Food Pyramid

I think every food lover has a list a foods ranked in their head as to how important said foods are to them. Most foods shift and change in rank and importance, but other foods never change.

And so I gave it some thought and decided to make my own food pyramid (which I wrote down and promptly lost). It's kind like Desert Island using food. So, keeping in mind that I love white chocolate covered oreos, but would never want to eat them for the rest of my life on an island, this is what I came up with:

Tomatoes

Bacon, Baked Chicken,

French Fries, Salad, Oreo Milkshakes, Biscuits & Gravy

?, ?, Pineapple, BLT Sandwich, Vegetable Tempura, ?

M&M Blizzards, ?, Blueberry Muffins, ?, Tom Yum Soup, ?

And that's all I have so far. I know I probably forgot something, so I left room for improvement and future food items. What's your food pyramid?

*UPDATE* HOW did I forget grits, avocado, spicy sausage on a grilled hotdog bun, and roast beef po-boys with dill pickles, mayo and extra gravy! These also need to be added to my list. Probably in the 2nd or 3rd level. What was I thinking!?

Food Abomination!

Hi, all! Hisashiburi neeee~! Sorry it's been so long since I last updated. I have nothing to blame except my own laziness...oh and my small addiction to Poupee Girl.

So this morning, I thought it would be like any other boring Monday morning, but then I walked into Lawson's...and saw this food abomination:

My first thought was "Oh, BARF." Milk Curry Ramen is currently the big feature at a Lawson's near you, so be sure to check it out, and then let me know how long it takes you to barf. I'm not sure why this grosses me out so much, considering I love coconut milk in Thai curry. But coconut milk and cow milk are very different things, and the Thai curry I make doesn't come from a packet of chemicals made to taste like the real product. Also, if this "milk" tastes anything like how the Japanese interpret cheese, I'd stick with an onigiri.

Ps--I'd be lyin' if I didn't say this post was inspired by a great blog called Culinary Abortions from Japan, which you should all check out!

Japanese Lunch Special: Tonkatsu Lunch Set

Time for another informative post about Japanese food (have I even done one of these before??)! I’m gonna break a typical Japanese meal down for you into 8 easy parts with two sides of sauce. So here is the meal, we will be examining today.

Let’s jump right in and start with the dishes in the upper most left corner. One way you can always tell if a meal is Japanese, is if it has pickled vegetables, mainly pickled radish. If this is not included in your meal, then it’s not Japanese. I’ve never seen (or tasted) the appeal of cold soggy vegetables turned yellow or red from vinegar, but some people really enjoy this.

Next we have the unidentified dish of vegetables that look like they might have been soaking in soy sauce (shoyu in Japanese) or some miso sauce. These are probably some kind of mushroom, bamboo shoot, or tree bark soaked until it is edible and then mixed with carrots. Ummmmmm….

Thirdly, we have a mixture of black and brown. Anyone who knows anything about Japan knows what this future stomach ache is. It’s natto and nori! Natto is fermented soy beans with the smell and taste of a rotting corpse. Nori is a type of seaweed. I wouldn’t touch this if you paid me.

Moving right along, we have the homage to western meals with a iceburg lettuce salad with Italian dressing on top. Safe, secure, and usually no surprises lurking underneath the lettuce waiting for you to try and eat it.

In the center of the tray we have tonkatsu, which is deep fried pork cutlet. Don’t get excited, it looks better than it tastes. Maybe this wouldn’t be so if Japanese people didn’t also like fat and tendons as much as they like the meat. Tonkatsu has the potential to be one of the most delicious pork dishes in the world, and sometimes you get a really good piece, and those times are awesome.

Moving right along, we have miso soup. It’s also a typical part of all Japanese meals. There are three kinds of miso: red, white, and clear. …I’m pretty sure about the clear one. The one in the picture is white, obviously. They can include any number of things, like tofu, green onion, radish, potato, etc.

Almost to the end… rice. A staple of the Japanese diet, much like miso and daikon (radish). The yellow sauce is a spicy wasabi mustard, which can make you cry, mostly because water cups are the size of a kids bathroom cup and they are never filled or re-filled. So you just have to suffer. The brown sauce, oddly enough, is a bbq sauce.

Last but not least, we have the end all be all of Japanese desserts. Anko (sweet bean paste) wrapped in mochi. Mochi is made when you pound rice for so long it turns into a glutinous mass of, well, mochi. This is like a double dose of disgusting for me, but it’s quite popular and lots of people like it. ...piehole. lolz~

So there you go! Next time you visit Japan you can get the tonkatsu dinner set and know what you’re eating! Or would you have rather it remained a mystery?

Chicken Avacado Sando

Finally back from my Golden Week travels! I'm really tired, so I haven't been cooking much. I made this sandwich a couple weeks ago and it was sooooo good. I'm currently waiting (impatiently) for some avocados to ripen so i can EAT them.

This lovely microwave is also my oven...according to Japanese standards. As you can see, it has buttons with food on it. There is a button for "toast" but it takes about 20 minutes, and you have to flip the toast about half way in. Since it takes such a long time, i just throw both in there at once. I don't mind a soft spot here and there on my toast.

After putting the bread on to toast, I diced up an avocado...maybe two... and some tomatoes and tossed them in balsamic vinegar. I wanted to let the avocado break down a little so I left them in the vinegar until I was ready to use it on the end product. And of course, you know I have to have my chicken and garlic. I put the chicken in the pan in strips and when they were about finished cooking, I just tore them apart with some chopsticks into bite size pieces. Then it was time to assemble! Honestly, this is not that easy. I had leftover chicken and avocado, which I tried to pile on top. Of course it rolled off the plate and onto the floor. Oops! Sorry, chicken! I also ended up pouring the balsamic vinegar onto the sandwich. The avocado had broken down and the mixture was slightly creamy, so it worked out great. In the end, it was too much for me to eat. I could get about 2/3rd's of the way through before I felt like bursting. It was really good though. The toast and creamy avocado vinegar mix went well with the chicken. This is definetly a keeper!