Ohitashi

A week or so ago, I wrote about the fantastic Japanese-Korean meal I made with my friend.  One of the delicious Japanese dishes Eriko made was called ohitashi, which literally means 'to sit/soak in water'.  It's a yummy, light spinach dish that is quite easy to make.  You boil spinach, wring it out, cut it, and drizzle it with a sauce.  Simple!  Here are the step-by-step directions.

Ingredients (serves about 4 people):
-1 lb fresh spinach
-1/4 cup fish broth
-1/4 cup soy sauce
-bonito flakes (optional)

1.  First, bring large pot of water to boil.  Salt it.  When the water is boiling, put in the spinach and boil for about 4-5 minutes.

2.  Remove from heat and drain. 

Once spinach is cool enough to handle, squeeze the water out of it.  Try to make it into the shape of a log.

Like that!

3.  Cut the log into 4 pieces with a sharp knife. 

There we go!

Here is the spinach in a little bowl.

4.  Combine fish broth and soy sauce in a small bowl, then drizzle several spoonfuls of it over the spinach.

Delicious sauce!

5.  Here we go! 

And Eriko topped off the spinach with a little bit of bonito flakes, which are dried, paper-thin flakes made out of the bonito fish.  Yum! 

I love this dish because it's so easy to make, and you end up eating tons of spinach that is all compacted into a little block.  Yum!  I can't wait to make this myself sometime soon, it was a great pairing to bulgogi.

Have a great day!

For a printable version of this recipe, please click here. 

Spotlight: My Favorite Mustard on My Favorite Sandwich

Every summer for the past 3 years, my friends and I take a winery tour up the west coast of Michigan.  We drink delicious wines made from the grapes grown on the rolling, sandy dunes, protected and aided by the beautiful Lake Michigan.  Being on Lake Michigan is really one of my most favorite places in all the world.

Anyway, one of the places we stay in along the way is Leland, which is a darling little town on Leelanau Peninsula.  In Leland, we often visit a little store that have all kinds of delicious spreads, marinades, BBQ sauces, and mustards.  We go and taste a dozen different ones with little crackers.  Last year, I picked up this amazing mustard, which apparently has won many awards in mustard contests. 


It's so interesting because it has an initial sweet, honey-like taste, but has an aftertaste that is as feisty as wasabi.  All year long, I've been carefully using it little by little so I won't run out.  But since I'm going up to Leland on my annual trip this weekend (!!!!), I decided to liberally slather it on my favorite sandwich.

I've always been a huge fan of sandwiches on bagels.  I think it's because I like that bagels have more of a chew to them than sandwich bread.  So here is my toasted, 100% whole wheat bagel.

I also love using spring mix salad greens for sandwiches because they are a little more bitter and have more character than plain old lettuce.

Alfalfa sprouts give amazing texture to sandwiches.  I fell in love with putting sprouts on sandwiches when I first tasted Einstein Bros Veg-out sandwich back in 11th grade. 

And of course, smoked turkey.  There's something so familiar and safe about turkey. 

When i was in Spain, my host mother made me bocadillo after bocadillo (sandwich) made of jamón (Spanish ham) or chorizo, but i started getting so sick of it after a while.  One day, for one of my excursions, she packed me a turkey sandwich, and I got so nostalgic and grateful that I cried secretly. 

Now, seven years later and that many years wiser, I would kill for a chorizo bocadillo.  

Anyways.

Add cucumbers and onions to the mix, and we got ourselves a delicious combination for our sandwich. 

Here we go, spreading the delicious, sweet-spicy-tangy-amazing mustard on both sides of the bagel (yup, i splurged bigtime). 

Layer everything evenly across the bagel, and voila!

A beautiful sandwich fit for royalty!

Now, if I had some avocado, i would have probably died, because avocado with turkey is the best thing in the entire world.  But this post is not about the turkey.  It's about the amazing mustard that has graced my life.  (Um, I swear I'm not advertising for them or anything) 

Even if you're not able to visit northern Michigan anytime soon, you can apparently order their products online.  Finding this out gave me great comfort.  I really don't know what I'd do without this in my fridge door. 


Okay, gotta run and head out on my vacation.  Ciao!

Rockstar Cookies

Cookie-baking urges come in very strong waves for me.  Especially sugar cookies, which require careful decoration, thoughtful planning, and beautiful results.  I think I like the fact that, despite my horrible lack of plating skills, decorated sugar cookies always turn out so pretty.  I love this sugar cookie recipe, which has been a staple in my life.  I've used this recipe to make cookies for care packages, cookies for my friend's 3rd graders in Florida, and for my brother at college. 

This time, I decided to make some cookies for some kids I'll be seeing this week.  They're like nieces and nephews to me, and Aunt Sunny likes to feed them :)  Since they're the rocking-est kids, i decided to make "Rockstar Cookies" with these star and eighth note cookie cutters!

Here are the yummy cookies all cut and ready to bake!

Okay, so yesterday, I asked people on the SSUR facebook page what people did with their last little bit of cookie dough after cutting shapes.  The consensus seemed to be that people just ate them.  Sharon suggested making a misshapen test cookie, and Jessica suggested rolling it around in cinnamon and sugar like snickerdoodle!  Here's what I do.  I make letters of the alphabet.  If I'm baking with someone, I usually make their initials.  Since I was baking alone...

I made this into...

a great, big, narcissistic "S" for sunny.

Some rockin' shapes from the oven.  I love this recipe because it takes only 8 minutes to bake.

Cooled cookies. 

Okay, so in my experience, sugar cookies look a lot nicer if you pick 2 shapes and 2 colors for each shape.  Otherwise, it just gets so busy that it doesn't look as nice--more chaotic.  Okay, so I had 4 colors to make.  Immediately, I went with an orange shade for the music notes.  I don't know, it was just calling to me.

Pretty orange.

Then I made a sage green for the other music notes.  I thought it'd complement the orange nicely.

I used mostly green, a little tiny bit of red, and a squirt of yellow.  I love mixing icing colors, it makes me think back to my art classes.

Okay, for the stars.  Gotta have yellow.

And last but not least, I made a pretty blue-green for the other half of the stars.

All four colors!

Small sad story: I was trying to carry all 4 bowls of frosting to my kitchen table at the same time, as well as my lens cap.  I decided to carry my lens cap on my head.  I don't know why I thought that was such a clever idea.  Course, my balance is sub-par, and this happened.

Okay, anyways, here are the results of my work.  I feel fulfilled.

Blue stars with silver sugar crystals, which i love.

Yellow stars with big round rainbow sprinkles.

I love how these sprinkles instantly add an air of festiveness to the cookies.

Cute, right?

Let's check out the music notes.  Here are my sage green notes with pearls on em. 

These are a little more dignified than the others.

Oh right, here's my narcissistic cookie.

Okay, and here are the orange music notes.  So rockin', yeah?

I love the color so much. 

Another slightly embarrassing story.  I decided that it'd be fun if I flipped some of these music notes over so there's some variation.  Except, then they're no longer music notes.  The note's flag is on the wrong side.  Arg!  Twenty years of music lessons amount to failure cookies.

This one just didn't deserve to live.  So i did as nature often does.  Eat the weak ones that wouldn't survive anyway.  Nom.

I'm excited to give these cookies out this week!  I love giving cookies as gifts to people I care about.  Try it yourself!  The recipe is easy, and the end results are often quite beautiful.

Have a wonderful rest of the week!