Food Food Food

Giraffe in Japanese is Kirin, which is also the name of a popular Japanese beer fyi. This bread packaging is just another cutesy marketing ploy to get people to buy sub par bread. Supposedly, according to the package, it's choco flavored, but I was never able to tell a differ between flavors with combini breads. The packaging also says "kimochi" which usually means it's going to be soft. Next, I forget the name for this, but it's diced shrimp mashed between two slices of renkan (lotus root) and then dipped in batter and deep fried. The Japanese call this tempura, which I dearly dearly love. Lotus root, which I can't find in the US, is AWESOME. It doesn't have a whole lot of flavor on it's own, but it's super crunchy and can be used in a lot of dishes. I used to slice them really thin and make them into chips by frying them in oil.This was a breakfast-for-dinner X and I made one night. I fried some onions, scrambled some eggs, mixed together some pancake mix, and chopped up a little sausage. It was good, really good. I love breakfast-for-dinner. I'm not that into icing, but I love cakey things, especially if they taste like lemon! i made these lemon cupcakes for work, but I ended up eating most of them myself. Oops! Found this mayo in our local Big Lots. Big Lots is like a discount store that sells stuff for really cheap. The one in our area is AMAZING. I always find really cool food stuff there and neat holiday decorations. I guess this mayo didn't make it to China. Last but not least, Santa got me the Martha Stewart Cookies Cookbook for Christmas, and mom and I have made it our personal mission to go through about every two weeks and make a new cookie and then rate it based on a multitude of factors. We let dad rate it based solely on taste. These cookies were Almond Macaroons. There is some debate about whether these should be called Macaroons or the French Macarons, as some believe that calling them Macaroons suggests that coconut is a main ingedient. I have yet to look up the answer. I believe the one and only ingredient of these cookies was almond paste...well, close enough. They are extremely sweet and very delicious. They came out really shiny and very white--a strange look for a cookie.

Dinolicious!

I found this AWESOME cake pan at Target last weekend and it was love at first sight! I mean, who wouldn't want this!?!
The dino cake pan wrapping had a recipe for "vanilla cake" so we decided to give that a try. You know, a little flour, butter, 4 freakin' eggs, and vanilla of course. So last minute, I remembered I had bought baking mini m&ms, which I have been dying to use, so we added a few to the batter after we had poured it into the pan. I thought that it would turn out a little like fun-fetti cake. Oh how wrong I was! We sprayed the bejesus out of the pan with some Baker's Joy, which is an oil spray with flour to really prevent sticking. There were a lot of tiny little itty bitty crevices in the pan. And baked them for about 20 minutes. I think they came out really awesome! As you can see, the m&m idea didn't pan out. All the m&ms dropped to the bottom and started to burn. Not good at all. Then to make them look even more awesome, I decided to ice them with some pink frosting to really bring out their awesome dino shapes.
Overall I really liked these. I brought some to a friend at work because the recipe makes quite a few cakes. I wasn't a huge fan of the cake, but the icing covered up any blandness, and they were lots of fun to make! Love them!

Random Foods

Is your ketchup just not cutting it? Well, you can always head to McDonald's for some "fancy ketchup." Not sure what that means, or how it compares to regular ketchup. And never fear, I didn't actually go to a McDonald's to get this. I found it while cleaning out our pit of a pantry. Who knows how old it is. Who knew Wendy was black in Japan?? Either that or she has a really dark tan....doubtful with her grammy clothing. Here's a flash from the past, nabe (or Japanese hot pot). I had this at my leaving enkai from Higashi. It's on top of a gas stove, filled with veggies and tofu. It was delicious!Hahaha, ever wonder what I do when I'm not cooking?! I burrow under blankets and chill out on the sofa with my dogs...well usually Nancy, but sometimes Truffles let's me trap her. Remembering better weather. Watermelon isn't really my thing, but every once and a while I like to eat it. I'm not a fan of the seedless. This thing takes up the whole top shelf of the fridge. I made these mini lemon cupcakes with raspberry icing for one Friday in training. Not very unique, but fun to eat one after another after another after another...and so on. Lastly, in the Fuku underground there is a VERY smallish Godiva ice creamery, where you can buy highly overpriced drinks and ice cream. I got this dark choco and raspberry frap. Not bad, but super rich. I couldn't finish it...at least I don't think I did. This place is really popular with Japanese peeps, but I'm not really sure why. I think they just like the brand name.

Disney Deliciousness- Back Into Da Food Groove

Oh man, do I have some food adventures to post! So let's jump right in!

Right after I got back to the States, I took a trip down to Orlando, and of course got one of my favorite treats at Downtown Disney.A candy apple!! I like my candy apples dressed to the nines! I don't just like mine dipped in caramel, I like mine dipped in caramel, then milk choco, and then m&ms!!! And luckily for me, certain Disney candy stores know just how to cure a sweet tooth.
First you get in line and fill out a form with what you want. And yes, you can mark all the toppings, lol.

After that, you can watch them make make your magically delicious treat, which they package so it won't tip over or roll around.
After you get home, you can take it out and marvel at it's awesomeness before cutting into it with a super huge super sharp knife.
I would recommend cutting all of it up and then wrapping and refrigerating it because it gets hard as a rock after it gets cold. This is one of my favorite candies. So good, so sweet. And it sticks to your teeth and the chocolate balances out the apple. It's heaven.