Rancho Gordo moro beans, ditalini, and smoked turkey soup. A FB food group I’m part of has a Secret Santa exchange and this year my Santee sent me a WHOLE SMOKED TURKEY from a company in Texas (Greenberg). I wasn’t sure if we’d like it as it was SO FRICKEN SMOKY, but we partitioned it, froze it, and then took the skin off the dark meat (way too smoky to use) and the BF made some broth and I made another. His he froze for another night, today I made mine with shredded thigh meat, carrots, onion, garlic, broccoli rabe, bay leaf, parsley, a parm rind, grated parm, a squeeze of fresh lemon juice and a splash of dry sherry (fino). Cooked ditalini separately and then threw it in to soak up some of the flavor. Turned out great! We still have the white meat for salads/sandwiches. Acme rosemary rolls as garlic-rubbed croutons, a ton more parm, and a drizzle of olive oil at the table.
Old school is now in session.
Hard-shell, spicy beef tacos with Beechwood smoked cheddar, pico de gallo, avocado, and lettuce. On the side, homemade refries from garden-grown Jacob’s Cattle Beans.
Yum
Another sunny days. The last one for a while. Fired up the grill to char some poblano peppers, and put the cast iron skillet on to heat for a NY strip I had marinated overnight. Served with parsley butter and a salad of little gem, red leaf lettuce, green onion, grape tomatoes, avocado, mushrooms, blue cheese and ranch. There was a Negroni.
My area of New Jersey has now seen its first snow (to stick, anyway) in about two years. Looks like a little more than an inch so far but not supposed to be anything incredible.
Tonight was Scungili Marinara and sautéed broccolini. I didn’t make pasta, but there was bread, of course!
And a martini.
I went out with a friend for ramen here in Tokushima. I am a noodle lover, but MUCH prefer udon to ramen because udon is MUCH lighter and quite a bit less expensive. I eat udon VERY often but besides making ramen at home with fresh or dried noodles (NEVER instant as they do a number on me), I found out that this was the first ramen I’d eaten out since December 30th, 2018!
This shop, “Nishishoku” is owned by an acquaintance and even though I hadn’t been to his shop since approximately 2016, he remembered me! My friend and I both had the same order, a small bowl of the basic ramen (this shop calls it “chuuka soba”, but here in Tokushima many places call it “shiina soba”…they’re the same to me and both translate to “Chinese noodles”.) It cost ¥680/USD $4.65. The ramen had char siu, bean sprouts, menma (boiled, sliced, fermented and preserved bamboo shoots), green onions & ramen noodles. It wasn’t too salty or oily, but I didn’t finish the soup (which is tonkotsu + shoyu/soy sauce) because I knew I would regret it later if I did as I’d be bloated and maybe get heartburn since I don’t eat fatty soups often. Ramen is quite popular ALL over Japan and there are umpteen variations including “Tokushima Ramen” which is often VERY dark and VERY rich (there is a type of Tokushima ramen which as a whitish soup, though.)
I also took a photo of their menu which is VERY basic…just 2 sizes of ramen to which you can add additional char siu, a simmered egg, additional amounts of the already included toppings, a raw egg (a VERY popular addition here in Tokushima!), grated garlic, back fat marinated in miso & garlic or a bowl (small or large) of rice. By the way, the ONLY drink on the menu is non-alcoholic beer which makes sense because pretty much everyone drives here in Tokushima.
We had chicken and red kidney bean enchiladas served with rice. We just used one of those kits so it was a very simple meal.
That is kinda brilliant.
I prefer udon, too! Toronto is nuts for ramen. We have a new outpost of a NYC udon specialist called Raku which is quite good.
No soft drinks or tea? (Not a fan of beer here!)
I opened a large can of tomatoes on Sunday night for a side dish I had planned so I am now pivoting a couple of this week’s meals to finish up the tomatoes. Last night I used some of them to make a marinara sauce which I served over spaghetti and I had the last of the waxed beans in the fridge.
Very German dinner with kassler (smoked pork chop), carrots, savoy cabbage, and apple in a cream mustard sauce
The fact that there were no soft drinks like Coke or the ubiquitous Hi-C style of drink called “Bireley’s Orange Drink” (formally an American brand, but long ago defunct in the US) was a bit surprising. As for tea, Japanese people generally don’t drink tea with ramen, they drink water, which was served. The local udon chain I go to does offer regular beer, hot tea (cold in the summer) and ice water from a dispenser…the latter of which was offered at this ramen shop for self-service refills.
As to why the udon shop sells regular beer, it’s just my semi-educated guess, but that particular udon chain’s shops are more centrally located and closer to public transportation. But again, that’s just conjecture on my part without any solid proof as to why it may be the reason.
Beer is pretty popular at udon and ramen shops in Toronto, as far as I know
I can say from experience that beer is commonly found and popular at ramen shops in metropolitan areas of Japan because people get around via public transportation where being intoxicated (at least mildly) isn’t as much of an issue. As for udon, it’s generally not eaten out for dinner…at least not here in Tokushima where it’s a lunch (or even breakfast!) food and udon shops often close at about 7PM.
Speaking of udon for breakfast in Tokushima, that beloved local chain I speak of has incredible breakfast sets from 7AM to 10AM.
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A mini bowl of curry rice and a small bowl of hot or cold udon…¥480/USD $3.25
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A small bowl of hot or cold udon, a piece of karaage, a hard boiled egg or raw egg and your choice of rice ball…¥430/USD $2.92
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A small bowl of hot or cold udon and your choice of rice ball…¥300/USD $2.04
ALL great deals…especially considering that the small bowl of udon listed above costs ¥260/USD $1.77 when ordered alone! Set #2 disappeared a few years back and I guess that rather than renumber the menu which people are used to, they just got rid of it. However, I don’t know why it was removed. In addition, the hard boiled egg in the breakfast set used to be a piece of tamagoyaki (a Japanese omelette) which I much preferred. That change was a cost cutting move, I suspect.
I agree. I tried so many times, but there is a taste to it that is not tolerable to me.
Thanks for that hint. I will try that. Just added a daikon in my on-line grocery order I will be placing at the end of this week.
) salmon, roasted veg and a few pork dumplings on the side
Sure, sure. 
You still haven’t let it go? 
