I Think I’m Turning Japanese

...I really think so.  Well maybe not, but we did have a day of Japanese food.

Today has been perfect! Sleeping late, searching the web for crafty ideas, watching a movie, and cooking Japanese with my precious hubby… what better to do while waiting on baby to arrive! Our Japanese menu consisted of chicken yakisoba, steamed asparagus with a crab dressing, seaweed salad, sushi, sweet bean crepes, and Azuki ice cream.

Today’s yakisoba was a stir-fry with chicken, veggies, and wheat soba noodles. We didn’t have all the ingredients we would normally use but Nguyen made it work.  We’re in need of an upgrade in the skillet department so the noodles stuck a little and some broke.  We probably should have used the wok.

Along with that we had steamed asparagus.  The dressing was a simple crab in a creamy white wine sauce.

Next on the menu was seaweed salad and sushi. Seaweed salad sounds, well… a little iffy. But it is very tasty. Mostly made from gelatin and seasonings, it is the perfect side dish to a plate of sushi. We actually used sushi rice for our meal this time instead of using jasmine rice. Sushi rice is a short and plump grain and doesn’t smoosh as easily as some other varieties.  Nguyen made a crab mixture for one of the fillings. We also used carrots, cucumber, avocado, asparagus and shrimp.

As for the sweet bean crepes, they didn’t turn out quite as well. (There is no picture for a reason!) Many Asian desserts are actually made with bean in some way. I am used to eating beans with a saltier dish… red beans and rice, butter beans, typical green beans are all salty. Nguyen, however, grew up with beans cooked with sugar and used for desserts. I have had several bean desserts in different Asian restaurants or markets. They are different but very good. So, when I saw this very simple recipe in our Japanese cookbook, I thought it was worth a try. A flour water mixture to make a simple crepe and fill with a small amount of sweet red bean paste. Well, either it was a bad recipe or I am just really bad at making crepes. The crepes had the consistency of homemade play dough. Not very appetizing. Needless to say, the whole batch was thrown out before any incriminating photos could be taken. So much for dessert.

Well, not exactly… Nguyen used the sweet bean paste to make a homemade red bean (Azuki) ice cream!  The first thing you have to do is to forget everything you know about beans.  After that, it’s actually really good.  The first taste is interesting but then it quickly grows on you.  It’s extremely smooth, creamy and not too sweet.  Delectable.