Wendell's Chicken Potato Taco

Wendell saw something like this on an episode of Diner's, Drive-Ins and Dives and then made up his own recipe to make um.  He just got some chicken, potatoes, tomatoes and peppers and sautéed them in taco seasoning.  Then he put um on a fried corn tortilla and sprinkled with cheese.  It was as good as it looks!

Zippered Pouches

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about making a plastic bottle case. Well, I realized that although the bottles were cheap (free), the zippers cost around $2, $2 something at the dry goods store. . . not cheap at all. Luckily, I'm into swap meet and garage sale shopping, so I added "zippers" to my list of things to look for. 

I found this beat-up pouch at a Kalaheo Project Grad garage sale.  Look at the zippers!  Cute yah!  And got three!  The pouch cost me less than $1. 

I got to thinking that I should use the zippers on something other than just plastic bottles, so I went online to look for ideas. 



I found directions on how to make a pencil case! You can find the instructions here. 


So perfect yah!  I bought the material at a garage sale in Hawaii Kai.  The girl had packs of assorted 1/2 yard pieces for $2 per pack.


Here's another pencil case that I made with material from the same girl.  The green zipper I found at the swap meet.  It was 50 cents.  The glass bead is from a bracelet that I took apart, also from the swap meet.


I just finished this pouch last night. I made it for Leslie. I took apart a drawstring bag that I'd had in the closet for around 15 years. The material is still in good shape. It actually had some brown spots on it, but I used the method taught by Honolulu Aunty to Kay of Musings to get rid of them.


I'm having fun sewing again. Wonder how long it'll last. We'll see.

Wendell's Pork Belly Roast

This recipe seems simple. And it was deeelicious . . . reminded me of the meat that was in Lucky Belly's Pork Belly Bao.



Use fork to make holes all over 2/3 pound pork belly. Marinate in 1 1/2 tablespoons thin soy sauce, 1 1/2 tablespoons Hoisin sauce and 1 teaspoon sweet soy sauce for 15 minutes.  Bake in 400 degree oven for 50 minutes.  Cut into pieces.

Happy Birthday, Les!

Today is BFF Leslie's birthday. Here's a video from earlier this month when we celebrated February's birthday people at our King Street office.

Did You Know?

Did you know that the arrow next to the gas tank on your dashboard tells you which side of your car the gas cap is at?

Landon's Grilled Tako

Landon's recent fishing/diving expeditions have yielded us with tako as well as fish.  Score, yah!

Here is how he prepared a tako recently.  And as usual with Landon's recipes, proportions are in "eyeball" amounts.

1.  Lomi lomi the tako with Hawaiian salt.  Rinse well.
2.  Simmer for 1 1/2 hours in red wine, a sprig of rosemary and some bay leaves.
3.  Make marinade: Heat olive oil, garlic, crushed red peppers, and salt.
4.  Marinate for 3 days in 'fridge.


5.  Cut into pieces and grill.


!!!!! Supa onolicious!!

Fendu Boulangerie Macaroons

People who know me know that I don't know how to tell short stories . . . even when I say, "long story short . . ." my stories somehow turn out long anyway.

So . . . long story short, our friends' freezer broke and we stored some of their frozen stuff in our freezer for a few days until they got a new freezer.  When they came to pick up their food, they brought these Fendu Boulangerie macaroons for us.  The end.  Hey, that did stay short. 

The macaroons were actually in better shape before I took this picture. But I was running out of nice window light so I was rushing to take the picture, and I wanted to shoot them stacked because it looks cool like that, but they kept toppling over, so I ended up kinda squashing them together, and they got a little beat up.  They still tasted good though . . . very moist and chewy.  The end.  Again.

From top to bottom the flavors are strawberry, chocolate, guava, mint and lilikoi.  Thank you Steven and Leslie!!




The end.  Really.

Lucky Belly

Me and Wendell went to Lucky Belly this past Saturday.  When Wendell told me that the place was in Chinatown, I thought that we were gonna be eating in a Chinese restaurant kind of setting.



I was shocked when we walked inside. It was totally not what I was expecting . . . so not Chinese restaurantish. It was crowded and they only had room for us at the bar.  We had parked at a far-away meter which allowed coins for one hour max, and after seeing how busy they were, I was worried that we might not make it back to the car in time. But . . . I was curious.


The menu selection seemed kinda small to me . . . but there were quite a few items that did catch my attention.  In the end, it was a toss between the BLT Salad and the Lucky Bowl.


Guess what I ordered.


Wendell's diet Coke came with free refills.


And so did my Plantation Iced Tea.


This is the Pork Belly Bao ($9)


OMGAWD was so ono!!


This is Wendell's Kochujang Brisket Tartine ($14)


The bread looked hard to me . . . but it wasn't.  It was just right.


Here's my Lucky Bowl ($9).  I'm glad I ordered it. It was very good.


Service was excellent and fast . . . and we made it back to the car in time.

Plastic Bottle Case

You know how your husband leaves empty plastic bottles scattered around the house?  Well, just pick up two of um, rinse um out, cut um in two, glue on a zipper to the two bottoms and VOILA!!  You have yourself a zippered see-through container!  How cool izdat?!  I found the instructions here.

Midori App

I don't have many apps on my iPhone/iPad.  I guess it's because I just like to keep things simple.  But in preparation for my Japan trip, I did just get this Midori app. It was $9.99.  I put it on both my iPhone and my iPad.

I'm hoping that it'll help me recognize words while I'm in Japan, so that next time when I buy a bottle of something, I'll know that it's miso and not just some kind of ono-looking paste. And also maybe it'll help prevent me from ordering chicken skin when I really mean to order yakitori. (Leslie . . . I confess . . . I know I acted like I meant to order that chicken skin at that kushiyaki restaurant at Ameyoko, but I was actually just as surprised as you when the skin came.)



There are a lot of cool features to this app.  You can check them out here.  This handwriting feature was what I was looking for most when researching different apps. Soon after purchasing this Midori app, I tested it out and I was happily surprised to see that it recognized even my chicken-scratch writing.


After writing your word, you're given several kanji to choose from. After you choose the correct one, you click on "translate" and it'll translate the word for you.


I had written the above "kombu" with my fingertip.  I tried out these styluses that I have, but they weren't precise enough to draw smooth, unbroken lines, and it ended up that my finger worked the best of all. The Nintendo DS stylus on the right didn't even work at all.  


Right now, I have several styluses in my cart on Amazon. Not sure which one to pick. Any suggestions?

Tokachiya Ramen in Shirokiya

Me, my mom and my sister went to check out Tokachiya Ramen a couple of weekends ago.  It was goooooood.



Miso Ramen


Shoyu Ramen

Wendell's Chicken Chorizo

Wendell gets a lot of his recipes from magazines that he reads while in a doctor's waiting room.  This dish is from one of them.



Nowadays he takes a picture of the recipe with his phone.  I not saying how he used to bring home the recipes before. 

Tag-Team Catch

My son Landon is getting back into diving again so he's been bringing home quite a lot of fish lately.  The papio below weighed in at just over 10 pounds, and it took two people to snag.

Landon says that while he was poking around in some holes, he could hear his friend Spencer yelling to him, "Landon!  Landon!"  Landon turned to see that Spencer had speared the papio, but it was barely hanging on to the spear.  Seconds later the fish wiggled itself free and started swimming away.  Landon quickly swam after it but it remained juuuuust out of his range, until it stopped for a second just before going over a ridge.  And that's when Landon let loose his spear and caught it.