Snack Test #4: Yuzu Lemon Water

Hi Everyone,

I finally get to post about my so far favorite drink from Japan. I'm literally addicted to this stuff...well maybe not addicted but I totally buy all of them when I go to the store.

DYDO Yuzu Lemon is a citrus flavored water beverage. It's pretty much lemonade but made with yuzu and lemon juice flavor.





















The ingredients are:
water
high fructose corn syrup
sugar
citrus juice (I would say the yuzu)
lemon
honey
trehalose (according to google it is a sugar created by fungi)
flavor (gotta love that generic term)
citric acid
ascorbic acid

All in all....better than what's in a soda, although I do love sprite.

The bottle size is 350 ml and the entire bottle is 100 calories.
It has no carbonation at all.

I just love the flavor of this, it makes me think of sprite or 7up having a baby with lemonade, hey this is what my taste buds tell me so I'm going with it.

It costs $3.29 at the store I go to in Pittsburgh, and I say totally worth it.
It's a bit pricey because of having yuzu in it. Yuzu from what I can see is rather expensive, they had it there once and it was quite a bit of money to get 1-2 yuzu.

Now if you're wondering what yuzu is, it is a citrus fruit from Japan and it sorta looks like a lemon and its taste isn't as sour at least in my opinion. If I could get my hands on it more often I would.

Hope you guys give it a try some day, now if you'll excuse me Rilakkuma and I are going to be indulging in some yuzu lemon goodness. Til next time ^___^

Green Onion Kimchi Fried Rice

Hi Everyone,

So I know this recipe isn't Japanese but...I had kimchi...lots of kimchi and I thought I'd start getting to use some up. Now I love the classic Napa cabbage kimchi but my other two favorite are green onion kimchi and garlic scape kimchi.

This recipe is versatile and you can use any of the above mentioned types of kimchi in it. You can also try other kinds, if you do let me know what kind you used and how it went ^_^

I need to find ways to use this sucker up, I wish the Korean grocery store sold smaller jars.



This will serve one very hungry otaku, you'll need:

1 cup of cooked japonica rice
1/2 cup green onion kimchi, cut into bite sized pieces
pinch of sugar
pinch or two of salt
1/8 TSP of black pepper
2 TBS of green onion kimchi juice (don't worry it'll be in the jar with the kimchi)
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/2 TSP sesame oil
2 TBS vegetable oil
green onion (fresh) thin slices (optional)

When it comes to making fried rice you can make it with piping hot fresh out of the rice cooker rice, but I prefer using older rice. By older rice I mean oh I made rice at lunch and now I have leftovers for dinner or day/2 day old rice, where it's had some time to lose some of its moisture.

In a heated pan (medium to medium high heat) add 1 TBS of vegetable oil and swirl to coat.
Add your kimchi and stir fry, I like to have the moisture evaporate.
The pieces of kimchi sort of look like they got smaller.

At this point add the rest of the vegetable oil and the rice. You'll slowly break up the rice with your spatula.

The more you do this and stir the rice with the kimchi to combine it'll change color a bit and pick up the red from the kimchi. Now add your salt, pepper, sugar, and kimchi juice, gently stir.
The rice will pick up some more color now let the liquid evaporate.
The rice will be absorbing all the tasty flavors.

Add your sesame oil and give the rice a stir.
Once that is added make a little divot/hole in the center of the pan.
Add your egg in the center, allow it slightly cook at the bottom.
You then want to coat your rice in the egg.

It's sort of the same idea as when you're making a divot when working with dough.

You just let the rice and egg cook (no more runny egg anywhere) 

Now you can plate your delicious kimchi fried rice, Sprinkle on some green onion slices if you want. I know I did ^__^

So this is what I made for dinner tonight, kimchi smells rather pungent when you take it out of the container but it stops when you start cooking it, and it creates a nice flavor. I so had this with some pre-made frozen egg rolls. I was such a lazy girl tonight.

I was originally going to post my recipe for Green Goddess Chicken Sandwich. I know not Japanese but so very tasty but....I realized I ran out of chicken so that ruined that idea but just for reference.

I took a picture when I was testing it for the first time before I added lettuce and put the other piece of bread on top. 

COMING SOON:

If you have any recipe requests please leave a comment ^__^

I hope you give my kimchi fried rice recipe a try.

Snack Test #2 & 3: Curry Bread and Chocolate Coronet

Hi Everyone!

So as you probably guessed it I made the trip to the Japanese grocery store in Pittsburgh....again.
But as we know this blog is mainly dedicated to Japanese cooking so you know for blogging science!

While I did get a major haul of vegetables and mixes like hayashi rice mix I decided to try 2 of the breads. They had Curry Bread and Chocolate Coronet.

I never had either before so I was rather excited to taste test them.

This is curry bread and my first thoughts were of Black Butler and how Sebastien makes curry bread in one episode...yes this was totally an anime driven purchase. Now if you've made Japanese curry from the roux block before you'll understand what I'm talking about when I describe this.

First the bread reminded me a little bit like a sandwich bun, it was nice and soft and then I THINK it was fried because of what looked to be a panko (Japanese bread crumbs) covering on the bun.

The inside was filled with vegetable curry. There were little pieces of carrot inside too ^__^
I just love carrots so it was great. The sauce was a mild version of Japanese curry. It reminded me a lot like the S&B mild curry mix. So no spicy kick to it but a very pleasant taste nonetheless.

I tried eating it cool then tried heating it up a little bit in the microwave, it's good cold but far better warmed up.

Next up is the Chocolate Coronet:

So pretty, cute little spiral of soft bread, no it's not donut like it's literally a piece of super soft bread.
It did taste a little sweeter than regular bread but still bread. Not complaining though the chocolate filling inside was more than enough sweetness.

...if you look closely you will see the chocolate reaches into the friggin' tip of the coronet, no sad little end piece of chocolateless bread here my friends.

I think I will totally buy the coronet again, the chocolate filling tasted like chocolate pudding and chocolate icing got together and had a baby it was that good.

The curry bread on the other hand I think I will refrain from buying again although I did highly enjoy it I just think I'd like to try making it myself one of these days. If I fail at it I know where it lives.

If you get a chance and are in the area the Grocery Store is at 5855 Ellsworth Ave. in Pittsburgh.

It's not a ginormous store but it has all your needs for Japanese food ^__^ and the owners are so nice and sweet.

2 Straight Weeks of Nerd Heaven

Hi Everyone,

I apologize for not writing for two weeks.....I've been on a nerd spree.
I got to go to Tekko and Steel City Con these past two weekends, and I loved every minute of it.

This year was the very first time this otaku has been to Tekko in Pittsburgh.
I've never really gotten to experience a con before. The ones in Monroeville back when I was in high school (....back in the day...when flip phones were the in thing) were small and tended to be part of a larger more American comic base and not truly Anime.

I didn't even know about this until my mom saw on Facebook that Pittsburgh was hosting Tekko.
She called me to the living on Thursday night and pointed it out.
I went from being 28 years old to being 4 and with the ability to hop up and down that would put a kangaroo to shame.

Needless to say Friday the next day I raced over to the convention center during my lunch break and bought my glorious pass...and managed to spend $100 in under 1 hour. The ticket was $50 for the entire weekend and then as I did a quick hyper walk through the vendor's section I bought a Luna P plushy and a mini Totoro.

As you can see Totoro has taken residence at my cubicle.
After work that day and all day Saturday after my class at the Carnegie Museum, it was a long spree of running around buying all the things 4 year old me demanded 28 year old me to buy, watching all the lovely cosplayers and chickening out from asking them for their pictures and for permission to put them on pittsburgh otaku....hopefully next year I'll get the guts, it's a curse sometimes to be introverted T_T

I got to go to 2 panels during the 2 days I was there.
1 was how to study Japanese which I really liked the suggestions I got from the nice Lady who is a translator and took the N1 of the JLPT exams (Japanese Language Proficiency Test).

2nd panel I got to go to was on Asian Horror movies and it was run by a Lady who actually does studies on horror and (trying to remember how she explained it) why we like it, especially women and why they enjoy horror. She said she did an experiment and that they hired men and women to be part of the test and they had the people who agreed to be part of the test watch a horror movie. The person they hired would sit with them and they would chose to either be brave through it, act scared or neutral. If a guy was taking the test a girl they hired would sit and watch it with him and vice versa.

She said that for men if the woman wasn't scared they would say the movie was horrible.
For women if the man acted scared she would say the movie was horrible.

I found that really fascinating and I did like her comments that all the women in the room that came for horror were an anomaly since stats said women hated horror movies. It's like we were part of a special little club of women who just love being scared it was great....I actually think we outnumbered the men in that panel.


I was rather tempted to go to the concert they had at Tekko but soon as I saw the crowd even though I'm not claustrophobic it freaked me out to think of being squished among people I didn't know bumping into me. The band playing was Back-On, a group from Japan. I was so tempted, even though it was a band I never heard of I checked YouTube for some of their songs and I've now added them to my list of j-bands that I like.

Now...you're wondering Caroline how much DID you spend at Tekko...well

The below is only PART of my nerdy haul my dears:

Now I just absolutely HAD to get this last plushy, I mean come on I have 3 american eskimo dogs and it looks like them!

...I also got....ya there's more but not pictures....^^;

fingerless gloves that look like kitty paws

X1999 the entire anime series...now if only I could get my hands on the movie (which I like better than the anime series)

Princess Jellyfish the entire anime series

a ton of Rilakkuma stationery

a Little Twin Star bag (so cute!!!)

Hatsune Miku Figure

...a body pillow...along with a Hakuouki pillow case with Okita Souji and Kazama Chikage on it....

NO JUDGING

And that was just my experience and monetary damage at TEKKO.

Let's not forget I also said I went to Steel City Con.

My experience there wasn't as pleasant but I did love going.

My main suggestion to everyone is BUY YOUR TICKET IN ADVANCE.

It will save you 2 hours of waiting in line, if you think I'm joking I did that the other year with my friend Karyn we stood out there in the hot sun baking for over an hour.

Plus it makes you feel oh so important just walking past everyone and getting your ticket in under 10 minutes.

Now Steel City Con for those who have never gotten to attend is not as well done as Tekko and vastly different because it is NOT based on having strictly Japanese themes like anime, J-drama, J-pop etc. 

Steel City Con is dead center in the nerd kingdom. You have your otakus mixing in with your sci-fi nerds, with your comic book guys, your old school tv lovers it's just a wonderful melting pot of nerdness and it's really great. 

There's so many artist booths, I was so tempted to buy one artists clock he made from a vinyl record and he carved out of the top of it a scene that made it look like a shadow picture of Godzilla terrorizing Tokyo.

I also got to see Tony Todd, the actor who played the villain in one of my fav american horror movies, The Candy Man. I got to show my respect to a man who puts live bees in his mouth to up the scare factor in a movie.

I got to take his picture ^__^

I also got to see Barbara Eden, now SHE was like one of my favorite ladies when I was little and would stay up to watch Nick at Nite. I'm so shocked to learn she's 84 I am so impressed with how she looks. Yes I am aware she has money and was able to do all the fancy things like plastic surgery and awesome beauty supplies to make her look this way but I don't care she looks amazing for her age!

I also took a picture of a Star Wars model. One of the guys that did Darth Vader's voice was there as well but I missed taking his picture, there were too many people.

Plus total applause to the dad I saw at Steel City Con who dressed up as Dark Helmet from Spaceballs walking around with his wife and pushing his baby's stroller. BESTEST cosplay of Steel City Con I don't care what anyone else says.

Now what damage did I do there well hehe I bought a ginormous Link from Legend of Zelda.

I was excited to say when I brought it home my mom started yelling at me to stop buying but as I tried explaining what I bought and was slowly taking him out of the bag, my mom the Zelda nerd just goes "I LOVE HIM!" and my family wonders where I inherited my nerdness from, when you take two nerds and marry them off you get a baby nerd...why don't they explain this to people.

Plus as I was telling my mom where I was going to put him on my desk....I get yelled at saying it was to REMAIN UNOPENED IN THE BOX.....hardest thing to listen to...but he's sadly still in the box T__T

I also bought a Grelle Sutcliff figure, I'll be showing his picture later next week.

I haven't removed him from the box yet and I bought him a friend. Ebay was kind enough to have Undertaker....and I bought that sucker up as fast as I could. So you'll get to see them together.

I also bought a little Aladdin figure from Magi, he was the ONLY Magi item there, which was very sad. I bought him....so he wouldn't be lonely and could hang out with my Sinbad and Kouen figures...ya that's it it was so he wouldn't be lonely....(avoids all reader's gazes of judgement).

After that I bought some $10 posters. Got my dad two of the classic Godzilla movie posters from Japan, my Katakana and Kanji reading skills are terrible but one is Godzilla VS. Mothra.

Mothra was my favorite monster when I was growing up...and yet I fear all creepy crawly bugs...go figure.

The other posters were for the Princess Bride, The Dark Crystal and Legend

All major favs of mine, 1980's were great for fantasy films.

Last but not least I got a My Little Demon Plush from Shaman Soul Studios.

I got a Voodoo Vixen, she's adorable.

Link below to see what she looks like and if you want one please order one from Shaman Soul Studios. There's a ton more to choose from why stop at just one?...I had to only because I was at my money damaging limits for the weekend after I bought Link and Grelle.

http://shamansoulstudios.com/my-little-demon/voodoo-vixen-plushie

Now my only complaint about Steel City Con is this.....

THE LADY'S ROOM NEEDS TO HAVE A CONSTANT SUPPLY OF TOILET PAPER!!!

I'm not quite sure if they just think only men go to this thing or that we just don't pee but on a hot day after guzzling tons of liquids we lady's need to go and there was no paper except for 2 bathroom stalls. And there were over 10 stalls. Plus there were no paper towels, why because the other women got desperate and took some for TP.

Maybe I should just open up my own booth next year for Steel Con sell some nerdy crochet like legend of zelda blankets and on the side sell the lady's toilet paper for $3 a roll because that was some serious desperation for a lot of girls.

Now apologies for not writing for 2 weeks then bombarding you with a super long post.

But I hope you liked seeing my plushy haul and what I got to experience at the cons.

Chicken Nira

Hi Everyone,

For dinner today I made Chicken Nira.
I found a bunch of recipes online for Reba Nira which is Liver and Garlic Chives.
I've always wanted to try this dish but due to having high cholesterol.....I need to avoid it like the plague. So instead I chose to make this dish with Chicken.

This recipe I made from watching and looking up various versions of reba nira I hope you like it.
This should serve 1-2 people, just depends on how hungry you are.

You'll need:

1 chicken breast cut into thin strips.
2 cups of bean sprouts
approximately 1 cup of nira/garlic chives
2 TBS potato starch
1 TSP minced garlic
1/2 TSP ginger paste
2 TBS vegetable oil
2 TBS sesame oil (if you do not have this use vegetable oil)

For the Marinade:
1 TSP ginger paste
1 TSP sake
1 TSP shoyu (soy sauce)
dash of pepper

Sauce:
1 TBS shoyu (soy sauce)
1 TBS sake
1 tsp oyster sauce
1/4 tsp potato starch
dash of pepper

First make sure your bean sprouts are nice and clean. I tend to remove the little sprouty leafy head things on the ends. Also cut your nira into about 2 inch pieces.

Rinse your chicken in water and pat dry with a paper towel.
Thinly slice your chicken.

Mix the ingredients for your marinade together and mix into the chicken.
You can let this sit for a minimum for 10-15 minutes.
I was making rice at the time and it had an hour to go so I let it marinate for about 40 minutes.

After that put 2 TBS potato starch on a plate and gently coat your pieces of chicken.

In a frying pan put about 1-2 TBS of vegetable oil and swirl to coat the pan.
Add your chicken pieces and brown on each side. Once done set the chicken aside.
For the entire cooking process I use the temperature between Medium to Medium High.

Now to the pan add 1-2 TBS of Sesame Oil, if you don't have this you can use vegetable oil again.
Sesame oil just adds a bit of extra flavor to it.
Add your minced garlic and ginger paste. Saute until aromatic.
Add your bean sprouts and gently stir fry.
After about 2 minutes add the nira.
Once the nira start to look like they're beginning to wilt a bit add the chicken back into the pan.
Heat up the chicken.

Mix up the ingredients for your sauce.
Make sure before you add it to the chicken mixture that you stir it.
Potato Starch has a tendency to sink to the bottom.

Gently stir everything until the sauce begins to thicken.
Now it's ready to serve.

I hope you give this recipe a try ^___^
As always if you have any requests please let me know.

Snack Taste Test #1 La France Pear Water

Hi Everyone!,

So my first snack food test is a soft drink.
It is from the brand La France.
It is pear flavored water.
It is completely clear there is absolutely no food coloring which already gets me to like it.

It cost $2.19 at the Japanese grocery store I go to.
For the entire 16.6 fluid oz/500 ml bottle it is 80 calories.

The ingredients are:
Water
High fructose corn syrup
"flavor"
citric acid
acesulfam-k (this is a calorie free sweetener)
sucralose (another calorie free sweetener)

When I open it up there's no fizz and has a fruity smell.
Trying my best to describe it, it tastes like a water that's had pears soaking in it yet at the same time kinda reminds me of a slight lollipop taste but I think that's the sweeteners they added to it.

It's a nice change from the regular soft drinks we have around.

I would buy this again, I find that it's rather pleasant to drink and for a drink  with sweeteners it definitely beats soda, it's 10g of sugar for the entire bottle.

I hope you give it a try ^_^

Feta Cheese Tamagoyaki

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