Asako Nonaka ◆ November 10, 2017

Hi!

It is getting cooler and cooler in morning and evening in Japan. According to the old calendar, the winter starts on November 7th and the period from November 7th to 21st is called “Ritto (立冬)” in 24 sekki. The cold wind blows and the leaves fall from the trees.

I was so shocked to watch the news of the terror attack in lower Manhattan. I pray from the bottom of my heart that the victims may rest in peace.

Who has a right to take a human’s precious life? Nobody!!!

Life has its ups and downs. There are tons of things that don’t go well. You might feel that it is too hard to live in the world sometimes.  If you hurt or injure others, how do you manage to keep calm? I feel that it makes you suffer more.

Real patient people neither blame others nor themselves. If they develop bad feelings, they are able to find the cause of it by themselves and control them to stay calm. They have some different ways to do so. Taking a bath, listening to music, chatting with friends, writing their feelings down on paper or just sleeping, and so on. I recommend that you gather several patterns and solutions to fix your emotions, and try them when things are not going well.

The simplest way to control your body and mind is by having healthy diets. Just eating healthy food is enough but cooking by yourself and eating it can help heal you much more. Cooking is a kind of meditation. You can focus on your delicious meal and feel a sense of accomplishment after cooking. Let’s have lots of nutritious food and control your body and mind well!

This time I will introduce how to make “Tonjiru,” a kind of miso soup with simmered pork and vegetables.

It uses root vegetables and helps your body warm up. I hope you will enjoy the recipe in winter!

Recipe: Tonjiru (Miso Soup with Simmered Pork and Vegetables)

★ Ingredients

• 300g of pork
• 1 burdock
• 1 carrot
• 1/4  daikon radish
• 6 taro
• 1 konjac
• 1 deep-fried tofu
• shiitake mushroom
• thin green onion
• miso paste
• 1 dashi bag (option)

★ Directions

1. Cut burdock thinly and diagonally. Soak them in water to remove the scum.
2. Cut konjac into bite-size pieces and boil to remove the odor.
3. Put deep-fried tofu between the paper towel and remove the extra oil.
4. Peel taro and cut into bite-size pieces.
5. Cut daikon radish, carrot, pork, konjac, deep-fried tofu and shiitake mushroom into bite-size pieces.
6. Put water, dashi bag (option) and all the ingredients in a big pot and turn on the heat.
7. Once the water boils, remove the scum and simmer until the ingredients become tender.
8. Turn off the heat and put an adequate amount of miso paste. Turn on the heat again and turn off the heat just before the water boils.
9. Serve in a bowl and garnish with chopped green onion to your liking.

Enjoy and stay warm!

Asako Nonaka ◆ October 18, 2017

Hi!

It’s already been 5 months since I wrote in this blog. I am sorry for the late update! Many things happened to me and I had a lot of thoughts. It was complicated but now I feel so calm and just happy.

In Japan the hot days still continue sometimes but the season has already changed, including the food and town scenery. According to the calendar, winter will start soon and the end of this year will come after that. Time flies!

In the previous blog I introduced the Japanese old calendar called “24 sekki” and want to explain it again. It is defined by the ecliptic longitude of the sun. The sun turns around the earth to take 365 days and this calendar divides it into 24 equal sections, marking celestial events including the solstices and equinoxes. Though it was originally used for farmers, some of them are still used as national holidays. Each season has their own meaning so I would like to introduce them here in this blog.

In 24 sekki, “Soukou (霜降)” is the period from around October 23th to November 6th. It literally means “having frost.” When the temperature of the ground becomes lower than 0 degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit), it becomes frosty. The ground temperature is cooler than the air so if the weather forecast says it will be under 4 degrees Celsius (39 degrees Fahrenheit), it will be frozen. You need to protect plants in a garden from frost.

This time, I will introduce a new recipe: “Dumplings with sweet chestnut paste.” Chestnut is one of the many typical autumn foods in Japan but people often wonder about how to cook the hard skin. I will tell you a very easy way!

Here are the health benefits of chestnuts:

•  Vitamin B1 helps energy metabolism and helps you recover from fatigue.
•  Potassium helps remove excess sodium and suppresses blood pressure elevation.
•  Tannin in astringent skin is antioxidant rich and good for anti-aging.
•  Vitamin C enhances immune system in white blood and prevents from being a cold.

Recipe: Dumplings with Sweet Chestnut Paste

★ Ingredients

Chestnut Paste

• 500 g of chestnuts
• 150 g of sugar
• 1/4 cup of hot water

Dumplings

• 200g of dumpling rice flour  (Shiratama flour)
• 300g of soft tofu

★ Directions

Sweet Chestnut Paste

1. Boil whole chestnuts in a pot for about 30 minutes.  Drain and let cool for a while.
2. Cut chestnuts in half and scoop the contents out with a spoon.
3. Put chestnuts, sugar and hot water in a pan and turn the stove on to medium heat. Crush and mix. When you can see the bottom of the pan while mixing, turn off the heat.

Dumplings

1. Discard extra water in the soft tofu package. Put rice flour and soft tofu in a bowl or a ziplock bag and mix well. Add a little water as needed.
2. Make a small ball.
3. Boil them in hot water in a pot for about 2-3 minutes. After they float to the surface, simmer for a minute and put them in cold water to cool down.
4. Mix the dumplings and the sweet chestnut paste in a container and serve the dish.

It’s perfect healthy snack for autumn. Enjoy!

Asako Nonaka ◆ May 2, 2017

Recently many foreign visitors have visited Japan. There are three years left until the Tokyo Olympics in 2020, so the Japanese government is putting a lot of work into attracting foreign tourists. As a Japanese cooking instructor, my concern is on what foods are popular among foreign tourists. Looking at various sources of information, the top 3 are sushi, yakinku (Grilled meat), and ramen. Do you like them all? They are actually delicious but I feel a little strange that they are treated as typical Japanese cuisine because they are not our staple foods. Of course Japanese people love sushi, yakiniku, and ramen as well but they are more like a treat on a special day like during a birthday, a payday, and a date. So I think it is interesting that special foods have become standard for foreign tourists. I want to tell you that Japanese people don’t eat sushi, yakiniku, and ramen everyday. If we ate them everyday, we would consume too many calories and become sick with diabetes, arteriosclerosis, and heart disease!

Do you know what the staple food is for daily Japanese meals?

Traditional Japanese cuisine includes rice, miso soup, and side dishes using fresh ingredients. Fermented seasonings like soy sauce and miso are used and because they improve intestinal conditions and make the body healthy. It is rare to see restaurants that have home-style Japanese meals in tourist spots. I recommend going to traditional Japanese diner called “Teishoku-ya (定食屋)” where Japanese people eat home-style food. You can eat rice, miso soup, and side dishes just like the ones Japanese people eat at home there. If you want to know how to cook authentic Japanese home-style meals, please come and join my cooking class in Tokyo!

A lot of my friends from Japan visited NY to eat pancakes, steak, and hamburgers. They are popular for tourists but do American people actually eat them their homes?

You can see the gaps between how a country is seen from the outside and the inside. I think it’s interesting to find the differences in your country.

Today I will introduce the recipe for “clam and cabbage steamed with Japanese sake.”

Recipe: Clam and Cabbage Steamed with Japanese Sake

★ Ingredients

• 8 clams
• Half of a young cabbage
• 10 g butter
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• 2 tbsp sake
• 2 tbsp water
• 1 tbsp oil
• 1 clove of garlic

★ Directions

1. Purge sand from the clams. Let the clams soak in a saltwater solution of 1 tsp salt mixed with 1 cup water for 30 minutes. Cover them with a paper towel to prevent them from splashing water.
2. Tear the cabbage leaves and wash them.
3. Put oil and minced garlic in a frying pan and set the heat to low.
4. Add the cabbage, clams, butter, sake, and water, and cover the pan with a lid. Let it steam on medium heat for 4 minutes.
5. Once the clams open up and the cabbage absorbs the soup and becomes tender, add the soy sauce and mix.

Enjoy!

Asako Nonaka ◆ January 3, 2017

Akemashite-omedeto-gozaimasu! It means “Happy New Year!” in Japanese. How was 2016 for you? I hope you had a great last year and you will have a healthy new year too! This time, I am going to write about Japanese food culture in the New Year.

The New Year is called “Shogatsu” and it is the most important period for Buddhists because the God of the New Year, called Toshigami-sama, comes to each home to bring fortune. Believers prepare a feast for Toshigami-sama before the New Year. The cuisine is called “Osechi-ryori.” “Osechi” means “dividing the seasons” and “ryori” means “cooking.” People eat osechi-ryori from the 1st to the 3rd of January to celebrate the New Year and pray for happiness. Recently, the convenience stores are open from January 1st but in the old days all stores were closed during the New Year so the osechi-ryori were mostly made from preserved foods. They would eat osechi-ryori instead of cooking for 3 days. The wives that were always busy with cooking meals could finally rest for a while.

Osechi-ryori is put in a colorful square bento box. Kelp roll, simmered chicken and vegetables, boiled black beans, mashed sweet potatoes with chestnuts, sweet rolled omelet, candied dried sardine, and red and white salad are decoratively places in the bento box. You can buy them at the Japanese grocery stores in NY but a lot of sugar and salt are used for preservation. There are many additives put in as well.

You don’t have to cook them all but how about cooking one dish per year and adding the handmade osechi-ryori one by one? Once you learn, you can cook it every year. After several years you will be able to cook many handmade osechi-ryori.

This time I will introduce how to cook red and white salad called “Kohaku-namasu”.

This is made from daikon radish and carrot and is marinated with vinegar and sugar. We eat this during the New Year because the two colors are similar to a decorative Japanese cord called “Mizuhiki”.

It is easier to use a grater to prepare daikon radish and carrot. Using modern tools, let’s enjoy healthy and easy Japanese cooking together in 2017 as well!!

Recipe: Red and White Salad “Kohaku-namasu”

★ Ingredients

• 400g of daikon radish
• 60g of carrot
• 2 tsp of salt
• 2 &1/2 tbsp of sugar
• 3 tbsp of rice vinegar
• citrus peel

★ Directions

1. Cut daikon radish and carrot into thin strips.
2. Add salt and let it sit for 5 minutes. Mix the sugar and rice vinegar in a container.
3. Squeeze daikon radish and carrot lightly and drain the water. Put them into the seasoning container and mix.
4. Keep it in the fridge.
5. Garnish with the citrus peel.

Asako Nonaka ◆ October 5, 2016

It has suddenly got cooler and summer is ending. Although I don’t like extremely hot summer, I miss it after it has gone. Am I selfish?

Like we change our clothes when the seasons change, we need to change the foods we eat as well so that we spend our time comfortably. We can avoid getting sick by adjusting what we eat in autumn.

I recommend eating foods that warm your body to prepare for the cold winter. Summer vegetables like tomatoes, eggplants, and cucumbers have a lot of water in them and let the body cool, whereas autumn vegetables like sweet potatoes, taros, lotus roots, chestnuts, and buckwheat contain much starch, minerals, and fibers that make the body warm.

If you keep eating summer vegetables when the weather is getting cool, your body has extra water in it, which will make the body cool and more susceptible to getting a cold. It also makes your stomach weak and affects the ability of digestion. So, you need to eat foods that make your body warm.

I often cook rice with sweet potatoes, chestnuts, and corn during this season. They contain less starch compared to rice. You can enjoy the different textures and, above all, they are very delicious! They make your body warm too. It is also good to drink miso soup with root vegetables.

In summer, we eat the ingredients raw or cook them only a little, but in autumn, we should cook them for longer and ensure the dish is warm.

In Japan, we say we have an “autumn appetite” (in autumn) because many delicious foods appear and we tend to eat too much of them. Healthy food becomes bad food when you eat too much of it because it goes rotten in the intestines and the toxins go around the body. So, we need to be careful not to eat too much and to move the body a lot. It helps to metabolize and digest the food.

Today, I will explain how to cook sweet potato rice.

Recipe: Sweet Potato Rice

★ Ingredients

• 360 cc rice
• 400 cc water
• 1 sweet potato
• 1 tbsp of sake
• 1 tsp of salt

★ Directions

1. Wash the rice and put it in a pan. Add the water to the pan and let the rice soak for 30 minutes.
2. Cut the sweet potato into bite-size pieces and add them to the pan.
3. Add the sake and salt to the pan and turn the heat on to a medium. Cover the pan with a lid.
4. Once the water boils, turn the heat very low for 10 minutes. Keep the lid on the pan.
5. Turn the heat high for 5 seconds and turn off the heat leaving the steam inside the pan for 15 minutes.

You can use yam potatoes as well but I recommend using Japanese sweet potatoes that you can buy at Japanese grocery stores. If you use corn instead of sweet potato, it becomes corn rice. That is sweet and tasty too.

Please be careful not to eat too much though, they are very delicious!

Asako Nonaka ◆ August 23, 2016

Some people live life happily, while others do gloomily. What is the difference between them?

I think it depends on whether you have self-esteem or not. Self-esteem enables you to recognize where you are and what you do, and have confidence in the decisions you make.

Life is full of constant choices. From the cradle to the grave, you have to make choices. Even a baby makes the choice to cry. Sometimes the decisions you have to make might be too hard and you might feel fear. If you have confidence in all the choices you make, you can go forward.

That way of thinking depends on how your parents or other adults treated you in your childhood. Children can attempt new things outside the home because they know that they have a safety zone at home. They know that their mother listens to them sympathetically and provides a sense of security. The repetition of trying new things gradually increases your self-confidence.

After childhood, you have to make your own self-confidence, but Rome was not built in a day. It’s important to keep trying little by little and bit by bit.

It is also true for the food you eat everyday. You eat three times in a day, 365 days a year. I would like you choose better food each time to make your body and mind healthy. If you haven’t made healthy choices up to now, it’s ok. You can start from today. Let’s improve little by little.

This time I will introduce a sticky side dish that uses mulukhiya, okra, and myoga (Japanese ginger.)

Recipe: Sticky Side Dish (Mulukhiya, Okra, Myoga (Japanese Ginger)

★ Ingredients

• a bunch of mulukhiya
• a pack of okra (about 10)
• a pack of myoga (about 3)

★ Directions

1. Boil the okra and mulukhiya briefly in hot water. Discard the water and let the vegetables cool at room temperature.
2. Put all ingredients into a food processor and mince them.
3. Add a seasoning like soy sauce or mentsuyu (soba noodle soup) to your liking. Eat with rice, tofu, natto, or whatever you like.

The stickiness of these vegetables protects the mucus membrane of the stomach and intestine, which helps you recover from summer fatigue. Feel free to make and eat it for every meal.

Asako Nonaka ◆ July 13, 2016

What do you remember when you hear “the taste of home cooking”?

Miso soup, curry and rice, hamburger, gratin, teriyaki yellowtail, beef and potato stew, deep-fried chicken…

Children remember the taste of home-cooked food even in their adulthood.

They might not remember when they ate it and what they talked about at the dinner table but they won’t forget their mom’s cuisine.

They can remember even the taste and the smell. It is very interesting, isn’t it?

Mothers think hard about what is good for their children’s health and what dish they like. Every day, moms cook meals for their family.

Perhaps there were some side dishes that you didn’t like.

You must have had a bad feeling when your mother said “Eat properly.”

That is because your mother wanted you to have a healthy body. Mothers protect children by cooking food. It is the love of a mother for her children.

Nobody says to you now, “Eat properly.”

You can choose anything you want to eat.

You can eat even only your favorites but they are not good for your health.

Now it is your turn to protect your body and your family. You are what you eat. Your children eat the food you choose. You make their health.

Please choose the food for you and your children.

What kind of dish do you want your children to remember in the future?

This time I’m introducing the recipe of Goya Chanpuru, or bitter melon stir fry with tofu and egg. This is one of the tastes of home cooked food for me. Chanpuru is an Okinawa dialect which means stir-frying various ingredients. Goya is bitter melon and cucurbitaceous plant. It contains a lot of vitamin C, fiber, calcium and iron. It helps to get rid of your summer fatigue. The bitter component helps to protect your intestines and promotes appetite. So goya is a good food during the hot summer but it cools your body so please be careful of overeating.

Recipe: Goya Chanpuru (Bitter Melon Stiry Fry with Tofu and Egg)

★ Ingredients

• 1 Goya (bitter melon)
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 pack of tofu
• 1/2 lb (230g) of pork
• 2 tbsp of soy sauce
• 2 tbsp of sake
• salt and pepper

★ Directions

1. Cut goya lengthwise and remove the seeds and slice it. Sprinkle with salt and let it marinate for a short while before washing it.
2. Cut pork into bite-size pieces.
3. Put oil in a pan and stir-fry pork, then add salt and pepper.
4. Add goya, sake and soy sauce and fry.
5. Add tofu and when the tofu is heated, add the beaten egg.
6. When the egg becomes soft, turn off the heat.

Please feel free to try this dish and have a healthy summer!

Asako Nonaka ◆ June 22, 2016

I have a question. “Genki desuka?” (How are you?)

In Japan there is a proverb, “Yamai wa ki kara” which means that sickness and health starts with the mind. “Yamai” means sickness and “ki” means mind. This time I am writing about the relationship between the mind and body as well as I did in my last post.

I am quite concerned about my diet everyday and being proud of my health but sometimes I feel sick. It happens almost when my mind is not stable. For example, when I feel nervous, impatient, or anxious, it’s easy to feel sick though I eat healthy food.

On the other hand, when I am very busy but have a fulfilling life, I don’t feel sick even if I’m following an irregular schedule. In this case, I feel more energetic and have a positive mind.

In our life, we often feel the ups and downs with work, family and relationships. If you have these feelings such an anxiety, irritation, guilt, anger, jealousy, sadness and pain, it might be a sign you’re getting sick and you should take care of it.

It is scientifically proven that there is a relationship between the autonomic nervous system and the immune system. Actually, sickness and health start with mind.

When you have negative feelings, please try to accept them at first. Then think about why they are happening and seek the reasons you are feeling that way. If you think the reason is in over-working, you can ask someone for help and reduce the amount of work.

You should not focus on yourself but on your behavior. If you can find the reason that brings you bad feelings, you can change your actions. Take your time. You can change your behavior and mood little by little. Then, your positive mindset will actually return to you.

We can see other’s behaviors well but can’t see them in ourselves. So try to focus your mind and when you feel tired, please say “How am I feeling?” and “How about taking a little rest?” to yourself.

You can do anything if you have good health!

This time, I am introducing the recipe of Nametake (marinated enoki mushrooms).

Recipe: Nametake (marinated enoki mushrooms)

★ Ingredients

• 2 packs of enoki mushrooms
• 3 tbsp of soy sauce
• 3 tbsp of mirin
• 3 tbsp of sake
• 1 tbsp of sugar
• 2 tbsp of rice vinegar

★ Directions

1. Cut the roof end of the enoki mushrooms off, and cut the leftovers into bite-size pieces.
2. Put the mushrooms and the seasonings, except for the rice vinegar, in a pot and turn on the heat.
3. Once boiling, add the rice vinegar and simmer until it becomes thickened.

It has a sweet and sour taste and an appetizing flavor. Please make a lot at one time and eat it with a variety of food like rice, tofu, soba and pasta!

Asako Nonaka ◆ June 2, 2016

“Time really does fly to do work or house chores. Though I feel happiness in my present life, I think there is something else I can do more. I want to have a fulfilling life. I have had a dream but I have no idea what I should do first.”

How many people are there who have such stress and anxiety about the future? Have you ever thought you wanted to live your own life without doing things as decided?

It is important to have strong determination. If you didn’t have it, you would go the wrong way. If you had it, you could stand at any unstable place and walk straight to the place you want to go.

In order to do that, you need to control your body and mind. I think Japanese culture helps you do that.

RESOBOX has many classes of Japanese culture like Iaido, Kendo, and Jodo. They help you train the body and even the mind. You can imagine that when you follow the “kata (forms)” of them, you feel calm as well. In other Japanese cultural practices such as Shodo, Ikebana and Sumie, you create beautiful things by using your hands and even your mind. I guess many foreign people like Japanese culture because they can control the mind as well.

There are two approaches to control the body; they are from outside and inside. Exercising is a way to do so from the outside. So what is it that you can do to control the body from the inside? It is eating foods that become the energy to move us. The better the quality of food that you eat, the better the body you will have. There are many ways to control the body from the outside but eating is the only way to control it from the inside except through medical practice. So eating food is very important for us.

Japanese food makes us feel calm and empowers us from the inside. It uses Dashi (Japanese broth) and doesn’t use too much seasoning so you can taste the original flavors. It uses a lot of seasonal vegetables, seaweed and beans so rich in nutrients. You can feel the changing seasons and control your body and mood by eating them.

You don’t have to think it’s difficult to cook Japanese food. All you have to do is cook seasonal ingredients to use Japanese seasonings. It is easy and simple. You never get tired of the taste.

Furthermore, through cooking Japanese food you can understand how Japanese people have thought and grown. To know the sentences about eating Japanese food you can understand even the Japanese mind that is calm, quiet, dislikes a quarrel and respects other people.

This time I am introducing an easy recipe of “Fried eggplant in broth.”

The skin of the eggplant has an anthocyanin pigment called “Nasunin”. It’s a kind of polyphenol. Anthocyanin works for the recovery of eyestrain and eyesight. It inhibits active oxygen and prevents cancer. It cleans the vascular system and prevents arteriosclerosis and high blood pressure! Let’s eat eggplant and be healthy.

Recipe: Fried Eggplant in Broth

★ Details

Cooking Time : 20 Minutes

Recipes Makes : 4 Servings

★ Ingredients

• 3 eggplants
• 1 cup of “Dashi”(broth)
• 2 tbsp of soy sauce
• 1 tbsp of mirin
• 1 tbsp of sugar
• An adequate amount of bonito flakes.

★ Directions

1. Remove the stems and hulls from the eggplants and discard. Cut lengthwise into two halves. Make diagonal cuts on the skin side. Cut them into bite-size pieces.
2. Grease the pan with olive oil. Grill the skins in a pan until lightly browned. Turn to the opposite side and grill as well.
3. Add the remaining ingredients and cover. Simmer for 10 minuntes.
4. Dish it up and put bonito flakes on it.

I hope you will be healthy and be able to control your body and mind through cooking Japanese food. I hope you have a fulfilling life and try what you want. When you visit Japan, please feel free to come to my cooking class!!

Asako Nonaka ◆ December 4, 2015

When you hear cake, chocolate and ice cream, how are you feeling? Many people might want to eat them. Once you have these kind of sweets, they make you feel happy. But sugar has been seen as a toxin these days to link to obesity, high and low blood sugar levels, heart disease, high blood pressure, arteriosclerosis and emotional instability. Therefore some people never eat sugar but it is little difficult to live like them. How should we treat sugar? This time I will introduce how to treat a sugar craving.

Sugar is a sweetener which is made from sugarcane and sugar beet. The sweet constituent is taken out and gathered artificially. Sugar becomes energy to move the body. The brain needs glucose, which is a type of sugar. In the old days people got it from not sugar but carbohydrates like rice and potatoes because sugar was rare and expensive.

Nowadays sugar is inexpensive and we can get it easily. Many processed food uses sugar. Soft drinks contains a lot of sugar. The 500ml Coke pet bottle has about 60g of sugar. It is difficult to eat 4 tbsp sugar as it is but we can drink it as liquid. We have many more chances to take sugar than before without realizing it.

What happens when you take sugar? First let’s see if you eat carbohydrates like rice and potatoes. The carbohydrates are changed to glucose and transported from the blood to the cell. The amount of glucose percent in the blood is the blood sugar concentration. When the blood sugar level rises naturally, insulin, which is a kind of hormone, is released from the pancreas to transport glucose to organs and bring down blood sugar levels. The body controls blood sugar levels like this.

Next, let’s see if you eat a lot of sugar. As I wrote, sugar is gathered as a sweet constituent artificially so it increases blood sugar levels quickly. To bring it down, a lot of insulin is released immediately. If you repeat this many times, it makes the pancreas tired and the function of controlling insulin doesn’t work. A glucose metabolism disorder occurs. If the blood sugar levels keep high, you might become diabetic.

In this way, we have to take care of our sugar intake. However, Japanese foods use sugar often in the recipes and I like them. It’s difficult to stop having sugar. So I will introduce my 6 points to stay fit.

1. When you crave sweets, drink water or soymilk at first.
2. Choose not snacks but fruits and bite well.
3. Eat sweet vegetables like pumpkin and sweet potatoes.
4. Use maple syrup or honey instead of refined sugar.
5. Make handmade sweets to use less sugar.
6. If you have a chance to have sweets during celebrations, enjoy eating them!

If you try these 6 points, your taste will be changed and it reduces sugar cravings. When you cook handmade sweets, you can know how much sugar they contain and you can change the amount of sugar in the recipe. You can also avoid artificial flavors and colors so it is good for children too. In celebration events like wedding parties and birthday parties, I will enjoy eating sweets without thinking about it because it’s a precious chance to share the happiness with families and friends!

This time I will introduce the recipe of carrot cookies.

Recipe: Carrot Cookies

Ingredients

1/5 lb (50 g) carrot

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp water

1/3 cup (100 g) of flour

1-2 tbsp maple syrup

Directions

1. Mince the carrot. Put it in the heat-resistant container and heat it in a 600W microwave for 2 minutes.
2. Preheat oven at 340°F (140℃).
3. Put flour, carrot, maple syrup and water in a bowl and knead.
4. Spread the dough thin to use a rolling pin, cut into bite-sided pieces. Put them on a baking tray with parchment paper. Bake them for 20 minutes.

       

Please feel free to enjoy your healthy handmade cookie.

Asako Nonaka ◆ November 16, 2015

Last month, The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that processed meats such as bacon, sausage and ham cause cancer. Red meats including beef, lamb and pork are also expected to be listed as being “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

This news that processed and red meats have become bad foods for our body and it worries us if we can’t eat bacon, ham and yakiniku any more.

As long as we look at the title of the news, it looks like processed and red meats are always harmful. Reading the report carefully, you can understand it is not true. The important thing is to get the meaning right and reconsider the dietary habit including meats.

Firstly, let’s see the detail of the report by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). It says each 50g of processed meats a day – the equivalent of one sausage, or less than two slices of bacon – increases the chance of developing bowel cancer by 18%.

According to Cancer Research UK, around six in every 100 people get bowel cancer in their lives in the UK. If they were all given an extra 50g of processed meats a day then the risk would increase by 18% to around seven in 100 people. The WHO says there was limited evidence that 100g of red meat a day increased the risk of cancer by 17%. This report doesn’t mean that 18 in 100 people get bowel cancer after each eating 50g of processed meats. This is the reason why we might get confused.

The National Cancer Research Center in Japan says that there is little risk of getting bowel cancer for the average Japanese person’s meat consumption in response to the WHO’s report. According to the report by the center in 2011, men who eat 100g of meats a day and women who eat 80g of red meats a day have the risk of getting bowel cancer. But there is no evidence to get the risk for people who eat the average amount of meats.

By the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2013, Japanese men’s average processed meats consumption is 13.7g and the average red meats consumption is 41.3g so the total is around 55g. Japanese women’s average processed meats consumption is 11.0g and the average red meats consumption is 28.7g so the total is around 40g. So if Japanese people eat twice as much as the average meats a day for the rest of their life, they have the risk of getting bowel cancer.

The people who eat meats a lot everyday need to change their eating habits. But the people who eat the average amount of meats don’t have to worry themselves about that. The Japanese food foundation is “1 ju 3 sai” which means 1 soup and 3 dishes containing a variety of seasonal foods. So they have a balanced diet and don’t have meats a lot. Meats are actually good nutrition of protein, iron, zinc, and vitamins so it’s important to ingest them properly.

So as I said at first, I want you to reconsider not only your meats consumption but also your whole eating habits. Here are 5 points to recommend:

1. Don’t have too many meats.
2. Have a balanced diet of grains, vegetables, proteins and fruits.
3. Drink a lot of water.
4. Drink alcohol moderately.
5. Have an exercise habit.

This time I will introduce the recipe of “Niku-jaga” which literally means meats and potatoes. This is the Japanese representative home meal. It is easy to cook and you can have proteins and vegetables at the same time so please feel free to try!

Recipe: Niku-jaga (Simmered Meats and Potatoes)

Ingredients
[one_half]3-4 potatoes
1 onion
1 carrot
1/2 lb of beef
2 tbsp of olive oil[/one_half][one_half_last]
2 tbsp of sake
2 tbsp of sugar
1 tbsp of mirin
4 tbsp of soy sauce
2 cups of dashi[/one_half_last]

Directions

1. Cut the potatoes and soak in water for a while and drain.
2. Slice the onion and cut the carrot and beef into bite-size pieces.
3. Put olive oil in a pan and sauté the beef.
4. Add the onion, carrot, and potato and sauté them.
5. Add dashi, sugar, sake, mirin and soysauce and simmer for 5 minutes.
6. Skim the scum.
7. Place a paper towel directly on the food and put on the lid and simmer for 20 minutes.

   

Stay warm and enjoy your holiday season!

Asako Nonaka ◆ October 13, 2015

What make your heart move? You? If so, can you stop and move the heart consciously? The answer is no.

The body works day and night for you. It’s not only the heart but also other organs.

When we eat food, the body transfers it to the stomach and digests it, absorbs the nutrition and water in the intestines, and excretes the remainder.

When we get an injury, the platelets help you stop bleeding, the white blood cells fight infections and the cells make new skin and blood vessels.

The lungs help you to take fresh air, get rid of stale air, and even talk.

Frankly they are almost magical systems! Originally the body helps you maintain a healthy body. In order to do that, what we take into the body is food.

You can decide what you eat. You can choose between rice or bread for breakfast. I would like you to talk to your body before eating. Is the food a healthy choice for the body or not?

We should have proper nutrition everyday. There are carbohydrates, proteins, fat, vitamins, minerals and water. They help you make the cells and energy and prevent a number of health conditions like abnormally high or low blood pressure, anemia and life-style disease.

A car requires gasoline to run. But if it’s low-grade fuel, the car will not run. Likewise, your body needs not foods which contain many additives, sugary soft drinks and snacks, but real good food.

The body doesn’t have a voice. But it can appeal to us in other ways like pain, inflammation, and fever. There is also evidence that the body fights with something bad. We have to notice the signs. It’s not a real solution to take medicine. We have to talk with the body and know what happens in it.

“Is the food a healthy choice for the body or not?” I would like you to ask your body before and after eating. When you eat the food you might feel happy, but after 30 minutes you might have dull stomach pain.

I don’t want you to be stoic before eating. At first, after talking with your body, then if the body says ok, try the food. If it disagrees with you after eating, you can avoid it next time.

There is no one perfect diet for everyone. I hope you will find an individual diet talking with your body.

This time I am introducing Japanese braised pumpkin for the Halloween season!

Pumpkin has plenty of nutrition. It is said that you will never catch a cold if you eat pumpkin in the winter because it boosts your immune system. Vitamin E is good for your hormones and works for improving blood circulation and unit-aging. It also works for those who have shoulder ache.

Recipe: Braised Pumpkin

Ingredients

1/2 or 1/4 pumpkin

1 cup of water or broth (Dashi)

2 tbsp of brown sugar

2 tbsp of mirin

2 tbsp of sake

2 tbsp of soy sauce

Directions

1 Wrap the pumpkin and put in microwave for 1-2 minutes.

2 Remove the seeds and cut into bite-size chunks.

3 Put the pumpkin into a pan and add the other ingredients.

4 Bring to boil then reduce heat. Cover the pumpkin with paper towel and place lid on pan. Simmer for 13 minutes.

Enjoy cooking and have a great Halloween season