Quest For Bacon - Part 1

One of the main reasons why I chose Japan as a place to come and teach English: the food.

Unfortunately, no matter how much you love niku jaga, sushi, tempura, or okonomiyaki, there are some things that Japanese food just can't do. And one of those, sadly, is bacon.

American hot dogs, which I cannot seem to find in a regular grocery store, are, strangely, common at shrines, festivals, and convenience stores. Hamburgers you can make yourself, with absurdly expensive ground meat. But bacon? Not so easy.

For one thing, no one ever told the Japanese that bacon is supposed to be cured and smoked. ("Bacon is smoked?" one of my co-workers asked. "It usually is." "Really? No. Not in Japan." "That's because you don't have bacon in Japan." "Yes we do! That is bacon. On your salad." "This is ham." "We call it bacon." "That doesn't mean it is bacon.") No one told them it's supposed to be fatty and salty, either.

I picked up a tray of meat at the store once - it looked, at least, like it was the right cut of meat, although the slices weren't as thick - and found that, while it was fatty, it was not salty, cured, or smoked. When it cooked it turned brown, not red, and it didn't taste like much at all.

And so. A Quest For Bacon began.

Today's bacon does not look very much like bacon, but it does say bacon on the label. (I can hear my coworker now: "See? It says bacon, right there." "Putting something in a package and writing 'be-kon' on it doesn't make it bacon.")

See? It even says bacon on the label!

It doesn't look much like bacon, but hey. It does say so on the label. I'll give it a try.

I open the package: smells like ham. Sigh. Well, what does it look like when you cook it?

Banana-buckwheat pancakes

Gooey and delicious!

I'm still having problems adjusting to working until 9 almost every night and not getting home until at least quarter to ten... it makes dinner an endless question, since I always am hungry for something, but I don't want to eat a giant meal. Pancakes is one way to solve this; I can have two or three to keep my tummy happy, and then throw the rest in the fridge for breakfast or snacks the next day.

Wordless Wednesday

Leftover Rice Okayu

 I love having okayu (rice porridge) for breakfast these days; my rice maker has a button that will make it automatically if I put in the right amounts of rice and water, and it's warm and filling in the mornings. I prefer my okayu to be sweet, rather than savoury, as in my opinion that is how all breakfast food should be. Except perhaps bacon and eggs.

In any case, today I had some rice left over from a batch I made the other day, and I came across this recipe for how to translate it from stale fridge-rice to delicious okayu.

Inspired by Delicious Coma; here's the recipe:

1 cup cooked rice
2 cups water or stock
toppings (for me, frozen blueberries, honey, and cinnamon)

In a pot, heat rice and one cup water or stock over medium heat, stirring to break up any lumps. Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring frequently, until the water looks starchy and the grains begin to lose their shape. Add the salt and remaining water and simmer until desired consistency - this took a bit longer for me, since I don't like much water in my okayu, so it was on there for a good fifteen minutes. I should have added less water, and will do so next time.

Serve in a bowl with toppings and eat with a spoon. Good stuff!

Gluten-free banana walnut bread

Sorry, I ate most of it before getting around to taking a picture like, two seconds ago.

 50-en bananas at the grocery store? Well, I know what to do with those! Modified from a recipe at HubPages.

Peanut butter, miso, and cinnamon cookies

Made in my tiny toaster oven!

EDITED AS OF 08/14: These cookies are actually incredibly nasty. I'm not sure what I was thinking, or perhaps I was just incredibly hungry after making them, but they are for all intents and purposes totally inedible now, and the very act of biting into one triggers an instant spit-it-out-now reflex. For the love of Pete, don't put the miso in these cookies. Just... keep them peanutbuttery. I will experiment further sometime down the line, I'm sure.


It's a rainy day in Nagoya, and after walking home from the gym at noon in a torrential downpour, complete with thunder, I abandoned previous plans to bum around downtown shopping, and decided to make it a lazy afternoon at home. And what's more rainy-day than making some cookies? These are modified from a recipe I found at Pattycake.

Gluten-free snacks

Pizza without the wheat! Who'd have suspected a gf
product from Doritos? And they don't taste too bad, either.

No recipes here - this is stuff you can just buy in the store. It's definitely harder to figure out what's gluten-free and what's not around here, especially since I've only memorized the kanji for wheat, and not barley or rye, although wheat is what I really have to be most careful of.

After much searching, I was able to find not one, but two gluten-free cereals today!

Buckwheat Pancakes

Ever since I found buckwheat flour at my local grocery store, I've been wanting to try these pancakes out - though buckwheat isn't my absolute favourite type of pancake, I can see it swiftly moving to the top of my pancake rankings due to this recipe!

Rice-cooker frittata

So, I took this recipe from Just Bento's frittata recipe, and modified it a teensy bit because I don't have the veggies she uses. I'm definitely going to have this for lunch tomorrow! Eggy goodness...

Walnut and cinnamon-swirl cornbread

Lately, I've been craving baked goods. Probably because for me, baked goods are comfort food to ward away the stresses of life (of which there are many when one is a clueless gaijin), but being gluten-free makes it a little difficult to get my fix. Add to that the fact that I don't have an oven, and things get more complicated - thank goodness for rice cookers! This recipe is modified from one I found at Gluten-Free Mommy.

Cooked banana candy

Careful - they're super hot!

Considering the abundance and cheapitude of bananas at this time of year, I've been eating at least one banana a day, and getting increasingly more creative with how I consume them. This afternoon, my sweet tooth was acting up, so I decided to make myself this snack - it's quick, easy, and delicious!