Back to school, back to work.  September is often when new things start — and things get busy.

It’s a great time to learn new cooking tricks to put real meals on the table fast, so that you have more time to enjoy the food, and other things you love.

Especially if you have one or  two (or with little ones) people household and want to learn how diversify your dinner options easily and quickly.

Join me for:
“Real Meals on the Table Fast for One or Two People”
When:  Saturday,  September 18th, 2010  11:30 am – 12:30 pm
Where:  Oakland Public Library Lakeview Branch Event Room
550 El Embarcadero, Oakland, CA 94610   tel: 510-238-7344
Cost:      Complimentary to my subscribers
Pre-registration required: http://eepurl.com/zleV

Stop dinner boredom — even if you are cooking for just one or two.

Many single people and small families face the dilemma of how to cook at home regularly, especially balancing time & effort with cost & health benefits. They don’t know how to diversify their dinner options without relying on prepared meals and restaurants.

Can you relate?

I’m so excited to share my secrets with you – how to put a variety of real meals on the table fast for one or two people — without repetition.

These simple and unique cooking secrets are usually kept only between great Japanese home-cooks. I know from my own experience how frustrating it could be to eat the same thing over and over, yet not knowing how to pull off many variations without a lot of time and effort — so I adapted them for the American kitchen and lifestyle so people like you can benefit. After this class, you will change the way you think about food and cooking — it’ll be much more fun and easy! By implementing just a few of my unique yet practical tips, you too can enjoy lots more variety AND save time, money (this is how we saved over $10,000 per year just from cooking more at home) and reduce waste.

This is about how to cook more efficiently while creating more variety, the Japanese way. Appropriate for all cuisines and dietary restrictions.

If there are requests, I’ll be happy to take you to Trader Joe’s or the Grand Lake Farmers’ Market after the class to help you shop more efficiently as well.
The space is limited, and i’ts already filling up fast — so please sign up now before it becomes full.
Sign up from here.

Once you are registered, you will receive confirmations and reminders with details (map, parking info etc) automatically.
Feel free to invite your friends and family who would love to learn the secrets to put real meals on the table fast for one or two people.  Simply forward this newsletter from the link in the footer.

Hope you can join me.  It’s free & fun!

Mari

Would you like to experience how to prepare real meals FAST, Kitchen Wizard Style step by step, by participating from beginning to end?  And learn how to do it night after night?

Many of you asked me for fully hands-on, “how to do Kitchen Wizarding day after day” classes, so that you can duplicate it at home.

I’m happy to announce that now my fully hands-on, 3 day series encompassing the essence of the Kitchen Wizard Method is coming to Marin County’s ITK (In the Kitchen) Culinary in Sausalito.

In these classes, you’ll learn my unique yet easy secrets to batch prep and keep everything ready to go, so all you have to do is mix and match at a moment’s notice to put fresh meals on the table day after day without stress.
You will not only learn recipes, but my revolutionary cooking methods that save you tons of time, money and food; especially invaluable for those with smallish families including single people.

ITK is very spacious and has 12 stoves, so you will have the space to make most recipes on your own.
Each class builds on top of each other, so taking all 3 is recommended (and you get a great discount).
You will experience how easy it is to make many exciting dishes with little effort – it’ll blow your socks off!

Only able to attend one or two? No worries.
Each class can be stand-alone, and the key points will be reviewed and expanded upon, so that you can easily duplicate the processes you learn at home.

Cooking Optimization Hands-On Class
Date: September 1 – 3 (Wed, Thurs, Fri)
You can either sign up for the entire 3 day series, or separately for individual classes.
Details & Sign-up: http://ITKCulinary.com/classes/CookingOptimization.html
This is a very popular class, so sign up now!
(Click here to review ITK’s policies.)

If you know anyone who are interested in learning how to put real, healthy meals on the table faster & cheaper, please pass along the info.

Hope to see you there.

Mari

Have you ever ended up with tofu leftovers?  What do you normally do with it?

Do you want to know my secret?  Crumble with a fork, cook in microwave, then you can add to practically anything. For example, soup — not only for miso soup, but also other Asian style soup, mix with ground meat and make a healthier burgers, scrambled tofu, stir fry, stuffing for gyoza, with rice. You can even add it to smoothie or make desserts, if you use the kinu-goshi (soft or medium-soft).  You can also do this to extend the life for a few more days, when you have a fresh tofu that’s about to expire. (Tofu can be frozen in the pack or with water, yet the texture changes compeletely.)

And yes, in case you are wondering, you can make this first, and make the tofu scramble I shared with you on my last post.

Scrambled Tofu Base

1. Crumble a tofu with a folk and place it on the microwavable plate lined with a paper towel. Microwave high for 4-5 minutes.
2. Leave until cool to handle,  transfer to a tupper ware lined with paper towel. Store in the fridge.

One recipe I want to share with you today is called Shiro-ae. Literally means mixed with whites.

Shira-ae

Ingredients:

• Scrambled Tofu mix – 1 cup (about 1/2 block of tofu)
• Nerigoma (sesame paste), ground sesame seeds, Tahini or peanut butter – 2 TBS
• Sugar – to taste
• Soy sauce – to taste
• miso (optional) – to taste
• Salt – pinch
• Greens – 1 1/2 – 2 cups

Method:

1. Mix tofu, sesame paste, sugar, soy sauce and salt.
2. Steam or boil greens, shock in ice water, and squeeze water out well.  Chop in bite size pieces. Or just use leftover vegetables.
3. Mix 1 and 2 right before eating.

Note: My favorites are broccoli or spinach, yet other vegetables such as carrots and sea vegetables especially hijiki can be used for this dish.
What’s your favorite way to eat tofu?  Please share as comment below.

Marinated Strawberries and Radishes

“I got the best adult toy ever.”

When I said that on the Facebook, some of our friends got overly curious about what it is.

What do you think it is?

I got an Iphone, finally. It’s a lot more easy and fun than I thought, and to my surprise, it saves me a ton of time. As you know, I like things easy, efficient and fun.

One example is taking a photo for my blog.

OK, the quality of the photo may not be as good as it could be, but just being able to take a photo, upload it on Facebook immediately without downloading and all that hassle, AND be able to use it for my blog post right away. I’m writing this post as a reply to my email with that photo on my IPhone. Wordpress has this great feature that if I send it to a particular email ID, it gets posted on my blog immediately. It’s amazing as soon as I push “Send/Receive” on my Outlook, I will find an email from Wordpress that a new article is posted on “Secrets of a Kitchen Wizard”.

So when I made this new dish my friend Fumi told me about, I took a photo with my brand new IPhone and posted on Facebook immediately, as a practice. Yes, it’s the dish those who came to my class last Saturday get to sample. : )

She found this recipe from a new Japanese movie called “Eatrip” that I’d love to see.

The combination of strawberries and radishes sounds a bit strange, but it’s really nice and refreshing. Best to eat it when it’s marinated for about 3 hours, not too long (it gets limp.)

Marinated Strawberries & Radishes (from Japanese movie “Eatrip“)

Ingredients:

• 1 pack strawberries (cut in half or quarter if big)
• 1 bunch radishes – about 10 (sliced thin)
• 2 TBS Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO)
• 2 TBS Red Wine Vinegar
• 2 TBS Turbinado or Brown Sugar
• Salt and Pepper to taste

1. Mix EVOO, Wine Vinegar, Sugar well in a container with a lid.
2. Add Strawberries and radishes and mix gently to coat them well with the vinaigrette. Season with a little bit of Salt and pepper to taste.
3. Cover, and let it marinate for about 3 hours in the fridge.

Note: You can use the leftover juice as strawberry vinaigrette for salad. I mixed it with mentsuyu noodle soup base for my cold Japanese noodle salad the next day, it was delicious! (and yes, my leftover sliced radishes also adorned this pretty dish.) I’ll share the recipe on the next post!

By the way, it’s still not late to sign-up for Diageo Wine-Pairing Teleseminar on Friday, and get access to their great Employee Wine Sale.

Want to know more? Check out this post.

Or sign up immediately from here.

Feel free to share with your friends and family who’d love to stock up great wine for great price!

So what’s your favorite function or apps on your IPhone? Please share with me.

Leftover pasta after the liquid treatment

Before.... Leftover pasta

Do you ever eat leftover pasta?  What do you do to revive it?

I love batching something, and use it little by little to create many different dishes later in the week and I even blog and teach people how to do that, but pasta is one of very few things I don’t over-make.  Because, noodles are best when it’s cooked, right off the pot.  The older they get, the stickier they become.
As many of you read on my previous post, I hosted a cooking class party last Sunday at our kitchen, and as a host, I wanted to make sure to be prepared, and have more than enough food.

I got carried away, and served and showed how to make all these dishes:

• Appetizers
  • 2 kinds of Mushroom bites (one with goat cheese, one without)
  • Mushroom, spinach and feta cheese gozleme (Turkish version of Quesadilla)
  • Crudite with pesto mayonnaise
• Served during the Class
  • Made Sauteed button mushrooms and Asian mushroom mix (use these as a base)
  • Okara Quiche with chicken, leeks, asparagus, mushrooms, and gruyere cheese
• Dinner
  • Magic Mushroom Soup
  • Tuna and Mushroom Pasta, Japanese Style
  • Kinoko Mizore Ae (Japanese Mushrooms and Grated Daikon Salad with Ponzu Sauce)
  • Cranberry and Fruit Relish with Whipped Cream

A lot of mushrooms, I know.  But this class was called “Flexipes: Mushrooms and Beyond”, and designed to teach people how to make a large batch of something (in this case, sauteed mushrooms), then turn it into many different dishes throughout the week (or later if they choose to freeze it).   Naturally, a lot of mushrooms had to show up on the menu.   The good news is, when you make them different flavors and treatments, people often don’t feel they are eating only mushrooms — and no one complained.  Phew!

Pretty much all the food was gone, except the pasta.  I forgot the fact that they ate quite a bit of appetizer and okara quiche before dinner, and made extra in case people were hungry.

Well, something I don’t like more than old pasta is throwing away perfectly good food.  Almost all Japanese have “Mottainai” as a motto. “Waste not”, it means.  So, I needed to do something with this pasta leftover.

So I decided to moisten the pasta with a little bit of liquid (I used vegetable broth I had on hand, but you can use other kind of broth, white wine, pasta water, or even water in a pinch), covered and microwaved it.

Of course, it was not quite as good as newly cooked al-dente pasta, but it was far better than leftover pasta without that treatment, or pre-made pasta from store.  And I definitely liked the fact that I was able to eat it just by heating up.  It’s hard to see on the photo, so just try it and see what you think.

In any case, it’s best to mix the pasta with the sauce as soon as you cook it.  Plain pasta without anything starts to stick right away, and will be harder to revive, especially spaghetti.  Even worse are capellini and flat pasta like linguini.

So the best pasta practice is, in my opinion:

1. Make the exact amount of pasta, and eat it right away.

2. If there’s any leftover, make it into pasta salad as soon as possible.

3. Mix the pasta with sauce or dressing right away or, if undressed,

4. As a last resort, sprinkle with a little bit of liquid on top, cover and microwave, and enjoy the time -saving!

So what do you do with your leftover pasta?

Happy New Year!

Is “healthy eating” one of your new year’s resolutions?

Would you like to learn how to cook healthy, tasty meals at home with half the effort and time, and with twice as much variety?

As a New Year gift to my loyal readers, I’d love to invite you to my class ”The Fastest Path to Healthy & Exciting Home-cooked Meals!” next Saturday, January 16 at Oakland Public Library for free!  I will teach you my unique system of how to make a variety of healthy meals at home easier and faster while having fun!  

In this class, you’ll learn the first, most critical step — how to keep an efficient, flexible pantry.  After completing this step, you will be able to whip up lots of dishes and end your dinner dilemmas forever!

1. What to keep on hand & what to shop for
2. How to mix and match ingredients for maximum flexibility and efficiency
3. Demo of several easy dishes – with samples for tasting!

• When?:  January 16 (Saturday), 2010   From 11:30am to12:30pm                  
  • Optional free trip to Trader Joes (12:30 – 1:30pm) to help you get a head start
• Where?: Oakland Public Library Lakeview Branch: 550 El Embarcadero, Oakland, CA 94610    510-238-7344     
  • Click here for Map & Directions
• Questions?:  Leave me a comment!

This event is popular and expected to sell out!  Come early – seats are first come, first served (or bring a portable chair just in case).  The class starts promptly at 11:30am.

*Space is limited to first 40! Save your spot NOW and get FREE printable shopping list by signing up from Class Tab on top.

* Parking: If possible, carpool or take public transportation.  Parking could be challenging. There are a parking under 580 (right next to the farmer’s market), metered parking along main streets such as Grand, Lake Shore etc., and free street parking on side streets.

 Look forward to seeing you in person next Saturday!