Purple Yam Love

 
Lately I have become quite fond of purple yam as an ingredient for side dishes, served with yuzukoshō (a Japanese paste made from chili peppers, citrus fruit and salt) and black pepper. It is also a great substitute for rice and noodles as part of your daily carbohydrate intake. Give it a shot if you find it at a supermarket near you!

Manage Your Time

Effective time management is essential to those who are determined to keep up a healthy diet i.e. cook more and eat out less. Example scenario: don't you think that spending 10 minutes on preparing a well-balanced sandwich for lunch is much more valuable than say, hitting a high score on Facebook games?

Steam Your Hamburg

No, I'm not joking: we actually steam our hamburg (a.k.a. a Salisbury steak dish in Japan, often a family staple) in a fry pan while cooking. This method ensures that no meat juice can escape before serving and is especially effective when making soy sauce based hamburg.

Today's lunch: hamburg with mushrooms and green onions, cucumber topped by self-made meat sauce, tomato egg drop soup

The Power of Brown

 

One advice from Japanese grandmothers: brown is the color of health and should be present in at least one meal per day.

Today's lunch: radish in self-made teriyaki sauce, honey and black pepper chicken, chikuzenni (a traditional dish originated from the Kyushu region in Japan) with brown rice

Make Your Own Sauce

I like to make my own sauce and dressing whenever there is time. Doing so not only enables me to control the amount of salt, sugar, etc. I intake more precisely, the process of learning and making something that tastes good and lasts long at the same time is quite satisfying. Additionally, having a few jars of cooked meat/vegetarian sauces at hand can really save your day when trying to add variety to a meal during busy periods of life.

Today's lunch menu: steamed bean sprout topped by meat sauce (self-made with pork, garlic and red onion), scrambled egg with asparagus, chicken ham and potatoes, veggie red bean bread and mango tea

Veggie Red Bean Bread

I have recently come across an interesting type of bread (see photo), where vegetables and red beans are mixed into its base flour, thus the green and brown-red look. Give it a shot if you find it near you! (Bought at T&T: Coquitlam Centre)

The World of Bento

Bento is a Japanese term for "packed meal in a box". As part of the ongoing tradition, many children in Japan grow up with the taste of their family through bento (i.e. in many schools it is expected that students would bring their own lunch), and a good number of them would become bento makers for their own family in the future. Oh, did I mention that making bento is also a great way to diet?

Above are photos of the kind of bento I bring to school these days. Watch out for future bento collection tags at this blog for more showcases and related recipes!

10-minute Vegetable Soup

Once upon a time, I spent every other day of my life living solely on dark chocolate and fried shrimp. Oh the horrifying memories.

As is the case with all youngsters who are overly confident with their metabolism, the idea of eating more balanced meals did not occur to me until late 20s, when the consumption of vegetables no longer posed a big challenge. That being said, I still could not find myself liking the taste of certain items such as carrots and onions at first, even if I am fully aware of all the good they bring to one's body.

Solution to my problem? The 10-minute vegetable soup! A bit of sesame oil combined with specialty sauces can do all kinds of wonders to satisfy your tongue, not to mention you are able to consume a larger variety of vegetables this way.

Today's ingredients: fresh leek, chopped carrots, 2 kinds of mushrooms and green onions

Cooking on YouTube

Price tags aside, authentic Japanese cooking classes are rather difficult to come by in North America. As a result, I take most of my cooking "lessons" through parents, imported recipe books and YouTube. The latter is especially effective when it comes to treating different types of ingredients with proper tools.

Below is my personal playlist on YouTube where I save short clips related to Japanese home cooking. There will be more to come as I find them. Note: if you are interested in learning more about a specific clip from the list, I would be happy to provide quick translations.

Tamagoyaki (Japanese Omelet)

Tamagoyaki, or Japanese Omelet, is a staple dish every Japanese family makes to go with their breakfast, packed lunches or dinner sides.

I typically like to rearrange the traditional recipe a little to make the omelet more flavorful. Tuna, fish soup and green onions are some of my favorite items to mix with the egg before cooking with a fry pan or steam in a special silicone case.

About

Welcome to Feastive, a visual journal dedicated to Japanese home cooking with occasional twists e.g. restaurant reviews, recipe book recommendations, etc.

Feastive: a self-created word displaying Feast as an adjective

I have long wanted an opportunity to start monitoring my eating habits, an act I believe to be key to better health, which in turn links to a more productive school and work life. When one of my classes at VFS assigned the creation of a blog as part of its curriculum, I jumped at the chance to create Feastive, not only because I am a big fan of Japanese cuisine, but also due to my recent effort to eat out less. (Vancouver is quite the expensive city!)

While visuals (e.g. photos, video clips, etc.) are meant to be the primary focus of this journal, I will likely be jogging down favorite recipes and cooking tips from time to time for personal reference. If you have stumbled across any of my posts and would like to share relevant experience and/or advice, feel free to leave a comment :)

Without further ado, let's be feastive!