Looks amazing!
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Mom used to make that! A pre-Ottolenghi version, of course.
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Thank you!
I wish my mom had🙂
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Charcoal grilled salmon. Roasted asparagus. Squash casserole. And Knorr’s Hollandaise sauce with more lemon juice. Thanks for that tip too lingua.
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Suddenly decided to contact an old friend and we spent the day together, He’s a sous-chef at an Italian restaurant in Osaka but gave me a choice of Italian or Japanese food (his treat!) for dinner. I left it up to him and he chose Japanese, a mid-priced izakaya called “Sake Sakanya Toyao” in the Hommachi area of Osaka (from where I’m staying in Kobe, Osaka is just about 30 minutes away by train).
I mostly left the ordering up to him. We started with an omakase of appetizers…roast beef/potato salad, house made cream cheese tofu topped with salmon roe, whelk grilled in their shells along with their livers, baby squid in a vinegared miso sauce and in the center, mozuku seaweed (it’s the only seaweed I don’t like, so my friend ate all of it).
Next, a selection of sashimi…katsuo (bonito), buri (amberjack/yellowfin) and chutoro maguro (semi-fatty tuna)
Next, one of my choices, scallop croquettes in a coconut milk curry sauce.
Next, another one of my choices…
Sweetened Japanese omelette (there a few basic types of Japanese omelettes…I like most types and this shop only serves the sweetened one)
And last, just for me to eat, a bowl of “makanai curry”. “Makanai” means staff meal and it used to be that “makanai” dishes were indeed only eaten by the staff. But word spread regarding how delicious many of those dishes were and now many restaurants sell/serve those dishes. Curry is a very common “makanai” and this one, a keema curry topped with chopped hard boiled egg, was indeed yummy!
While I was the only one to eat the curry, my friend ate a mini eel rice bowl by himself (eel is too oily for me).
We both had a glass of draught beer to start and he also had a glass of a house made grape liqueur (I only had water after the beer).
I hadn’t seen this friend since August 2021 and it was so nice to catch up with each other!
I thank him for his time and treating me to tea in the afternoon and for the scrumptious dinner (EVERYTHING was so good that it was hard to choose a favorite dish!) The staff was extremely gracious and hospitable as well!
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The Big J was in project mode today: Bún rice noodle salad bowls. The toppings were all homemade and included sausage, spring rolls, grilled marinated pork and grilled picanha steak, along with all of the fresh veggies and herbs. I was sous chef today, the finished bowls were an absolute feast and I am a very lucky lady.
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What a wonderful celebration for a special birthday girl.
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Kenji’s San Francisco style garlic noodles were an excellent bed for leftover crab. Served with a salad with buttermilk herb dressing and rosé Prosecco. Really a 10 minute dinner - used refrigerated angel hair for the noodles.
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They come in handy when making creme brulee.
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Mmm, what I wish I was having tonight instead of what I’m about to have 
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Pizza on Stonefire flat bread. Crushed fire roasted tomatoes, tomato paste and oregano sauce, pizza cheese blend, Italian sausage, onion, garlic, mushrooms, basil. Parm. Mixed greens, tomato, cuke, green onion salad, oo&v dressing.
No more sunshine so I brought some flowering plum branches indoors to brighten my day.
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My where’s waldo used to have a lot more choices a few years ago, right now we are down to 2 or locations only 
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First of all, I hope mrs V gets hold of your slanty comments here one of these days 
Second, and I do feel stupid saying this to a bbq guy, but do you think a few drops of liquid smoke might help? (I bought some for homemade ribs and cured salmon I wanted to taste a bit smoked).
Two — the fancy place we usually go to for celebrations (and random dim sum cravings) was the real chinese stuff, the indian / “punjabi” chinese I got from the club (which does a better job than most places, especially in that it’s not unnecessarily oily or overly spicy).
Of course, everyone who said they’re only eating one or the other capitulated and ate everything, because it’s all good, in its own place
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We are short of groceries in our house and thawed a small container of chili and cooked the dregs of a box of elbow macaroni - ate it with the end of a piece of cheddar after cutting the blue fuzzy stuff off it. We need to go shopping tomorrow. Do you plan your meals much in advance? The older we get, the less prepared we seem to be now that the bunker mentality or Covid is over. We never have a plan much past tomorrow. There are some lamb chops in the freezer and I asked him if he would cook those for us. He does a great job with lamb chops. If we don’t get out to the store, we have Near East rice pilaf and a frozen vegetable medley of some sort that’s edible. I don’t like vegetables from the freezer, except for peas.
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Had an assortment of odds and ends in the fridge and they were united in this random recipe I found on The Kitchn
https://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-quinoa-bowl-with-kimchi-miso-mushrooms-and-crispy-broccoli-223094
It was ok.
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There’s a pretty active Weekly Menu Planning thread that moved over from Chowhound.
(I tend to plan ideas for the week rather than day by day, and it does help me better utilize fresh vegetables, leftovers, and freezer stock which otherwise have a high risk of never making it to the table when I’m staring down the fridge in hunger.)
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