Avocado salad.

This is a salad of my own creation. I put the ingredients together for health reasons.

All of these ingredients have some nice health benefits. Avocados lower cholesterol. Lettuce is good for the heart. Ginger is good for muscles, migraines and more.

This is a very basic salad, one that's easy to make and good for dinner, because it's ingredients help sleep as well as a feeling of fullness.

So to start out, here are some stocks of romaine.

Obviously we need to cut them into nice bite size pieces.

That's nice, now we add prepare the avocado.

This is not like the guacamole in that the smooshier the better, in fact, it's better to go ahead and have it as fresh/hard as you can, within reason.

Only using a half of the avocado for this single serving salad.

We're going to go ahead and slice it into strips.

A little too long so we're going to go ahead and slice it the other way a couple times to get some nice chunks.

A little mushy but still looks good. I shouldn't have put this off the last few days, or this would have been a lot better.

Going to put some sushi  ginger in, I put it next to the unused avocado for comparison.

WE just need a few slices accross and it will be the perfect size.

We're going to mix it in a little at a time,to make it more even.

Now we're going to do the same thing with the avocado slices.

Looking good, all that is left is the seasoning. Going to add sea salt:

Freshly ground pepper:

Mix some soy sauce in:

Looks good! Here is the final product:

Tastes amazing, I love this salad.

Links:
Avocado health benefits.

Health benefits of lettuce

Health benefits of ginger.

Black rice medley

Black Rice Medley:

This is a small rice dish I make for breakfast, it's easy, healthy and the items can be changed to keep the flavor fresh over time. I chose black rice for it's amazing health benefits. I waanted something that would help in some way to heal my damaged Central Nervous System. Black rice has a lot of iron, antioxidants and vitamin E. This is of course a very easy dish to make.

I'm going to start off by boiling some water. This dish is going to take about 30 minutes to make, as that is how long it takes to boil the rice. I find that while the rice can be tasty and have a passable texture if I take it out ten minutes earlier, I will suffer the consequences a few hours later.

Once it's completely boiling, add the rice (and at this stage I will also boil any carrots, if I'm using them) And cover the pot, stirring every ten minutes.

Next stage is to dice the vegetables.

First I'm going to dice my garlic.

I'm going to store all my vegetables on a spare plate, this will allow me to add them en masse when the rice is done, and once it's mixed and fully prepared I can use the plate to eat from.

Chop, and add some green onions.

I need to use this meat before it goes bad, the strength and utility of this dish is that it is flexible. I want to chop to an appropriate size, before cooking.

Next step is to add some sesame oil to a pan, and start heating this beef. 

While this is going on, I'm going to chop and prepare the other meat I have on hand, ham.

When it comes time to drain the rice, I drain it into a seperate cup to drink later, I have two reasons for this, I want to capture any nutrients that escaped into the water, and secondly, it tastes like blueberry juice.

This leaves me with the rice/carrots in the pot:

If the meat is done, it can be added, if not, wait until it is.

Now I add my plate of vegetables (and ham!)

It looks very nice, but it's missing something, so I'm going to add some salt, pepper, and soy sauce (and/or any other seasonings or sauces I might want to add, such as pickled ginger or rice wine vinegar.)

After a good mix, the medley is complete, and breakfast is served!

Healthy and delicious! :) Although I'll use more rice or less vegetables and meat in the future

Okonomiyaki

Okonomiyaki! 
 A japanese invention, created as an imagining of Western food, as anything with a lot of flour was considered "Western." It's usually a snack sold by street vendors, similar to American hot dog stands.Fairly easy to make and delicious, it is hard to find in America. For this reason, I've decided to post my Americanized version."Yaki" means "grilled" and the "Okonomi" means "as you like it." It got it's name for being very customizable.

Okonomiyaki has be come one of my favourite foods. While this is the general recipe I use, you can substitute most any meats and vegetables to taste. If you're curious about whether you can substitute something, try translating your question to English. "Can I put chicken and celery in grilled-as-you-like-it?" You will need two spatulas for this dish.

Ingredients:

3-4 Tablespoons of Flour
3-4 Strips of Bacon
1 egg
2-3 Tablespoons of water (I use 3 in a high altitude environment.)
1 1/2 cup of Napa Cabbage
A couple sticks of imitation crab or 6-8 Shrimps
2-3 Green Onions
1-2 Teaspoons Baking Soda
1 Clove of Garlic

Optional:
Soba noodles.

Okonomiyaki Sauce Ingredients:
(Note: I highly recommend making your own, it's easy and tasty and buying it in a bottle is pretty unnecessary)

3 Tablespoons of Ketchup or Barbecue sauce (I use Ketchup)
2 Tablespoons Worcestershire  sauce.
1 Teaspoon of Soy Sauce


Optional Toppings:
Mayonaisse
Aonori (Green seaweed)
Pickled Ginger
katsuobushi

Let's start by frying the bacon, I eventually decided to add another for four total strips before mixing them in.

 
 While the bacon is frying, you can add the water, flour, baking soda and egg

Mix until you have a nice pancake batter.

 When the bacon is done, you can dry it on a paper towel.

Then cut them into strips and add them to the batter.

Finely dice the garlic and add to the mix.

Next we will add the Green Onions

Dice these into small rings and add them to the batter as well.

Cut the Krab (Imitation crab)  into small chunks.

Next to tackle is the Napa cabbage. About one or one and a half leaves, maybe 2 depending on the size.

I like to use squares about the  size of the bacon strips.

Bring some water to a boil.

Add a small handful of Soba noodles for about 4 minutes.

Drain and add them to the mix.

Now is about time to mix these together, mix very thoroughly!

Now it is ready to cook! Heat up a large non-stick frying pan to medium-high heat, and spread about a tablespoon of  vegetable oil on when it is hot.

Make sure the pan is hot before you add the batter, Always make sure the pan is hot before you add anything. Have you ever heard a chef say to add something to a cold pan, and slowly heat it up to the cooking temperature?

Pile it up in a mountain in the middle:

Spread it out so it is evenly distributed at an inch or a little taller.

It will bubble on the outside, one way to tell when this side is done is to wait for the middle to bubble before turning it over, I usually turn it at about 4 minutes.

One neat trick is to rotate it at about 2 minutes, or once every minute, this will ensure it is evenly cooked.

After about four minutes, it will be time to flip it over, while this side is cooking, I tend to start the sauce, to ensure it is done by the time the okonomiyaki is.

For the sauce, you simply add the ingredients and mix until you get a nice consistency, While it is composed of Ketchup, Worcestershire and soy, it really has a unique flavour, and retains Ketchups consistency for the most part.

In some restaurants, it is eaten by breaking small segments off the grill; I simply take the frying pan off the heat, and do the same. First lets evenly spread the sauce out from the centre.

This might seem very odd to most of you, and it seemed like a horrible mix to myself at first, but after trying it I was hooked: Mayonnaise. Yes, Mayonnaise.

You can add even more ingredients from here, such as pickled ginger, (which I adore.) Or some of the more expensive, exotic ones; such as seaweed or dried tuna flakes. It might be worth trying if you really like the taste of okonomiyaki.

Here are some extra helpful links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn_vvp4Uj0Q

http://www.tofugu.com/2012/09/24/what-is-okonomiyaki-and-why-is-it-
so-awesome/

Crab-Cream Cheese Rangoons.

The crab Rangoon is a purely American invention, first seen in San Francisco in 1956. It is simple, cheap and can be made very quickly. It is usually seen in American-Chinese restaurants. 

I decided to try making them at home, because I haven't done anything new in a while. It seemed like an easy way to get back into cooking  and learning to cook, it is also one of my favourite appetizers.


Ingredient should be to taste, you can change the portions according to desire:
3 Tablespoons of Cream Cheese
1 1/2 Tablespoon of Krab  (Any kind of imitation crab.)
1 teaspoon Green Onion
1 clove Garlic
A dash of Salt.
A dash of Pepper.
~10 Wonton Wrappers.

Finely dice the Krab.

 It's very important to make sure all our ingredients are finely shredded.

Put the Krab in the bowl with the cream cheese.

Dice the Green onions finely.

Finely dice the Garlic.

 Add the vegetables to the bowl.

If you used fresh ingredients, now is a time you can see and appreciate that fact. It's a good time to gauge what you're putting into your body, add the salt and pepper now.

Mix very well, I used a fork, this helped break apart the cream cheese, though some recipes say letting the cream cheese sit a while makes this much easier.

Once you've thoroughly mixed the ingredients, you can start folding the wontons, there are many ways to fold the wrapper. Take a small spoonful and place it in the middle of your wrapper, I wet my fingers and ran them over the edges to help them stick, it didn't need a slurry.

In the method I used, I fold the corners together in 2 stages.

Starting to look nice at this point; once they are assembled, heat a pan to medium with a layer vegetable oil.

Let them cook for about 5 minutes on one side. The goal is to turn the wrapper slightly gold, and heat and slightly melt the cream cheese.

Flip them and cook the other side for another 5 minutes, after that they should be finished.

Beautiful.