Forays into the homemade

I recently tried making pasta here in Japan. I was making it back in the US and it was working out pretty well. I have sourced some semolina flour so I decided to try it here. The flour made nice soft noodles and were easy to roll and cut. I made a fresh tomato sauce and lightly battered and fried some eggplant to go on top.

My co-worker mentioned the other day that she had made strawberry jam for the first time. She told me it was easy so I looked up recipes on the Internet. There are lots of tasty strawberries here right now. I didn't have any sugar so I used maple syrup. It came out pretty well and was pretty painless! Now I have fresh jam for my morning toast.

Kim chee (spicy fermented cabbage with other veggies) is a Korean food that the Japanese have gone gaga over the past decade or so. Damien and I too LOVE it! But unfortunately all of the kim chee in the supermarkets have MSG as an ingredient. so we made our own. After soaking cabbage, carrot and daikon in salt water for several hours, I mixed up the veggies with a paste I made from garlic, onions, red chilis, and ginger. I let it sit and ferment unrefridgerated for one week. We are eating it now! It is good but I think I put too much daikon in. It has a distinct radish flavour.

Our attempt at falafel wasn't so successful. I think we have a lot to learn about frying. Our chickpeas balls wouldn't hold together in the oil and most of them just fell apart. We managed to salvage some of them, which was good because the cucumber yogurt sauce and whole wheat tortillas were delicious! We will have to try again on this one.