Following a True Pioneer (Woman

If you haven't heard of Ree Drummond's blog http://thepioneerwoman.com/ and enjoy self-depracating, honest and down-to-earth silly writing, check it out. I started reading it maybe a year and a half ago and still check in fairly often. The author is an LA-born (same here) USC grad (same here) who loved eating a variety of ethnic cuisines (same here) and has moved into a lifestyle that's more country than chic (again, same here). Sure, she's a white lady who moved to the midwest to get married and I moved to Japan to teach English, but there's still some weird correlations between how a person goes about adjusting to a lifestyle that's far less convenient, but somehow more fulfilling than their old one.

Anyway, I thought I'd follow one of her recipes for the hell of it. Since it's tough to get things like fresh cheese or real produce without spending an arm and a leg, I opted for a simple meat sauce recipe (here)...still had to make substitutions though. The list of ingredients is

2 15oz cans of whole tomatoes (I used one cut, one whole)

2 cloves of garlic

1/2 an onion

2 lbs of hamburger (I used about 350 grams of mixed beef and pork, or less than half of what the recipe originally calls for)Thyme
Fresh ground pepper (nope, store bought shaker stuff)SaltFresh grated parmesean cheese (I used Kraft)Rigatoni (I used fuscilli since there's only about 5 kinds of dry pasta available here)

Basically, you can see the kinds of subs I made. Part of the reason is that the ingredients are probably far more expensive here than they are in the US...the meat alone cost me over $5, whereas less than 1 lb of ground beef in the US wouldn't cost that by far. I also paid over $1.50 each for those cans of tomatoes, and a small bottle of thyme was over $2. For the hell of it, I threw in a couple of chopped green peppers because they were sitting in my fridge and I figured I might as well have something green in there. I also threw in some hot sauce for punch.

You can see the steps I took here...cooking for an hour was kind of annoying since I started after 8 and was STARVING, so I cut the total time down to 40 minutes. It turned out well, but I think real cheese, more meat, and a longer cooking time would spruce it up a bit. Also could use some red pepper flakes...it ended up far more bland than I think it should have (may have taken out too much of the fat as well as underseasoned). All in all, though, I thought it went pretty well. I also have a TON of the sauce left over since I'm cooking for one, so I can toy with the sauce bit by bit as I eat the leftovers. Tonight, it's going over pasta AND tofu :)

Fitness goals

So I looked at my body fat percentage today for the first time in about a year and while it's down to 18.8 from 24.5 when I was in LA, it's still not at the sub-15 level that was my New Year's Resolution last year. I'm down to aout 74.5 kilos, which is just under 164 lbs, but that doesn't mean anything if it's all flab. This country and my lifestyle cause me to lose weight without necessarilly dropping only fat, so it's my new goal to be around 15 by the time my birthday in June rolls around. Maybe that's unrealistic, but there's a few reasons why that's my deadline:

Summer = the beach and beach parties...and girls :)
Tajima Ultimate - Ultimate Frisbee tournament in our area that I'm learning how to run as well as participating in. Our team is looking like it'll be small, which means less subs, which means more running around for me. Time to get in REAL shape.
New clothes - none of my shorts, outside of athletic ones, fit anymore. This means I need to buy new stuff, and I want to make sure I only have to do it once.
I'll be turning 27...what better time to get in the best shape of my life?

I'm sure this interests very few, but it's said that publishing your goals helps you achieve them and I'm want to make sure I have no excuses. This may mean less beer, but I'll try to make sure it doesn't mean less ramen :)

Speaking of which, the other day, JJ and I had a kaedama challenge. We basically ordered noodle refills until we couldn't eat anymore...we both stopped at 4 (5 total bowls of noodles) and declared it a draw.

Random pictures of stuff I make for dinner

Peppers and tofu in some mabo tofu mix with ground pork, poured over sliced tomato and rice

Corn, tofu and veggie gyoza in beef curry over rice
Soba with raw tomato and lightly pan fried tofu and peppers
Peppers and tofu in spicy curry w/ rice (love curry :D)
Ground pork, tofu, peppers, corn over rice

I eat a lot of noodles as well. Summer was all soba and somen, now I eat udon and various shapes of Italian pasta: rigatoni, macaroni, spaghetti, etc. Most of the meat I eat is chicken breast or ground pork, but I've recently started playing with salmon. Try to avoid beef at home because I eat it out more often than other meats. I also eat most of my veggies raw.

Care Package

So my mom sent me a pretty sweet care package last month and I thought I'd share it
Here's the contents:

• Snowboard goggles (I bought them online and shipped them to LA...cheaper overall than buying in Japan)
• 1 full set of thermals
• 2 pairs of thick socks
• 1 Taco Bell Beef Bowl (eaten)
  
• 1 huge bag of mixed nuts
• 1 small can of nacho cheese
  
• 6 packs of 100 calorie beef jerky (eaten)
  
• 1 cup of Easy Mac (eaten)
• 12 corn tortillas (expired, but eaten)
• 5 different kinds of Spanish/Mexican rice mix (2 eaten)
• Taco Bell taco seasoning (used on ground pork and eaten)
• 1 can Taco Bell refried beans
• 1 can green chiles
• 1 can Frito bean dip
• 1 package instant refried black beans

I've been working on the food while trying to not let it dominate my diet. I've managed to eat fairly fresh since getting here, and have been keeping the processed foods to a minimum. That said, those first couple of tacos (more like enchiladas since I just put spanish rice and meat into tortillas) were awesome, especially with the Tapatio I got from my co-workers and the Filipino hot sauce from my buddy Mark.

BTW, that space that everything is on is basically my cooking area. To the left are 2 offset burners that are next to a wall, and to the right is my sink which is the end of my counter.

Edit: forgot to mention the egg clock. It's behind the goggles...sorry Danielle :)