One of the cheapest meals you can buy at any Japanese fast food store is curry and rice. One of my favourite meals because it is so easy to easy to eat. Just stir it and spoon it. However, this is probably not the best curry I've tried. I prefer it less watery and thicker. Also the recipe said to put apples in which was interesting since the apples were a little sour so they added a little tang. I should have probably just left them out of the recipe. Every time I've bought the curry cubes, the instructions were always quite clear just add meat and vegies to the melted curry cube mixture. This recipe however required a lot more ingredients. But I did not find it to my liking.

I have so much food in the fridge right now. Not only do I have leftover curry which will last at least 3 more nights but I also took some Thai leftovers home yesterday which will probably last three days as well. So if all this food does not go off, I will end up throwing it out because I'm sick of it or not cooking for the next week. I think I will end up sick of eating the same thing all week first.

Last night I thought since my download limit expires at the end of the month I should just download as much as I could. Except I forgot that my limit actually expires on the 4th of the next month. Unfortuantely that means I am capped at dialup speed while trying to stream Heroes. Not that much fun.

I spent the entire week searching for scallops. I don't know of any seafood markets around the city so I settle for Coles or Woolworths for my seafood, but they don't always have the largest variety. Several times I walked in to check if they sold scallops to walk back out without buying anything and for some reason I'd always beep going out of stores (v.embarassing). Finally today I found the scallops. It seems I put so much effort into finding scallops that the end result has made all that effort seem wasted.

I think this dish just lacked taste (or good taste). The sauce was made from thickened cream, capsicum and scallops. It tasted like cream. So I added a little salt and pepper but that just made it taste creamy and salty. I tried cheese as well but I don't think cheese goes well with scallops. I'm not sure what flavour would have been right. Maybe I don't like that fishy taste.

A tremendous slump has occurred in my cooking journey. Partly because I have been too busy watching my TV shows. But mostly because I have been lacking inspiration. I just want to get down to the eating part.

When it comes to pasta, I have always preferred the tomato sauce to the cream sauce. Every time I have seen pasta alla carbonara the pasta always looks a bit like it is swimming in the sauce. I always find all that cream and cheese just too overwhelming. This would be the first time that I've probably eaten pasta with carbonara sauce and enjoyed it. Although I'm pretty sure I used the wrong type of ham. I should have used bacon instead. I am very happy with how this recipe turned out. Although I will probably still favour tomato sauce to the cheese sauce, it is good to know that carbonara does not need to tasted like cream soup and the cheese does not need to overwhelm you. I probably rated this higher than I would usually just because I was so surprised it did not taste awful. And carbonara sauce is surprisngly easy to make: cream, eggs and cheese. I would have never guessed that there was any egg in there.

I can't wait to go to Rome some day and try real Italian pasta. I don't know what it's really supposed to taste like. I have no idea if the Italian restuarants in Australia do pasta any justice. And the pizza! It will probably be very different and then all my fantasies of Italian cusine will go up in smoke.

One of the things I miss about Japan is the bento boxes. Every morning we'd wake up at 8am (sometimes earlier) to the crisp winter air. In order to motivate ourselves to get out of bed we'd think about bento boxes or bacon and egg rolls and coffee at Starbucks. I can have Starbucks in Brisbane though. But I can't have the bento boxes they sold at the convenience stores. The ones in Kyoto had a lot more variety than in Tokyo. Every box filled with little dumplings, sushi, rolled egg, some rice and some fried chicken bits in such a simplistic and artistic manner with the fake grass piece, the sesame seeds and the colourful cupcake liners. However it was the boxes with the tiny serving of potato salad that I always went for. So I was really looking forward to making this Japanese potato salad. The mayo is just way nicer than the creamy substance that is often used to make potato salad. I used capsicum and potato to make my salad. It was so yummy. The potatos could have probably been mushier.

There are two pieces of teriyaki chicken in that photo. Why? Because when the recipe said I'd need teriyaki sauce my first thought was "finally I can use the rest of the half used bottle of teriyaki sauce I bought a while ago and have not used since". After looking more closely at the book I realised there was also a recipe for teriyaki sauce. That is why I have two pieces of chicken. It is so I can compare the recipe for teriyaki sauce (on the right) with the kikkoman teriyaki sauce (on the left). I didn't burn the chicken, but I did burn the teriyaki glaze which stuck to the pan and sort of transferred itself onto the chicken. Actually this was probably the only time I didn't over cook the chicken to the point of toughness. My verdict is kikkoman sucks! It was way too salty I had to wolf down 2 spoons of rice for ever tiny piece of chicken I took. While the teriyaki sauce recipe was perfect. You could actually taste the subtle sweetness without tasting like a dessert. The soy sauce was not so overwhelming like the kikkoman sauce. So there is a benefit to making your own sauces after all.

Yesterday was really stressful. I got this really annoying google redirecting links virus that was not detected by any antivirus program I owned and I managed to download and install like 6 of them. One moment I was busy making dinner (tonkatsu, again) and the next my computer was taken over by some hostile alien life form.

The above photo is my first attempt on Monday. I did a terrible job because I didn't coat the tofu properly so I did not fry the tofu properly. Also I burnt the miso sauce a bit. So although it was not visually appealing it did not taste that bad. Or rather it just tasted like tofu in miso sauce without the coating. Then last night the result turned out as below. Then because I was so distressed by the sickness that took over my laptop I could not eat. I couldn't sleep I'd nursed my laptop back to it's full health. I managed a few bites of it before I had to stop eating. But my second attempt was a lot better. It actually tasted like agedashi tofu, not just normal tofu.

I am way too attached to my laptop. I almost had a heartattack when I saw that blue screen. Then I wanted to cry when no antivirus program was working. Then at some stage there was a sense of hoplessness, denial and anger. I think I pretty much went through the whole grieving cycle.

P.S. This was very messy to make. But then so was the Tonkatsu. So together, lots of mess. Anything that requires coating is usually very messy.

It's always nice to come back from the gym and eat something fried! Although at least I did cut back on my caffeine (only had 3 cups of tea) and had 1.5L of water.

I made a big mess tonight with all the flour and breadcrumbs ending up all over the counter. But in the end I got some crunchy pork out of it. But the crust does not look like the picture in the recipe book. I haven't figured that out. I think my deep frying technique needs some work. Although I prefer beef and chicken, I quite liked the tonkatsu sauce.

Next week I will probably attempt to cook something other than Japanese. I think I'm finally getting tired of Japanese food. Maybe I'll go Italian next. See how many different pasta dishes I can cook.

Today started off pretty well. I slept in until 1 pm, so that means I've caught up on some of my sleep debt. Then I went grocery shopping which was fine as well. Then I locked myself out of my apartment. Not so fun. Luckily my real estate agent is so nice and a godsend. Because she came back on a Saturday to let me in. Otherwise who knows where I'd be sleep tonight.

I thought I might possibly get sick of Japanese food since yesterday for our staff luncheon we went to a teppanyaki restuarant where I caught an egg and get some rice on my cardie. But it was a lot of fun to watch the chef cook and throw food around.

I have only had okonomiyki (roughly translated as "cook what you want") once and it was cooked on a teppan (like in teppanyaki) but unfortunately I don't have one of those. Also the one I had was made mostly out of cabbage. This recipe was a bit different with prawns, capsicum and octopus as the main ingredients. The picutre in the book did not even resemble okonomiyaki. Every time I have eaten it, it looks a bit more like this picture:

So in the end I was content for mine to look like this rather than the ingrdient sitting in a thin pool of batter. I love this dish because it is so filling, a very dense pancake is how I would describe it. This recipe was quite nice, but in future I might throw in some cabbage anyway.

I ate this once at a Japanese fast food place and I I'm pretty sure I got food poisoning from it. So this doesn't really have a good memory attached to it. I can only hope that the same thing does not happen again. Although the beef in this recipe was also quite sweet I did not mind it as much as the sweet egg. It may have been because I also had the salt from the miso soup and yakitori to counterbalance the sweetness.

I can't believe that it's September already. I have been in Brisbane for almost 8 months now. It's been 9 months since I was in Japan. I often miss Japan. I can't pinpoint exactly why. It was exciting and everything seemed more vivid. The crispness of the air in winter, the colour of the leaves, the sounds of bicycle bells and giggling school girls. I miss early morning trips to buy bento boxes, late night karaoke sessions and everything in between.

I did warn everyone that with the start of September would mean less recipes. Not only have some of my favourite shows started (Gossip Girl, Bones and Terminator), but I've even picked up a few other shows I will be watching too like 90210 (I know! It's sad to admit but I actually like it more than the original), Privileged (a comedy about a graduate who decides to tutor these rich socialites to pay off her student loans) and I've just finished watching Samurai girl. I am also waiting for The Fringe and Heroes and so many others. And while I'm waiting for my shows to download themself I have been reading the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer. It's about to be made into a movie so I just had to read it. The character is a bit crazy though. She falls in love at first sight with a vampire and she becomes obsessed with becoming a vampire. That's crazy! No one is that stupid. But I have managed to read all 4 books in a week, so if the books are crazy what does that say about me?

Currently listening to "I'm yours" by Jason Mraz.

I was actually planning to cook this on Tuesday after I did all the grocery shopping. And then when I got home it turned out I did not actually have any chicken waiting for me in the freezer. That is just one of my excused for putting off cooking all week.

Yakitori chicken is one of my favourite appetizers. Supposed to tasted really good with beer (not that I would know). But it tastes pretty good with rice too. I like the slightly salty and burnt flavour. Not burnt to a crisp, but it needs that charcoal taste to it. I know, I know. It means I have a chance of getting cancer. But it's a bit like toast, you need to have it slightly burnt for it to actually taste like toast.

I felt a little guilty today for avoiding cooking. I made the green papaya salad that my dad insisted I take back to Brisbane with me last for 2 days. So I may have overcompensated tonight by attempting so many recipes. It feels like it has been a long week, but at the same time I'm confused that it is already Thursday. Maybe it's because tonight was the first night I actually did any cooking.

This miso soup recipe was strange. For starters there was carrots and no seaweed, but I went ahead and added the seaweed anyway. I don't think I cooked the carrots for long enough because I would have liked them more if they were softer. When I was buying the miso paste though, I did not know the difference between red and white miso paste. Turns out the red one I picked is saltier. This time I decided to make more of the dashi (soup stock made from bonito flakes and kombu seaweed) since most of the recipes require the stock.

The only thing missing was I needed a bowl with a lid, just like when you go to Japanese restuarants because the heat evaporated from the soup too quickly.

Just got back from Sydney and already missing home. My mum did most of the work though. I spent the day shopping with Liz, and by the time I got back I had found my mum had already started cooking without me. So really I only supplied the recipe and did the mixing.

I don't really understand the obsession with pork ribs. Give me a good rump steak any day. Eating pork ribs just involves gnawing on bones most of the time. These ribs were salty and sour at the same time. A strange taste I think. It did not taste terrible but it did not wow me either. But it was the first time I "sort of" made something and did not have to eat by myself. I think the consensus was mostly that it was difficult to eat and not terrible but not great. It was edible. Something that you could eat every other day.

Every time I have tried this dish at Japanese restaurants my complaint has always been "it's too sweet!". This time I have the exact same complaint and I followed the ingredients exactly. The sweetness of the egg just reminds me of flan. I only like my candy, cakes and ice cream to be sweet. In other words, anything you would eat as dessert. If I had left out the sugar and mirin it wouldn't have been sweet at all.

My flipping technique needs a little work. I couldn't quite flip it without it all falling apart. But I don't think it was necessary for it to all stay together. This is a very quick meal to make if you like sweet egg. Otherwise just remove the sweet ingredients and I think that should work.

This is my first recipe for September. I love September. Why? Because it means all my TV shows start again! Hahaha. This probably means there will be less cooking this month and more time spent eating in front of my computer while watching TV. Sounds like a good way to start Spring.