Showing posts with label 和菓子. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 和菓子. Show all posts

Saturday, 31 May 2014

Japanese supermarkets



Today was such a relaxing day despite the fact I had a part time job. I almost forgot about it!!! Omg Stupid me! But I remembered it ;) Anyway after led very relaxing life enjoying days in the UK, how I live has been totally changed. I stay home more and do more house stuffs. I used to be a super 'out going' person spending most of the time outside. I'm still sometimes super busy but try to spend more time at home relaxed and to enjoy my time alone. It's sometimes difficult thanks to mum though haha.  Today is a good example. I just didn't anything spectacular but it was a good day.  I cooked lunch and made a Japanese sweet. My brother asked me to make it yesterday. To decorate the sweet, I needed to do some shopping. (it's called anmitsu but this is not exactly the one so let's say anmitsu-ish haha)




I just thought it might be a good idea to share how JP supermarkets are. To be honest, I'm not that much used to them cause I started to shop groceries in the UK for the first time in my life. After I came back to Japan, I was really surprised the differences of their items. It is of course because cultures are totally different but I was just surprised. I didn't have any clue the price is reasonable or not most of the time. Especially cheese is unbelievably expensive in Japan.  Anyway when you step into a supermarket, what you see is like this. 




Vegetables and fruits Oh another expensive thing in JP is fruit!!!!!! Now I guess people enjoy berries in Europe..... I'm soooo jealous.... I just can't afford them..... Poor me haha So I bought a can of fruit!




What I like most of JP supermarkets is that they have a lot of varieties of fresh seafood! For your meals, you don't have to do a massive cooking with fresh seafood. Only thing you need is to cook rice. Then you eat fish and rice! Yum





Many supermarkets have a lot of ready-to-eat food. They are delicious and sometimes cheaper than you actually buy ingredients. They are helpful but at that same time, when I fail cooking, I feel terrible thinking about these ready food... Haha




Aisles are like this. 




Since I shop at a supermarket a lot, I feel how much the price has risen the past 10 years or so. Maybe I was too young to understand the price but I have an impression vegetables used to be around 100 yen back at the time. The tax increased as well. I kinda understand why Japan is famous for its high cost of living. JP government wants to rise the tax up to 10% in the near future. Even if it is necessary, I'm just worry what it would be then.....

This post is a bit different of other normal posts. I just wanna express how living in JP actually is like at least to me. X







Thursday, 1 May 2014

おはぎ Ohagi


このあいだおはぎつくった!!
もちごめを買うのはなんだか気が引けて、もちごめを使わないでおはぎって作れるのかしらってレシピ検索していたら、切りもちとお米を一緒に炊くという素晴らしいアイディアのレシピを載せている人がいたのでやってみた!


もちろんお米だから手に水をつけないとべとべとくっつくし、だからといって水気が多すぎるとぐちゃぐちゃで形をつくりづらいし形を整えるのが難しかった!
私はまわりもあんこのおはぎ好きじゃないからきなこと、せっかくだからカラフルに抹茶をつけてみようと思ったの。グリンティーの粉だとあまり色がつかなかったからお抹茶用の抹茶をつけたらちょっと苦すぎて笑ちゃんと砂糖をまぜなきゃなって再確認。


なぜかとってもインターナショナルなお皿を使ってた私です・・・この男の子がいいね!笑
なかにはあんこが入ってます。ふつうにおいしくてまたつくろ~と思いました(*^_^*)

I made Ohagi the other day. Be ware that my English is not good enough but I'm gonna tell you about Ohagi this time ;)
Ohagi looks like a rice ball but it has red bean paste inside. It seem like normally people call this as Botamochi. Botamochi and Ohagi are very identical but as far as I know, ohagi is made in Autum. Therefore I should say 'I made botamochi' but personally I like to call them as ohagi. haha I cook normal Japanese rice with some rice cakes. Because of rice cakes, the whole rice becomes a bit sticky. I made it into a ball shape and put red beans paste inside. Normally, ohagi is covered by azuki (read bean paste) or kinako. I don't like one covered by azuki so I made kinako ones and matcha ones to make them a bit colorful :)

Oh my English friend said they look like chicken nuggets! Really?
What do you think??? X