Lioness in Japan

Setsuden means saving electricity in Japanese, and as I mentioned in my previous post on “cool” products, it’s really important for Honshu to decrease its power consumption because there may not be enough energy to go around.

I don’t think I go all the way to save energy but I do try — I unplug appliances if I don’t use them and if I go out or go to sleep, I shut down my computer and use fewer lights, plus I try to use the fan instead of air-conditioning in the morning and afternoon, so I only use air-con at night.

So one of the frequent ways I cook meat for the kangaroo is to slow-cook stews and curries. Many people are fascinated how a vegetarian could willingly cook meat for a partner so I’ll elaborate here.

Basically, I don’t like touching meat so I buy meat that is already cut up (except for chicken) which tends to be thinly shaven slices for stir-fries or bbq or big hard chunks. I also try to cook two servings at a go so I cut down on having to cook meat daily. I also don’t taste the meat dishes but I remember the amount of various seasonings necessary for various meat dishes from the time I ate meat. I also try to make dishes that are good with or without meat, eg. sweet & sour stir fries, tacos and green curry are those that are easy to chuck in a meat component without compromising on flavour in either dish.

Anyway, let’s go back to the topic at hand: I used to slow-cook meat stews in my rice-cooker for 6-8 hours, but thanks to my new Shuttle Chef pot, I don’t need to use ANY electricity. My mum has two back home but I think it’s called Magic Pot in Singapore.

The kangaroo’s ex-colleague gave this Shuttle Chef to us as a wedding gift — how thoughtful!

Look at this baby….All you need to do is to boil your dish for 10 minutes and then leave the pot in its insulated case that will gently cook your stew (and slow heat is always key for good tender stews) for two hours, then boil for ten minutes and then cover it up again for another two hours.

Unfortunately, I had to re-boil the stew twice instead of once which meant a total of 12 hours to get the consistency I wanted. I also left the meat in the Shuttle Chef for 3-4 hours at a time, instead of the stipulated two because it was just too watery after just two hours. At the end of the second round, the meat was soft but the stew was still like a thin soup and not a gravy, so I boiled it a third time. I wasn’t annoyed by this at all since I did this on the weekend and because it took so long (it finished cooking at midnight), I kept it for dinner the next day.

Setsuden beef stew recipe (makes two servings):
1 white onion, chopped
5 cloves of garlic
2 servings of beef chunks
1 carrot, diced
1 celery stalk, chopped
1 tomato, chopped
Splash of red wine
Splash of balsamic vinegar
1/4 tsp sea salt
Pinch of black pepper
Dash of dried rosemary
Dash of thyme
Dash of taragon
Dash of chilli powder
1 bay leaf
2 cups water

The kangaroo absolutely loved it but he is very easy to please so I’m thankful I don’t need to really rack my brains on how to keep his palate satisfied. Enjoy! Let me know if you have a good stew recipe or two to share.

Alright folks, this is the finale of “Eating cheap in Tokyo”, so I decided a Japanese dish would be a natural swan song. Though I’m very into un-cooking these days, I still have an interest in cooked food because the kangaroo is not raw.

On that note, he is very respectful and supportive of my new lifestyle, and I’m the same where he is concerned. Though he probably isn’t aware that he is 50 per cent raw when he comes home and eats these salads and raw ice-cream I make.

Anway, let’s talk about yakisoba today. Yakisoba is fried ramen noodles with cabbage, soy sauce, and preserved ginger. You can find this at street stalls during festivals like hanami (sakura season) and hanabi (fireworks in the summer) and in conbinis.

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I started this column back in early Dec last year because I was one of those unfortunate souls who got retrenched. Officially, I was let go in October so by then I was right into the frugal life, but I wanted to keep healthy, because frankly, I had no health insurance or disposable cash to get sick.

Fast forward to today: life is much better as my beauty business is cranking along and the kangaroo got a fantastic new job. Nevertheless, I would still like to share two more recipes before I end this series. It might not be completely aligned to my new raw lifestyle but I think these are great kitchen ideas anyway.

Pasta is too easy to reach for when you just can’t be bothered. Trust me, I’ve been there. Cream-based sauces could be too heavy and you may not store them very much in your pantry as they have a limited shelf life. That’s why tomato-based sauces are any lazy person’s go-to fall back, but you know, your taste buds could be screaming, “NOT AGAIN?!”

So how do you make it less bland? Feta cheese. In the vein of recession recipes, vegetarian dishes do help you to pinch pennies.

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…until I started the raw food diet. Some of you who also follow the Beauty Box blog may know I’ve been eating a raw diet for two months now and wrote about it here. I decided to keep any health or diet-related issues to the BB blog and write about my life in Japan here.

But, today’s post is not really about beauty and it’s just about me in my apartment on a lazy Sunday.

I felt kind of blah and tired out from a full-on but very fun Saturday — I was not up to doing any work, but I wasn’t too zonked out to watch 10 hours of non-stop TV. My hands felt restless, so I cranked up The Gipsy Kings and made this:

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I know I’ve gone mostly raw lately but I do have some classic dishes that brewed in my kitchen when I had a “balanced” meat-carbs-veggie diet.

The kangaroo is also returning from his round-the-world business trip so I will probably pick up these old faves because I don’t think he would be enthused about going raw with me. He’s quite open-minded but has been a bit speechless at my recent lifestyle changes.

Here is what you need for this fail-safe dinner idea:

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As promised, I’m going to show off Karen Knowler’s luscious nori (seaweed) roll recipe today.

What I like about it is it’s got a Japanese touch and it’s a cheap, fast, delicious lunch. I’ve made this twice already and I can’t wait to have it again.

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On Saturday, I’ll be having about 10 friends over for dinner — it’s the eve of Chinese New Year.

We should be having the reunion dinner (for non-Chinese folks out there, it’s the name of the family dinner on the eve of the new year) on the eve itself but Sunday is always iffy for lingering over an evening meal so my Singaporean gal pal suggested that Saturday would be a better day.

Chinese dumplings and ma po tofu (minced pork and tofu in a spicy Szechuan sauce) were two requests made by our Japanese friends so I agreed enthusiastically (but I had a few shouchus in my system by then).

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Japanese housewives know a thing or two about saving money and delicious food. All varieties of nabe (means hotpot) are very easy on the pocket, takes up very little preparation time, and is very healthy because of the lack of oil and only healthy ingredients are required.

My favourite of all the hotpot dishes in Japan is shabu-shabu. I don’t think my homemade version will ever beat the ones in restaurants but it’s my lazy-gal’s solution when I don’t feel like slaving over the stove.

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As the world plummets into financial chaos, I can’t help but think a lot about scaling down in every aspect of my life. How do I save money but maximize what I get?

Besides beauty products and entertainment, food is another aspect I’ve been looking to cut corners on.

As an avid cook, I appreciate expensive and fresh produce but I think I’ve to avoid them completely as the yen hovers at such a high rate. I love my food and don’t want to compromise too much in terms of nutrition and flavour.

So I thought why don’t I write posts about how to eat cheap in one of the world’s most expensive cities? This new column, “Eating cheap in Tokyo”, would provide healthy, affordable, quick recipes for the Tokyo urbanite.

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