Cooking catch up! From Japanese to Western!

I'm going to be making up for my blogging absence of recent times! :) Hence the double entries in one night!!!

Last weekend was full on cooking *claps*! I had some of my old girlfriends over for dinner, and what's really unique about our bunch is that

1) we never fail to arrive late,
2) never fail to COOK AMAZING food
3) Always cook enough to feed an army,
4) have more courses than people at dinner :)

We always have way too much food but that's what I love about it - everyone seems to always be able to throw something tog really quite amazing! The theme was "Japanese" - see pictures below.



On Sunday (the same weekend), our cell had a BBQ. Adrian and I made a roasted vegetable, with bacon and chorizo pasta salad. It was really yummy! Really easy - literally chop the eggplant, pumpkin, and cherry tomatoes and the fetta cheese, season and drizzle with oil, bake in the oven. Cook the pasta will al dente, and toss the roasted veggies with the baby spinach and olives. Best eaten chilled. Especially with a BBQ.


Okay - this was dessert on Saturday night. I LOVE strawberries... I saw a huge pile of them at the shops yesterday and that made me happy. Bizarre but true. It's just so sweet, so nice... hard to describe *sigh with happiness* I'm going to try and make full use of the strawberry season!!! See future entries :)

This is one of my latest favourite crowd pleaser and also chef pleaser desserts! Why? Because it is so simple to do and looks fantastic! Just melt some chocolate in the microwave (Warning: be extreme careful and watchful as you do this - otherwise you may set your smoke alarm off!) and dip the strawberries in, place them on baking paper and chill them.


I hadnt made this in ages... but now I remember why I like cooking it! It is fast to cook, tasty and really quite healthy! (besides the salt content :P) because you dont use oil at all. I think the proper name is Oyaku Don - the non-katsu version.

Don't overcook the egg - pour it over at the last minute, let it cook for a couple of minutes, till the edges start to cook, turn off the heat and cover for a few minutes then serve immediately on top of japanese rice.

Gyoza! Japanese dumplings! I am so grateful to this japanese book for teaching me in simple terms how to fold these dumplings. I have never been good at folding but I think this method (although not visible here) was good - take a piece of pastry and put in a bit of the meat filling, fold it over and wet the edges to seal the dumpling, and then crimp/fold the edges to form a fan shape.

Okay that's about it for now! Hope you all are doing well! I will blog again soon - I do have quite a few entries more to go!!!

Have a great week - those in Perth, hope you did not melt in today's 39 degree heat!!!