Earring “Let’s Get Along”

I made this earring and named it “Let’s Get Along”.

It’s a pair but each charm has a little bit different design.

But still looks matchy matchy

Same as people. We are all different but we can get along each other

Back of the charm is covered by vintage lace.

Necklace “Elegant Bird”

New handmade necklace is done!
I named it “Elegant Bird”
Why “Elegant?”
Because I used vintage lace behind the center charm and you can see through it! Isn’t it kinda elegant!?

　         Front　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　           　Back
Besides pearl is also very elengant to me!
Anyways, I enjoyed making it very much!!! That’s all that matters

Chicken Teriyaki Buns

Since I found that making buns are not difficult and not time consuming that much, I am trying different buns whenever I have a spare time.

And today’s bun is Chicken Teriyaki Buns.

On the top of bun, I put chiken Teriyaki and cheese.

Once I made bread dough with 300g of bread flour, I can make 12 buns of a pam size.
And Teriyaki sauce was pre-made. Not hand-made of mine. Well, I cheted…
If you are a costco member, There is good pre-made teriyaki sauce called “Yoshida Sauce”. As you can see by name, Mr. Yoshida who is originally from Japan made this sauce. So it’s taste is authentic Japanese sweet&salty teriyaki taste. My Japanese friend gave me two thumbs up for this receipe so I can highly recomend to you

Blue Angel

I made a pair of earing yesterday. I named it "Blue Angel".

 It  looks kinda angel if you see the light blue beads as its head and lace as its wing.... at least to me....

A sapphire blue bead in the center is swarovski crystal bead.

I used vintage lace above that.

This is small gift from me to my friend who will marry pretty soon.

I know she is the happiest and luckiest bride, but I wish this "something blue" will give her more happiness.

3 different buns

I guss I am a little addicted to make buns.

'Cause it is not too much work, and tastes good!!!!

And gave me the feeling "I did great job!!!" lol

Here are three kinds I made the other day.

Mmm.... Discription I wrote on the photo is not easy to read...

I made following three kinds;

1. Sweet red bean inside

... It doesn't look good in this photo at all... But it was good! ;-P

  2. Corns&Onion dressed by Mayo on Top

 3. Chili con carne on top

I used left over chili for this bun.

It was the easiest and tastiest make-over ever :-)

My husband liked one with Chili con carne the best.

I thought he wouldn't eat sweet red bean kind because it tastes very traditional Japanese and totally different from American food. So I ate all four of them.

Then later he asked me, " where the sweet red bean kind go? I didn't try even one."

...Well, it was too late. All of them were in my stomach already...

Please wait until next time ;-)

Potato Stuffed Buns

Everytime when I go back to Japan, I always go crazy about food.
Sushi, ra-men noodle, and Japanese bakery's bread, buns&pastries.
Of course I can find good bakeries here in L.A, too... However if I really miss the taste of Japanese bakery, I need to recreate them by myself.
So here is what I made.

Potato Stuffed Buns

Bread part is similar to French bread.
Inside is potatoes and bacon dressed with mayo, salt & pepper.
Japanese style mayo is little sour than American mayo.
Adding a bit of rice vinegar to American mayo is the solution to have similar tastes.

Easiest way to prepare potatoes, cut them small pieces and microwave it 5~7 min.
Less dirty dishes, less effort, but taste good :-D
That's my favorite way to cook ;-)

Keep yourself warm

I was sick quite long time... maybe around 1 month and 2 weeks or so.... I got it from my work...
Since I am working with 25 kids age 3-6, around this season of the year, one of the kids catch a cold and that cold goes to the other kids... spread to everybody eaisly...
And because they are so young, thery don't know how to caugh or sneeze properly. They caugh or sneeze straight at me.
Even though I am very careful not to catch a cold, it is matter of time... and once I became sick, it takes me a while to recover from it because the other kid gives me new one...

However thanks to that,  I found the good drink when I am sick.

Ginger + Honey + Lemon drink

Receipe

1. Put some ginger into a cup of cold water and microwave 2-3 min.

2. Add some lemon or lemon juice and honey.

That's it.

Well.... I guess I can't call it even as a receipe....

The point is heating up the ginger is very important according to my mom.

Hot ginger works better for keeping you warm comparing to cold ginger.

I normally put ginger1: lemon juice1: honey1 relatively. Maybe around 2 tea spoons amount.

But each one's taste is different.

You can also use hot tea instead of hot water.

After I start to drink this every morning from two weeks ago, I recovered from a cold dramatically.

Now I feel I recovered 100% :-)

Mug-Shoot!!!!

 I finally suceeded to take a photo of thief of my vegetables!!!!
Here are some evidence of it's crime!

Checkin' bell pepper

Squirrel: "Hmm... I guess there is no new crops here.

                         I don't wanna eat something I've already got a bite."

Checkin' Strawberries

Squirrel: "I love strawberries, but it's not in season. Let's wait till next spring."

Checkin' green onions

Squirrel: "I don't like green onions that much... 'cause it's stinky.

                           Maybe there is some more yummy food in soil... Let's dig in!"

Thank God, it didn't eat any of my vegetable this time. :-)
I need to keep patrol on my vegetables, and if it comes again (of course it will, for sure), I need to surprise it to stay away from my property  >:-(
Or if anybody has a better idea to keep it out from my vegetable, please let me know ;-)

It did it again!!!!!

OMG!!!!
A squirrel ate my vegetables again!!!!!
And this time is worse than last time!!!
It (or they) ate more than one vegetable!!!!
Here are my victims...

Two Bell peppers

Zoom photos of each one.

 Why did it eat half of two bell peppers?
Why not eating one whole and leave me the other? :-(

But bell peppers are not the only victim this time...
Yes...a tomato was eaten, too....

I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this....

F%#*ers!!!!

Usual Suspect - mystery on my deck

In the morning, my husband found weird thing spreading on our deck.
And he asked me "what's that?"

First I thought those are detals from some kind of flower... however I don't have any red flower on my deck... Mmmm.... so what are those?

And when I raised my eyes up, mystery solved.
It was a bell pepper!!!!!

It must be a squirrel!!! He/she ate my precious bell pepper!!!!!

I don't know squirrels really eat bell peppers, but seeing it's tooth mark, it has to be a squirrel!!!

Here is the close up photo of the eaten bell pepper.

Oh, man... I planed to use it for a pizza or something... now it's gone into a squarrel's stomach.

Goodbye, my bell pepper....

I will take a photographic evidece next time if I can!!

Recipe: Honey bread

This is one of my favorite recipe.
You can have sweat and soft bread with this.

Honey Bread
-bread flour 7oz (200g)
-all purpose flour  1.7oz (50g)
-honey 1.4oz (40g)
-sugar 0.7oz (20g)
-salt 1teaspoon (2-3g)
-butter 0.7oz (20g)
-yeast 1teaspoon (5-6g)
-milk 6oz (170cc)

If you have a bread machine, set it "light" or "sweet bread". Other than that, it gets burned.
With my bread machine, it takes 2 hours and 40min to have a bread like this.

 It is really soft.

I had it for lunch today with some salad.

 The dressing for salad was mixture of mayo, soysauce, rice vinegar, and home grown parsley.

It was really good together!

Strange weather

Because of these days of strange heat, strawberries start to bloom again.
I guess strawberries misunderstand that summer is coming back!

 Not only one flower but even three flowers are bloomed!!!!

Perhaps I can have strawberries in a week or two!?

Apple Pie

I had some apples which got a little old and doesn't look crunchy any more.

What can I make with those apple?

.

.

.

.

.

Yes! An apple pie!!!

I've never made one before, so I search the recipe on internet.

Thanks to the internet, you can find all sorts of recipe from anywhere in the world as long as you have internet connection.

Anyways,  it was good... even though I forgot to put some cinnamon...

And thinking that this is my first attempt to make an apple pie, it doesn't look that bad... I think...

What can you make when you have spare time?

Instead of staying in front of my compurter to kill my time, I decided to do something creative 15-20min. a day.
And let's see what I can achieve several days, weeks or months later.

Here are what I made today.

I spent 20-30min. to make four of them.
I used some extra fablic that I can't use for anything for making these.
I don't know how to call these things in English. In Japanese we call it "yo-yo".
Perhaps the shape is similar to yo-yo!?

I will make some more and put them together to make a cushion cover ro something.
Let's see how long it will take till I can see the finishing project.

Recipe: Prosciutto and Arugola Sandwich

"Prosciutto and Arugola Sandwich" is the easiest and tastiest sandwich.

Here is the recipe.

What you need is,

French Bread

Mayo

Prosciutto

Arugola

That's it.

I always make french bread with my breadmaker.

And here is the recipe.

French Bread

Bread flour 7 oz = 200g

All Purpose flour 2.8 oz = 80g

Salt 0.1 oz (a little less than 1 teaspoon) = 3g

Butter 0.18 oz = 5g

Dry yeast 0.21 oz = 6g

Water 7oz = 200cc

Select the "French bread" course.

If you don't have a breadmaker and if you don't wanna spend your time and energy to make a bread by your self, then get some french bread or baguette from the bakery.

After you get french bread, all you need to do is 4 steps.

1. Put some mayo on the one side of each bread.

2. Put some proscuitto hams.

3. Put some arugola on them (I used homegrown arugola)

4. Put the other bread on top.

Because I am using old type breadmaker and I can't remove the propeller which is for mixing the flour, the bread has a vertical hole.
The new design machine allows you to take the propeller out in order to make square bread perfectly.

As you see, it is very simple. Even I don't count this as a real recipe. However it tastes really good!
Please try it when you get a chance.

Time for Harvest

♪"You like tomato and I like tomahto"♪

That's a phrase from the song called "Let's Call The Whole Thing Off".

In Japanese, we pronounce "tomato" as "tomahto" indeed.

Anyways, it's harvesttime for my tomatoes.

I planted it in March. That means it takes 6 months to have some fruits.

Just two of those tomatoes are ready to be picked... Hmmm... It's not that much....What should I cook with these?

Oh, Dear! It's a Deer!

As usual, I was watering my plants yesterday morning.

And I found that something unusual is in our backyard....

What is that?

Seeing it closer.....

It's a Deer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've never thought that I would see the deer in our backyard and had a chance to take photos of it.

He/she was eating something.

I am glad that I didn't plant any vegetable in our backyard.

If I did, deers could be my enemy even though they are really cute.

Please visit us some another time, my dear deer!