2020: Week 7

February 10, 2020 – February 16, 2020

Tried seitan. I made an accompanying stirfry dish. See the recipe below.
Tried water buffalo ice cream. It was blueberry and lemon flavoured and so good.
Make bubble tea from scratch. See the recipe below.
Made wagashi, specifically mitarashi dango and chestnut daifuku. See the recipes below.

I saw a sunset from the top of Mt. Tolmie that looked like it was painted on the sky. Saw another gorgeous sunset with reflections off the water at King George Terrace.

I got another chance to eat at House of Boateng. This time I had the harissa chicken crepe. It came with marinated chicken breast, leeks, caramelized onions, and harissa jus on greens.

I was home sick for a couple of days, but was feeling a bit better on the weekend. Went for a fantastic afternoon tea at the Abkhazi Gardens. The staff are always really lovely there, and the food is always delicious.

Got to try Dosa Paragon. The vegetable pakoras and sambal dosa were both incredibly flavourful.

Here’s what I made over the weekend and during the week.

I made King Arthur flour’s sourdough pizza crust using some discard from my sourdough starter. This crust held up beautifully as leftovers and had great flavour. I will definitely make it again. Topped my pizzas with chorizo, mushrooms, basil, and Daiya pepperjack.
I made King Arthur flour’s sourdough blueberry muffins. Because I used molasses, and maybe left them in a couple minutes too long, they came out a very deep brown colour. The cornmeal added a satisfying bit of crunch, but the blueberry flavour got a little lost behind the molasses flavour.
Made non-alcoholic hot toddies to sooth my sore throat. Just lemon juice, honey, and cloves.
Made Singapore noodles from Minimalist Baker to accompany the marinated seitan I bought.

I followed Just One Cookbook’s recipe for Mitarashi Dango. They turned out amazing! I did alter the recipe a litte. I did not have shiratamako flour, so I instead used a ratio of 75g mochiko and 125g joshinko. It was an experiment, but I think it worked really nicely. See photo at the top.
Just One Cookbook’s Daifuku came together with a fair bit of difficulty. I made the red bean paste (tsubuan) in the slow cooker. I soaked the beans overnight, boiled them for ten minutes, transfered to the slow cooker for about 6 hours on high, mashed, and added brown sugar to taste. That was the easy part. Making mochi was hard! It was so sticky and fragile. I stuffed a few of them with chestnuts.
I tried this recipe from Oh the Things We’ll Make for homemade bubble tea pearls (boba). I had a lot of issues with my dough texture. Because starch and water make a non-newtonian fluid, I kept having issues where the dough would stiffen too much, and then turn really liquidy when I applied pressure. It just didn’t seem right and I couldn’t roll it. I did manage to form enough pearls for one drink, and they turned out nicely after cooking. Enjoyed them with matcha, honey, and cashew milk.

I started a 30 day challenge to sit in seiza. My goal is to sit for as long as I can everyday until I can manage it for at least 30 minutes. I lasted for about 10 minutes on day one. I want to be able to sit this way when I attend kaiseki style meals in Japan, or tea ceremony. It’s also another good way to sit to maintain good posture when using my computer at home since my computer is on my low kotatsu table.
I have been stretching everyday to try and do front splits. I am getting pretty close with my right foot forward. As of this week, I’m going to be doing this stretching routine from Trainlikeaballerina on YouTube to try and stretch through the last little bit that is holding me back.