November 30, 2015

Curry with pork, onion, carrot. White rice. Mikan (orange) jelly. 200ml Hokkaido Milk.

Good simple lunch. japanese curry.

November 28, 2015

Bit of a special weekend edition here. We went out today to gather some wild wasabi from a family-secret location our friend was willing to share with us. We cleared the snow and managed to dig up a half dozen small-medium wasabi. 

Freshly unearthed wasabi root

 Next, we decided we would put it to use. First, we gave some to his family since they shared the location with us. Then, we picked up some scallops (hotate), salmon (syake), and tuna from the grocery store. Whipped up some sushi rice. Cleaned and grated the wasabi, sliced the fish.

All the fixins for a sushi bowl. Sliced avocado. Minced tuna. Sliced salmon. Raw scallop. Bottles of Shoyu (soya sauce) and su (vinegar). Grated wasabi mixed with shoyu. White sushi rice mixed with su.

Finally, assembled some bowls.

Assembled sushi bowl.

delicious.

November 26, 2015

200ml Hokkaido Milk; miso soup with fried tofu and greens; fried fish; marinated pork, daikon and carrot; yamamori (mountain of rice)

Had lunch in the teachers room today, because it was a test day.

Also it is full-on winter here, snowed 20cm Tuesday, and it stuck around. snowing again now. Hoping to pick up some snowboard boots this weekend...

the hill in the background is the ski hill in monbetsu. not huge, but only 2.5km from my house. I've seen them testing out the lift etc so they might open soon....

November 25, 2015

Yogurt with fruit (pineapple, mandarin, other stuff). Udon with chicken, cabbage, green onion. 200ml Hokkaido milk. Hotdog bun with sweet peanut flavour sugar.

Only have two days of school lunch. Lucky for you, dear reader, one of them was my Wednesday school with a peanut-sugar hot dog bun.

September 4th, 2015 (from the archives)

From the archives (had no school lunch today):

Large rice. Two spring rolls. Japanese style shepherd's pie (carrot, potato, and ground pork in a gelatinous sauce with the strong flavour of christmas spices - cloves? nutmeg? i don't recall). Miso soup with wakame and tofu. 200ml Hokkaido milk.

This one was interesting. The slop at the top is kind of a japanese take on shepherd's pie. Uses ground pork as the meat, and has quite a bit of gelatinous sauce. The most interesting part is the spices - it reminds me very much of the spices in Tortiere, which I think is cloves.

Another interesting thing I'll touch on is the miso. It is often made with contrasting ingredients - this day's combination (wakame and tofu) is quite common. The wakame floats, while the tofu sinks. Other times it will have a contrast in textures (something chewy like fried tofu with something that falls apart easily like maybe potato?). It's kinda cool!

November 20, 2015

200ml Hokkaido milk. boiled beansprout carrot and spinach. Miso soup with wakame and matchstick daikon, Pork stir fry with onion and green pepper. White rice.

Tasty lunch. At my Jr High schools, I get my lunch tray from the staff room and take it to a random student classroom to eat. This works out quite well usually (I keep my visits more or less fair, but when a class is being really slow to get the lunch dished out I go to a different one to ensure i have time enough to eat). But occasionally I have significantly more food than the students and I feel bad.

November 19, 2015

White rice. Nori packet. Potato pork mash. fishy fish. Miso with cabbage and fried tofu. 200ml Hokkaido milk.

so much rice ugggghh my belly

November 18, 2015

200ml Hokkaido milk. Fried potatoes, carrots and hot dog slices. Two pieces of zangi. Hot dog bun with "chilled chocolate" -chocolate cream. Soup with mochi, spinach, pork, daikon.

Classic wednesday school.

November 17, 2015

White rice. Mackerel. Boiled cabbage and spinach. Pork soup with wakame, mochi ball, green onion, daikon, and carrot. 200ml Hokkaido milk.

Decent lunch. Ate with the first/second grade (combined class), everyone ate everything but there were two kids who wouldn't finish their rice. Also one of them wasnt good with chopsticks and he dropped rice down his sleeve. Another one blew a bubble with the mochi ball from the soup.

Coconut base soupcurry with kabocha, chicken leg, veggies, cheese, and quail eggs. White rice.

Bonus food. Had this for supper on Sunday, at a soup curry place in Kitami. Soup curry is maybe my favourite Hokkaido specialty. I should try out a few home-recipes and see if I can find one that's comparable, so people in canada can enjoy too.

September 3rd, 2015 (from the archives)

One from the archives - I havent posted much recently so I thought I'd throw this one out there.

Miso soup with daikon and green onion. Some kinda fish, skin on, in sauce. Hijiki (black seaweed), daikon, carrot and chicken salad. Large rice. 200ml Hokkaido milk

This was a good one. first time I had hijiki salad, thought it was quite good. salty and chewy.

Interestingly, the food government agencies in Canada, the US, and the UK all advise against eating hijiki. It has high levels of inorganic arsenic apparently. Oh well, it tastes good and the other 150 kids at lunch ate it.

November 16, 2015

Soup with pork, bean sprouts and spinach. Pasta salad with ham and carrot. "pilaf" with shrimp n stuff. 200ml Hokkaido milk.

Pretty good lunch. only my second time at this school - and the first time was my first day teaching. It went much better this time for some reason.

November 13, 2015

Fukujinzuke on white rice. Plain sweetened yogurt. 200ml Hokkaido milk. Chicken curry.

Japanese curry is tasty, very savoury, and not spicy at all (at least, to my western tastebuds). According to Wikipedia, it was introduced to the Japanese by the British - kinda amusing. it's super popular

November 12, 2015

White rice. Spinach, bean sprout and bacon salad. Deep friend white fish with sauce. Miso soup with green onion and mozuku seaweed. 200ml Hokkaido milk.

Good lunch today, the bacon is the first I've had in japan that seemed to be smoked/cured western-style. Usually it is just ham cut into bacon form, without any of those delicious delicious nitrites.

November 11, 2015

Wakame rice. Tofu, carrot, and onion in some sweet and savoury sauce. Piece of mackerel (sanma) I think. Egg drop soup with garlic scapes?. 200ml Hokkaido milk.

Forgot to check the menu on this one, so i'm not sure of exactly what it was. pretty good though, no bones in the sanma. Bonus points because it was my wednesday school and i didnt have to eat a hotdog bun.

November 10, 2015

Miso soup with tofu, carrot, daikon, and spinach. Fried salmon with 2 bones. Salad with raw cabbage and bean sprouts. Wakame rice. 200ml Hokkaido milk.

Very good school lunch today, a nice shift from eating far too much conbini food over the past week. My brother and sister in law were visiting. We were travelling around a lot, and that meant eating a lot on the go - not the healthiest. Only got two bones in my salmon, and found em before biting into them! successful day.

November 4, 2015

spaghetti with onion, cabbage, sausage, pork. Caramel sweet portatoes. Bean sprout, spinach, and ham salad. Hotdog bun. 200ml Hokkaido milk.

Good ol' Wednesday school assortment.

Won't have any posts for a week or so. My brother and sister-in-law are in Hokkaido, so I'm taking a couple days off school.

November 2, 2015

napa cabbage, carrot, green onion. Broiled chikuwa. Rice with chestnut. Soup with tofu, green onion, and kamaboko. 200ml Hokkaido milk.

Chestnut rice pretty good. other stuff okay too.