Wendell's Squash with Chicken and Watercress

Wendell found this recipe a couple of weeks ago in the Dining In and Out section of Wednesday's Star-Advertiser. It was veeeeeery tasty. Not sure if you're supposed to drink the broth, but I did 'cause it was yummy.

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

3 tablespoons minced fresh ginger

4 to 5 cloves garlic, minced

2 to 3 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into 1-inch cubes 

1-1/2 cups chicken stock or broth 

8 cups hyotan (green summer squash), cut into 1-inch cubes 

Salt, to taste 

1/4 teaspoon white pepper 

Half-bunch watercress, cut into 1-inch pieces 

3 to 4 green onions, finely chopped

In deep pot, heat oil and saute ginger and garlic about 1 minute. Add chicken and cook until no longer pink. Add stock/broth, hyotan, salt and pepper. Cover and cook over medium heat about 20-25 minutes. Stir in watercress and green onions; cook another 1-2 minutes. Serve over hot rice. Serves 6.

La Tour Caprese Salad

This is a portion of the Caprese Salad that I got from La Tour.  It was $9.90 and went a long way. I had it for lunch, dinner and for lunch again the next day.

Cara Cara Oranges from Costco

Wendell picked up this bag of Cara Cara oranges from Costco for me the other day. He said it was around $7 or $8. The can of beer is there just to show you the size of the bag.



I had a good feeling when I plucked the first orange outta the bag.


And yup . . . it was sweet and very juicy.

Kalua Pig and Green Onion Hash

Here is another dish that Wendell made following a recipe that he saw in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. This one is by Betty Shimabukuro.  Because I'm low-carbing, I only ate half a patty, but it was good.

Kalua Pig and Green Onion Hash 

1 pound russet potatoes, peeled and quartered

1 medium onion, finely chopped

1 ounce (2 tablespoons) butter

1 pound kalua pork, cooked, roughly chopped

4 egg yolks

1/2 cup chopped green onion (green part only)

Salt and pepper, to taste

1 cup panko (Japanese breadcrumbs)

1 cup vegetable oil

Cook potatoes in boiling salted water until soft, about 20 minutes. Drain and let dry 10 minutes, then lightly mash. A few small lumps are all right.

Meanwhile, saute onion in butter until soft and light brown, about 5 minutes.

Mix mashed potatoes with cooked onion, kalua pork, egg yolks and green onions. Taste and season with salt and pepper. Form mixture into 8 patties. Press panko onto both sides of each patty.

Heat oil in skillet to 350 degrees. Fry patties until golden brown on both sides, working in batches. Drain on paper towels. Serves 8.

Salty Lemon Drink

This past weekend me and my sisters went to Chinatown to check out the festivities.  Sweetie got this soooo interesting drink from Summer Frappē.  Guess what the stuff on the bottom is.



Preserved lemons!! Did your salivary glands just tighten up?


The drink is called Salty Lemon and it was $3.75. I liked it a lot! 


Summer Frappē is on North Pauahi Street. 

Tofu Salad Sauce

Around 20 years ago, I ate a most wonderful tofu salad at the home of Wendell's friend Steven. It was the sauce that made it so ono. He gave me the recipe at that time, but being the non-cook that I am, I never made it and eventually lost the recipe. 

I emailed Steven a few days ago and he immediately responded with the recipe for the salad. I only had the ingredients for the sauce on hand, but that's all I really wanted to make for now anyway. 

Tofu Salad Sauce

1/4 cup salad oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 cup shoyu
1/2 cup green onion, finely chopped

Heat oil and add garlic. Heat until garlic browns. (Steven advised me to do this very gently, so I set the burner on low). Turn off heat and discard garlic. Add shoyu and green onion. Cool. 



Here's the rest of Steven's recipe for the salad portion.

Tofu Salad

1 1/2 blocks of tofu
1 medium onion, chopped
1 can salmon or tuna
1 medium tomato, diced

Slice tofu into cubes and lay on platter. Layer chopped onions, tomato and salmon. Refrigerate. Pour sauce over salad and serve.

THANKS STEVEN!!

On the Ground

Crossing the street by my working place I saw this spoon on the ground. I thought it seemed strange to see a spoon on the ground.



When I looked closer I realized that some druggie person musta lost it. I imagined that he musta been bummed when he realized that it was missing. 


But probably not as bummed as the person who lost this purple thing that my sister Didi saw on Beretania. Warning: Enlarge at your own risk. 

Just Tofu

Am I defeating the healthiness/dieting factor of tofu by frying it in oil? I am, yah. But after a month of salads salads salads and tofu tofu tofu, I just gotta. It helps keep me from going beeezerk. If you forget how I fry up tofu, you can check out here. 



This was my lunch a couple of Saturdays ago. I further enhanced the fried tofu with some of that aburage pupu that I told you about, a little bit of taegu, some konbu, pickled radish and nori. 

Salad Spinner

I scored this salad spinner at the Kapolei community garage sale that me and Geri went to a few weeks back. It was $1!!!! I never owned a salad spinner before, and I just totally love it. It's so much easier than patting the leaves with a paper towel, yah.



It's an OXO brand too!


This part pops up, and I pump it to spin.


This is the salad that I made. It has romaine lettuce, Costco chicken, cucumbers, avocado, havarti cheese and parmesan cheese.


I used this dressing that I bought at Marukai.  The Japanese writing says "Yaki Round Onion Dressing". I like it a lot.


I added these "croutons", also from Marukai. It's actually fried mochi bits. I couldn't help myself.

Blog Study

Below is a portion of an email that I got a couple of days ago from a Ph.D. student at USC:

I’m interested in how the thoughts and experiences written by people like you on weblogs and other social media can be used to make conclusions about society as a whole. I am contacting you because I am trying to collect reliable data about bloggers’ opinions, experiences, and characteristics in order to refine and evaluate my analyses. 

If you are at least 18 years old and interested in helping me, please take the brief survey linked in this email. It should only take about 15 minutes of your time. Your responses will be kept confidential. 

In the course of this study, we will also be analyzing the public posts on your weblog using natural language processing technology. The goal of this analysis is to correlate your responses to this survey with what you write about your life on your weblog. 

His email contained several links that I wasn't about to click on . . . yet . . . because, you know, you just don't do that.

I googled the guy's name instead and was eventually led to the video below. It shows him interviewing various blogger people. They intrigued me . .  . mostly because they WERE me. 

When I first started blogging I was a bit apprehensive. Putting myself "out there" for the whole world to judge was intimidating. But the days, weeks and months flew by, and here I am today, 9 years from the start, being asked to participate in a survey about blogging. Who woulda thought?