looking recipes and finally decided to give some a go. Luckily I had my mom’s expertise and incredibly large kitchen to work with!

We made two recipes: Chili Shrimp and Cauliflower ‘Couscous’

The Cauliflower ‘Couscous’ is a mediterranean style dish which replaces the grain of the dish with cauliflower. I like the cauliflower substitute trend- for mashed potatoes, pizza crust and especially Kraft Dinner (Smart?) .

You start by adding 1/2 a teaspoon of cumin seeds and red chili flakes to some oil in a pan, once you smell their nice aroma start browning the onions in the same pan. Add red peppers, apricots, raisins and cauliflower. Raise the heat and stir, lightly browning the cauliflower. Sprinkle with Sumac ( we used lemon pepper & paprika), pistachios, mint and cilantro. Mix well and serve warm.

Saute cumin seeds and red chili flakes until fragrant

Use a food processor to get the cauliflower looking like couscous, or just chop finely like I did here. Apricots, raisins and red peppers mellow out the spicy flavors of the red chili flakes.

Raise heat to medium-high and turn often until cauliflower is lightly browned

For the Chili Shrimp we let the pound of prawns sit in 3 cups of water with some salt for an hour then drained them and placed them on the paper towel. In a small bowl mom mixed 2 tsp Sriracha sauce, 2 tbsp of ketchup, 3 tbsp soy sauce and 1 tsp of sugar. I heated up the pan so it was piping hot and put in a little oil. Add the shrimp and cook til just pink.

Toss in a splash of sake and then remove the prawns from the pan to a nearby plate. Add a bit more oil to the pan and then fry a couple cloves of minced garlic and 2 tablespoons of chopped ginger.

Now you had that Sriracha mixture and the prawns back into the pan. Cook for one minute, remove from heat and top with parsley to garnish.

You can add other things like red peppers, green onions or jalapeño peppers.

My co-chef (mom) and our guinea pig (dad) trying the goods with a bottle of Gewurtztraminer (recommended in TASTE)

The final product! Chili Shrimp and Cauliflower ‘Couscous’

kelseydo Gion Matsuri

Last week I got a chance to visit Kyoto’s biggest and oldest festival, Gion Matsuri! It is a month long event but the most popular evenings are the nights of the 15th, 16th and the day of the 17th for the parade.

This is the only event where I felt like as a foreigner I was encouraged to wear the Yukata, the light-knit cotton/linen robe that is more casual than the Kimono. It was really fun to wear out on the town. I felt like I was wearing my bathrobe outside. My friend Chika told me that a long time ago the Yukata was only for use in the home for bathing so I was right to feel this way!

Beautiful Bow

Getting dolled up

Yukata on!

Luckily we had Yuko-san to help us get our Yukatas on properly and to tie the Obi into a perfect bow!

Alex wearing my ‘drinking jacket’

Daniel showing off the artwork on his Happi

Alex, Haruna & I

Daniel and Haruna

Waiting for the Randen

Escalator shot

Faces on the subway

It was really busy once we got downtown! There were people everywhere. Apparently tens-of-thousands of people go each night. All the main streets were closed down and there were a lot of food stalls, souvenir shops and the parade floats were all lit up with music playing.

Megumi & I at Shijo Karasuma[/caption]

Food stalls

Dessert!

Marcus enjoying some snacks

Haruna digging in- not too sure what this is called but it’s an egg with sauces on a giant squid cracker

As usual, the food was one of the main events for us- we had to try everything!

Streetside bar

A lot of people were enjoying their beer in the street, there were even little cocktail shops set up on the side of the street like this.

We were lucky enough to get up close and personal to a few of the parade floats.

Lanterns

More Lanterns[/caption]

Giant float including full size tree

Marcus and Daniel enjoying the view from a float- the ladies weren’t allowed on this one

We got to take a tour of this one while they were playing drums and singing inside of it but of course- no photos!

And then more food…we were on a mission for frozen bananas! It was a very hot and humid night.

Candy apple

Takoyaki- fried octopus balls (Mom’s favorite!)

Lanterns everywhere!

We found the mysterious frozen banana!

Banana Kanpai!

Beth loves waffles…on a stick!

This guy…

The gang!

All in all it was an amazing night! I wish I could have gone again but unfortunately it was right in the middle of all my final exams for school.

Gion Matsuri can’t be missed!

[youtube http://youtu.be/iCcSZhu5iyM%5D

kelseydo Nikujaga with Megumi-chan

This is the meat-and-potato stew of Japanese comfort food. We had quite a thunderstorm today so it was nice to have some mid-summer stew.

My friend Megumi came over to show me how to make Nikujaga, a very simple and delicious dish. Megumi is coming to visit me in Canada in about a month so I decided to show her pictures of wildlife in Canada: Moose, Grizzlies, Killer Whales, Cougars; just to scare the crap out of her before she comes! Of course I doubt we will get to see any of those animals. Hopefully Killer Whales! The rest I am happy to see in photos rather than real life. Anyways, Nikujaga.

Ingredients

Chef Megumi

All you need to make the dish is a little oil, dashi, soy sauce, sugar, salt, carrots, potatoes and pork. We also needed a little sake but I didn’t have any open bottles: if you can believe it. I’ve seen other recipes that call for green beans, shitake mushrooms and use beef instead of pork as well.

Fry up the meat with a little oil

Add the veggies

Add water, then seasoning: dashi, soy sauce, salt, sugar and sake

Cover the cooking meat and veggies with baking paper to seal in the steam and to ensure uniform cooking and flavour

Ta-da! Nikujaga….

Itadakimasu!

kelseydo yakisoba

Yakisoba is a fried noodle dish that is super easy to make, really cheap, nutritious and delicious. Also, the grocery store near my house: Gyomu, practically caters to making this dish with its perfect packaging and  great deals. It’s also something I can easily make once I return home to remind me of Japan! It’s not a very authentic way to make it but it’s still really delicious.

Ingredients

I like to use eggplant, spinach and red pepper to get a lot of colour in the dish since the soba noodles are kind of a dull brown colour. Soba noodles are made of buckwheat, which despite the name, is not made of wheat at all-it is more closely related to sorrel or rhubarb. It’s safe for people to eat who have celiac disease or gluten allergies. 

It comes in these really convenient one portion bags and it is already partially cooked so its ready-to-fry. You can also buy raw soba noodles and boil them for a few minutes before adding them to the mix but they are finicky to get cooked right for this dish. The bags are 15 yen so it’s actually a lot cheaper than buying the raw soba noodles.

Soba

I fry the chicken first, in sesame oil with some garlic powder and chili powder. Once it’s cooked on all sides I throw in the chopped up vegetables.

Frying up some goods

Once the vegetables are almost cooked I add the noodles straight from the bag. The trick is to add two heaping tablespoons of Tonkatsu sauce on top of the noodles before you mix them in so that the noodles don’t stick together too much. You might also want to turn down the heat a bit when you first add the noodles as well. Once the noodles are cooked, only after a few minutes, it’s done! Whew, that was easy.

Add some sesame seeds on top. It tastes good, it’s healthy, and it always makes a dish look pro.

Voila

This isn’t really the most beautiful looking dish but it really is delicious. AND did I mention cheap?