Miso is a traditional Japanese ingredient and has a lot of goodness in it. Most of women have it because of the healthy benefits it has:

1. Improves digestion
2. Detoxifies
3. Alkalise the system.
4. Adds a natural glow to your skin
5. Reduces the chance of cancer

Many people think that Miso contains a lot of salt, due to the flavour, when it only contains about 1 to 1.2 grams of salt in 16 grams of miso soup. The average intake of salts are 6 to 7 grams a day, making a bowl of miso soup a healthy choice of food.

My daily soup is with seaweed, onion and tofu. I make enough to have for later that day too. My children love with chicken, onion, carrots, potato and onion.

I found this Tofu which made in Japan and its nice. I had with my miso but I think its nicer with green salad. I might have it again for my lunch tomorrow.

Many people ask me what to get when cooking Japanese food. These are the things you need to make simple Japanese food at home.

Miso – You can use this for soup marinated with fish or meat, or even to make salad dressing.

Mirin – Sweet condiment that we use for broth, teriyaki and soup. I like to use it with soy sauce when eating sashimi.

Rice vinegar – Japanese vinegar is much lighter than Chinese vinegar. I use it for stir fry, salad dressing or even drink with vegetables.

Bonito flakes – we use it with miso soup, broth, or sauce. This condiment brings a fish flavour in your dishes.

Seaweed – Japanese people eat Seaweed on a daily basis. I eat it every day in the morning and at lunch. It’s great with salad and soup.

Soy sauce – I use this with every Japanese meal. I prefer to use a lighter soy sauce to cook, but the flavour is same as the normal one, the only thing making the lighter soy sauce different being the lighter colour.

Next blog is introducing my favourite Miso soup.

I haven’t added any dishes lately… The problem is I forgot to take photos of my food…I realised this when I finished eating…

But I have some dishes this week and I didn’t forget to take some photos!

We had some sashimi platters tonight requested by my children.

My youngest daughter called this ‘Garden flower’.

150g of sushi rice and with all kinds of sashimi on top, and yes it looks very pretty like a flower.

And we have sashimi soy sauce with it. Sashimi soy sauce is different compared to normal soy sauce.

It’s a little bit sweeter than normal soy sauce. You can buy it from any Japanese store.

I am going to try to make sashimi soy sauce at home soon as it’s delicious and perfect with any fish dish.

We had:

Salmon, Tuna, Yellow tale, Roasted eel, cooked prawn, and Salmon roe.

I didn’t eat rice tonight but all the sashimi filled me up. Delicious.

More to come tomorrow!

Makiko

I was busy doing my sushi lessons today I forgot to get some pork mince…

This is my lunch…

Can you believe its just 550kcal ?

I can have some desserts too… later.

The Japanese sweets are ‘ Gluten, daily and nut free. Yummy.

I had some soba left from yesterday, I decided to make a bento box for my dinner.

First I made japanese omelette called ‘ dashi yaki tamago.

And roasted eel with brown rice.

Many people think that japanese omelette is very hard to make but it’s actually very easy to make at home.  You can also prepare few at once and freeze them. It’s ideal for bento box and you just need to place it in the bento in the morning. It will be defrosted and ready to eat by lunch. I will show you how to make it later but ingredients are here for you.

This is my mother recipe:

• 8 eggs
• 16oml bonito stocks
• 3g sea salt
• 15g sugar
• 4 table spoons of Mirin
• 2 table spoons of Sake

I have some soup for soba left so I will make a nice vegetable soup with it tomorrow morning.

Makiko

Hi everyone!

Happy new year or “akemashite omedetou gozaimasu”, as we would say in Japan!

We japanese, have a habit of eating soba ( Buckwheat noodles) in the evening of the 31st of Dec just before 12 am.

I have been abroad since I was 16 years old but I always had Soba noodles at the end of the year even when I was in Mexico.

Tradition of eating soba started in 1800, and has a few meanings which my grandmother taught me;

• Soba noodles are easy to cut in your mouth so think of something bad happened during this year and cut and chew soba to get rid of them and start a brand new year.
• Soba is a kind of  healthy noodles, so think of having a healthy life in the new year.

I remember my grandmother cooked Soba for me and all my cousins ( 13 cousins in total!) every year and I always helped her to cook and serve so I could have it first.

Soba is a very light, healthy dish as well as very filling, and which has only 350 kcal per person.

I was hoping to have a healthy, positive year in 2013 when I was eating last night and also remembered of my grandmother who kept the tradition habit every year.

Makiko