Mostly Japanese food, and pretty light on meat. We go through periods where our vegetable consumption wanes, so I'm focusing on adding more vegetables to complete our dinners.

Monday--Okonomiyaki, with just cabbage, kamaboko and fresh green onions from our garden. 

Tuesday--Shabu Shabu. Another all-veg meal using tofu and the other half of the kamaboko from yesterday's dinner. Shabu-shabu got canceled awhile ago because we were out dipping sauces. Now I've started working on making the sauces from scratch.

Wednesday--Kara-age fish, but using chicken. Fish was not looking very happy this week. I think the swap will work. With the first harvest of Romaine lettuce from the garden, kim chee and hot rice.

Thursday--Stir-fried Lazy Wraps, for lack of a spiffier name. Take a package of sausage. Smoked Brats, Chicken Apple, or Portuguese are the household faves. Slice them and toss them in a non-stick pan. Slice an onion, 2 red peppers and some mushrooms. When the sausages are almost brown, add the onion, then peppers and then mushrooms. When everything is cooked, heat up some tortillas and make wraps. Add salsa if you like.

Friday--Misoyaki Butterfish with steamed broccoli, another fresh head of lettuce and rice.

Bonus Saturday--Yakisoba, made by the husband. Use Maruchan *fresh* and *not instant* yakisoba.  He adds green beans, carrots a bit of pork, chicken, or kamaboko and red pickled ginger (kizami shoga) as a garnish. Fresh yakisoba is in the refrigerated section of most Asian grocery stores as well as in some Safeways.

Eat Well. Be Well.

Yes, it's California. So it's not the painful, freeze-your-hair-while-walking cold that I remember from college in New England. After all, it's 19 degrees in Providence, RI and 49 degrees in San Francisco. However, it's 72 degrees in Honolulu, so 49 is feeling cold enough for soup.

Here's what's on tap this week, in case anyone wants to come over.

Monday--Teddy Bear Chicken Soup, just for my 'baby' boy, who is under the (cold) weather.

Tuesday--Poulet Grandmere and a good crusty bread

Wednesday--A new and hopefully easy recipe for Hot Sour Soup with Pork and Tofu. It looks a little tame (i.e., not too spicy) and doesn't really include tofu, so stay tuned for major tweaking.

Thursday--TBD fish (again all new)--thinking about braised salmon with shiitake, salmon in grape sauce, or crispy salmon on tangerine/bacon spinach.  Which one sounds best?

Friday--Number 1 Udon (to use up the last of the New Year's kamaboko) or a new recipe for pan-fried noodles.

Saturday--Benefit Spaghetti Dinner at church. And of course, bingo.

I wanted to add Korean Chicken Soup too, but the bok choy were not looking too perky at the market today. Oh well, next week will still be "cold".

And to all of my ohana living in really, truly cold weather in the Midwest and Northeast, stay warm and be safe!!

 When I was a kid, we went to church on Christmas, then to my Grandma's for lunch, which always included ham, teriyaki meat, some kind of fried chicken, sushi, sashimi, and Aunty's snowball cookies.  

However, Christmas really seemed like the signal to start cooking for New Year's. Like most "mixed plate kids" we knew that 'calendar' New Year's was for mostly Japanese food, while "Chinese" new year was later for mostly Chinese food. Either way, it was good eating.

While I still don't cook the New Year's foods (thanks to a friend who has taken on this responsibility/honor), we do keep a few traditions.

First--New Year's means fancy kamaboko. Kamaboko is steamed fish cake. It's about 9 inches long, half cylinder and comes on a wooden block. For New Year's, there are 'special' kamaboko like what you see here--sho-chiku-bai (pine, bamboo, plum). These represent the virtues of inner strength, longevity and resiliency, and beauty and optimism in adversity.

More New Year's traditions as the week goes on.