Pack Mentality, roller derby thread IS FINALLY OPEN!!!

I skate therefore...

I AM.	15.2%	[ 7 ]
I'm bruised.	28.3%	[ 13 ]
I'm awesome.	41.3%	[ 19 ]
	15.2%	[ 7 ]
Total Votes:			[ 46 ]

[PixieAlli]

Jammin Mac

And now for the totally unrelated info on Japanese recipes!! cat_xd

So since you don't have a rice cooker, I HIGHLY recommend that you get one, because the majority of Japanese recipes will need rice, plus it vastly simplifies your life - you can even put the rice and water in the cooker whenever you have time and set the timer to go off hours later, when all your dishes will be cooked and ready. I often set the timer at night before I go to bed and have it ready in the morning for breakfast when I wake up. Yeah, it may seem weird eating rice for breakfast, but all Japanese people do it, and I've started to adapt the habit too from my husband (although sometimes I just absolutely gotta have my cereal or granola and milk hahahaha).

There are bazillions of rice cookers available, with all kinds of additional settings and bling-bling features, but you don't need a fancy or expensive one. Here is the one I have, it's Zojirushi brand:
Zojirushi 5 cup rice cooker
It cooks up to 5.5 cups of rice at a time, and can also be used to steam veggies and make stews and all sorts of other stuff. There are cookbooks dedicated to cooking entire meals just with rice cookers!

Anyway, until you get one of those, we can move on to the meat and potatoes (or rather fish and seaweed hihihihi) of Japanese cooking!!

The crux of pretty much all Japanese recipes rests upon 3 main ingredients:

SHŌYU (soy sauce), DASHI, and MIRIN.

I will explain them all in detail in my next post, so stay tuned... cat_xd

[notJanieJones]

Pix, (this is off topic) but what University do you work for?

[PixieAlli]

I work at École Polytechnique, the top French science and engineering school:
École Polytechnique English Website

[PukeFacedFreak]

I love my rice cooker!
Rice is so fast and easy with it.

[PixieAlli]

Pixie's Japanese Cooking is being interrupted to bring you this important news:

Today we are having tryouts for the Paris Rollergirls! So I'm currently packing up my skate bag and getting ready to head over to our practice space, where I'll join our other coaches and refs in reviewing about 35 girls who are hoping to join our league. I can't wait to see all the potential FRESH MEAT woohoo! cat_rofl

I'll check in later once I get back home to let you know how it went. I hope we get some talented new skaters!

[PukeFacedFreak]

I want to see another bout. sad

[notJanieJones]

PixieAlli

Pixie's Japanese Cooking is being interrupted to bring you this important news:

Today we are having tryouts for the Paris Rollergirls! So I'm currently packing up my skate bag and getting ready to head over to our practice space, where I'll join our other coaches and refs in reviewing about 35 girls who are hoping to join our league. I can't wait to see all the potential FRESH MEAT woohoo! cat_rofl

I'll check in later once I get back home to let you know how it went. I hope we get some talented new skaters!

Oh how I envy those girls. First of all, because they are in Paris. Second, they are about to skate! Seems like it's been ages since I've been on my skates. *sigh*

[PixieAlli]

Hahaha tryouts went great!! Out of around 30 girls, we ended up keeping 8 of the best skaters. They looked like they have a lot of great potential, so I'm excited to see what the new blood will bring to the team! They join practices next week, so I'll get to see them in action soon enough. cat_4laugh

And tonight was the very first scrimmage practice for our last wave of Fresh Meat who finally were cleared for hitting and scrimmaging a couple of weeks ago! I bench coached for them and they seemed to learn a lot and have a lot of fun. It was so much fun!

But now after such an intense practice and weekend of skating, I am soooo sore.... But I still have my Viet Vo Dao (Vietnamese martial arts) class today... No skipping allowed! cat_whee

[PukeFacedFreak]

Making coffee. Flavored - German Chocolate Cake coffee. <3

[notJanieJones]

PukeFacedFreak

Making coffee. Flavored - German Chocolate Cake coffee. <3

Pix, Viet Vo Dao and derby? You are one intense lady. Also, It sounds like it's an exciting time for your league!

Puke, speaking of coffee razz I may be leaving my current job for a much easier, less stressful/demanding job as a barista at Starbucks. It'll be strange to go from being a manager to serving coffee but I've decided my priority right now is school. If I get the job, and give notice at my current job, I'll be going from about 30 hours a week to about 10 hours a week. I think that sounds about right for a college student taking 14 units.

Maybe I'll actually have time to skate again, or at least have some kind of life outside of work and school. Did I mention my boss is an evil succubus? It would be extremely satisfying to quit. twisted

So yay for me possibly having time to skate again. The interview is on Friday. If she offers me the job, I'm taking it. I don't care if it pays less. Life is too short not to have time to smell the roses, or you know, skate in circles.

In other news, I'm considering changing my major (yet again) and my birthday is coming up. (March 11th). I do accept virtual gifts if you feel so inclined wink

[Jammin Mac]

hey sorry I've been gone for a few days, it's been crazy and I don't even know how it's been so nuts. Apart from my husband having a four day weekend so we did a ton of stuff in Tokyo!

Exciting news! I was 5 feet from FINALLY getting my 25 in 5. That is the biggest issue I am having with the minimum skills. That, whips and balancing on my alien leg. x.x

[Jammin Mac]

PixieAlli

Jammin Mac

And now for the totally unrelated info on Japanese recipes!! cat_xd

So since you don't have a rice cooker, I HIGHLY recommend that you get one, because the majority of Japanese recipes will need rice, plus it vastly simplifies your life - you can even put the rice and water in the cooker whenever you have time and set the timer to go off hours later, when all your dishes will be cooked and ready. I often set the timer at night before I go to bed and have it ready in the morning for breakfast when I wake up. Yeah, it may seem weird eating rice for breakfast, but all Japanese people do it, and I've started to adapt the habit too from my husband (although sometimes I just absolutely gotta have my cereal or granola and milk hahahaha).

There are bazillions of rice cookers available, with all kinds of additional settings and bling-bling features, but you don't need a fancy or expensive one. Here is the one I have, it's Zojirushi brand:
Zojirushi 5 cup rice cooker
It cooks up to 5.5 cups of rice at a time, and can also be used to steam veggies and make stews and all sorts of other stuff. There are cookbooks dedicated to cooking entire meals just with rice cookers!

Anyway, until you get one of those, we can move on to the meat and potatoes (or rather fish and seaweed hihihihi) of Japanese cooking!!

The crux of pretty much all Japanese recipes rests upon 3 main ingredients:

SHŌYU (soy sauce), DASHI, and MIRIN.

I will explain them all in detail in my next post, so stay tuned... cat_xd

Oooo... I will find those things! I want a rice cooker, I've discovered I really no longer like american rice. I'm sure they have one at the NEX here, if not then I'll order one online. I hate the mail here, it takes so long to get anything.

[PixieAlli]

notJanieJones

Pix, Viet Vo Dao and derby? You are one intense lady. Also, It sounds like it's an exciting time for your league!

Hahaha yep, actually I find the two sports to be quite complimentary! In Viet Vo Dao I learn all sorts of techniques to maintain balance and control my breathing while conserving energy, to anticipate my adversaries' movements, and to lower my center of gravity (much like we do in roller derby by getting LOW). Plus I get to beat up on people with my hands, which isn't allowed in derby! cat_xd

And good luck for the barista job - I'm sure you won't have any trouble getting it, although try not to get TOO caffeine-addicted while working there! I almost worked at a Starbucks once too - I applied to both there and at a GameStop while I was in college, and ended up taking the job at GameStop, which was awesome because I got to play games all day, and bring the games home at night to test them and gain "product knowledge"! cat_whee

Your upcoming birthday has been noted!! cat_mrgreen

PS - Whenever you pop online, if you could take an extra second to bump this topic:
Petition for Roller Derby Skates
it would be totally AWESOME!! You've already signed it once (as have I), but the more visibility it gets, the more likely we will be to get a roller derby-themed item someday on Gaia! Maybe you could even tack it onto the front page somewhere? cat_4laugh

[PixieAlli]

Jammin Mac

Oh yah, if you get a rice cooker, you should definitely get a Japanese one, not mail-ordered from the States!! The Japanese make the best rice cookers in the world! cat_3nodding The buttons may be in Japanese, but it's quite easy to figure out, especially if you don't get one with a bunch of unnecessary fancy features. On mine the "COOK" button even has the word in English under the Japanese.

And now on to the recipes!!

The first recipe will be a simple home-cookin' style recipe that every Japanese mama makes for her family on a regular basis. It's called Oyako-don (which means "parent-and-child bowl" ) because it contains both chicken (the parent) and eggs (the children) ahahaha!

The first ingredients you should get out are the dashi, soy sauce, and mirin.

Dashi is the Japanese equivalent of bouillon cubes (except it's fish-based rather than chicken or beef-based), and it is usually sold in powdered form in boxes like this:
Click to view DASHI!
It's quite salty, and you can add it to water to make broth of various concentrations. I usually like to make my broth on the concentrated side, so I use one heaping teaspoon of dashi per 2 cups of water. But you can experiment later and see if that's too salty for you or not.

Soy sauce is probably the easiest of the 3 ingredients to find - Japanese supermarkets have entire aisles dedicated to soy sauce, of various sizes and flavors and degrees of saltiness. My favorite is the standard Kikkoman because it has a well-rounded standard taste that can be used in just about any recipe. The bottle(s) look like this: Kikkoman Soy Sauce

Finally, the mirin is the last crucial ingredient you'll need to find. It looks like this, or this, or even this. As you can see, it's a yellow liquid, which is based on rice wine (sake) with a little bit of sugar added. It gives an important little "tang" to your recipes. The characters in Japanese for mirin are: みりん so if you see that, you know it's the right thing.

[PixieAlli]

Jammin Mac

So to start off our recipe, here is the list of all of the ingredients you'll need:

* 4 cups steamed rice (hence the usefulness of the rice cooker)
* 3/4 lb chicken thighs or chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces
* 1 onion, thinly sliced
* 2 cups dashi soup stock
* 7 Tbsp soy sauce
* 4 Tbsp mirin
* 3 Tsp sugar
* 4 raw eggs (beat together in a bowl)

1. Prepare 2 cups of dashi broth and put it in a large skillet on the stove on medium heat.

2. Add to the skillet the 7 tablespoons of soy sauce, 4 tablespoons of mirin, and 3 teaspoons of sugar.

3. Add the chicken and simmer on low heat for about 2 minutes, until it's looking cooked on the outside.

4. Add the onion and keep simmering for a few more minutes until the onion starts turning a bit clear and the chicken looks nearly cooked all the way through.

5. Add the beaten eggs, pouring them all over the chicken and onion.

6. Cover the skillet with a lid and turn the heat down to low for 1 minute.

7. Turn off the heat and make beds of rice on plates, then serve the simmered chicken and egg on top of the rice.

*note: there should be a bit of liquid/sauce remaining in the mixture, which is also tasty and can be poured on top, if you prefer a "soupier" dish.

Enjoy your Oyako-don!!

ps - I found a very similar version of the Oyako-don recipe on the About.com website.
Recipe on About.com