Rice Cooker Nabemono

It's the middle of spring over here in Japan, and after a few days of cloudy days, sun, and more clouds,  the sky finally decided to make up its mind and rain on us over the weekend.

From 26°C we fell down to, what, 15°C, 16°C? 10°C is a huge difference. Although as I write this blog post the sky's clear as all hell and we had been hit once more with 26°C this afternoon, I felt like I needed to have something warm and healthy for the cold weather the last two days. I wasn't feeling like having some sukiyaki this time, so I went for the more savory alternative:

I've given a brief explanation of nabemono (鍋物) back in my post about sukiyaki. In the old days of Sunrise Land, nabe was a staple of most dinners especially in the winter, and to this day they still are. Families and friends alike gather round clay cooking pots over hearths on the floor called irori (囲炉裡), sharing bowls of soup filled with veggies and meats, sharing warmth and a hearty meal to get them through the cold. These days you rarely see traditional Japanese homes with irori; instead you see a cast iron pot boiling stew over a butane gas stove.

This is an irori in a traditional house in Okutama (奥多摩), the mountains of western Tokyo. In the old days people cooked nabe through these things in the comforts of their homes, and people in provincial areas still do so today.

In my time here in Tokyo, I rarely run into a nabe shop. Most shops I see are ramen shops, izakayas, sushi counters, and gyūdon restaurants. Then there's the occasional tempura or curry place down the corner. Call me ignorant and maybe I am, but that's just my experience.

There are different kinds of nabe, as I mentioned previously. But their components always consist of a basic dashi broth, soy sauce, mirin, vegetables, and meat. You can also essentially put in whatever mix of veggies and meat that you want. For today though I'll be doing my own rice cooker nabe (oh, the irony) that has a bunch of ingredients, a couple of which being optional.

This should serve about 3-4 people.

Mac n' Cheese

Following weeks of take-out, convenience store snacks, and a full week spent with my girlfriend from across the globe after she came to visit me in Japan, it's about damn time I came back to this blog (*sprays confetti*)! And I'm back with a simple recipe that doesn't have you doing anything too complicated.

Over in my Discord channel the other day, one of my good friends shared this lovely video of Cheetos Mac n' Cheese by Matty Mattheson. I suddenly had an unquenchable desire to make my own mac n' cheese following that, and it didn't help that another one of my good friends was making mac n' cheese at the same time while her little kid was running around playing with a ladle. I made a first batch but it turned into a flop, because I was too lazy to make a proper roux and it became a terrible mess. Now I wasn't stupid enough to not do it again this time, and it came out just the way it should have.

This should be enough for 3-4 people.