More New Foods

Wandering through Ministop yesterday I came across a delighteful new Hi-chew, kiwi! They were slightly sour, wrapped in gold foil. They were delicious. Less delicious and higher on the uniqueness scale, gummy filled chocolates. Interesting would be the word to use. They were berry flavored, blueberries and strawberries were on the packaging. They were not bad, but it can be a little strange if you are unsure what to expect.

Second experience of the week was making my own italian salad dressing. No, I haven't started eating salads every day. That simple dressing can be used on such a wide variety of foods, and Japan apparently does not know how to make it properly. All the one's I've had taste like corn syrup and vinegar. I make a dry mix based off a recipe on the internet, then mixed it up with some olive oil and some vinegar. Today it will cover some grilled chicken, tomorrow who knows?

The final food experience of the week, dinner at a teacher's house. Andrea and I were invited to dinner at an english teacher's house way back in March. Yesterday we followed through on that invitation. Her mother made most of the food, they also bought some pizzas. With mayonaise...and corn. Needless to say it wasn't the greatest pizza experience, but at least now I can say that I've had it. They made cheesecake, bbq'd chicken, fried rice vegetable concoction, spring rolls, pork and potato dish, as well has homemade ume shochu (plum sake). It was all very delicious, except for the rice, which I did not try. It was fun to sit around and eat delicious food and hear all their stories from trips to the US. Would definitely do it again, maybe even bring some of my own food next time to share.

Magical Leftovers

Scrounging through the kitchen trying to find something to eat for lunch, I realized that all I had was old taco meat and rice. I did what any self respecting person does. Mixed it all together added some cheese and salsa. Terrific. Leftovers might be a fearful word for some people, but for me it has become part of daily life. I suppose I could figure out how to adjust recipes so that I only made enough for two servings. Problem is, its almost as cheap to cook for two as it is for 4. If I can add two meals to a dish and eat lunch for 50 cents, easy way to save money. Even cheap noodle cups are a dollar a piece(plus most of them have shrimp >.>).

Moral of the story, don't be afraid of leftovers. They're cheap, you already paid for the first meal, you don't have to pay anything extra for the following ones. They're easy, microwave anyone? Finally, they let you try new combinations. Sure taco bell has had rice bowls, but have I ever really felt like paying for one? No. Good, easy, cheap food is always hard to beat.

New season of foods

Well a new "season" has started. We're heavy with milk and dark chocolates, as well as some stranger varieties. I'm speaking of cheesecake flavored chocolates. They are not terrible, but they take you back when you first bite into them. Toppo has a new "Ghana" milk chocolate version. Basically it's harder milk chocolate and they're a lot bigger than the normal sized Toppo. Green tea is still a popular flavoring. Blueberry has made a brief comeback as well.

I had the strangest flavor of Ramune soda last week, green tea. It basically is ramune with green tea poured in. Not particularly delicious. Andrea couldn't even deal with the one sip she had. I managed to finish it, but I won't be trying that again.