Eating soba noodles on New Year’s Day is supposed to guarantee you long life. Hm. So much for ‘an apple a day’, I guess.

Anyway, I took the kids to the Japanese American National Museum where they had an ‘Oshogatsu’ New Year’s Day celebration. They showed the kids how to put together a bowl of soba noodles and then the kids got to eat it too! Not bad for a FREE museum day.

ingredients:
12-14 ounces dry soba noodles (buckwheat noodles)
dipping sauce
nori (dried seaweed)
green onions
kamaboko (fish cake)
cucumber

sauce ingredients:
2 cups dashi (soup base)
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup mirin

First make the dipping sauce, put the dashi, soy sauce and mirin in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Turn off the heat and cool. Quite honestly – I’m not gonna be a stickler here – you can get a bottle of dippin sauce for like two dollars at the Japanese market if you are so inclined. I won’t say nothin’.

Fill a large pot with water, approx 4 – 6 cups. Bring to a boil. Add the dry soba noodles and stir – usually this take only 2-3 minutes. Drain the noodles well and rinse with cold water.

You can top the noodles with anything really. Cucumber cut small, nori cut into fine strips, sliced kamaboko. Shredded chicken or char siu works too. (See somen salad recipe.)

Put some soba into bowls, top with the toppings you like and add a small ladle of the sauce. You don’t want a soup, you just want your noodles to be wet. Aaaaand…eat!

New Years Day is coming – I’m resting up for two full days of cooking. A big part of my Japanese New Years party is mochi. Mochi is a traditional Japanese rice cake – it can be sweet – but on New Year’s it’s plain, eaten with kinako or soy sauce+sugar.

In the old days my family used to pound mochi by hand with mallets. THAT’s old skool. Me? I use the new electric plugged in machine with very minimal work on my part because I live in the future.

I recently went to thefoodlibrarian’s house where they used old school machines to make their mochi. They’ve been doing it for 40 years and they’ve got the process down – steaming the rice, extruding the mochi, cooling the mochi, forming the mochi, letting it sit in a bed of mochiko flour, and then finally packaging it. We made over 250 pounds of mochi. Unbelievable.

It was a lot of work but so worth it. There’s nothing as good as fresh mochi!

I never knew that these things had a name. O.G. always called them FOOTBALLS cause that’s what they looked like. Brilliant, I tell you. Anyway I was shocked at how simple they are to make and the kids absolutely love them.

ingredients:
2 cups rice
1/4 cup rice vinegar
3/4 teaspoons salt
3 Tablespoons sugar
1 Tablespoon sake (I left this out when I made it for the kids, fyi)
1 package aburage aka tofu pouches

Cook your rice in the rice cooker. While that’s going, in a small bowl mix together the rice vinegar, salt, sugar and sake if you are using it. Set aside.

Now bring a pot of water to a boil and heat the aburage according to the package directions. Obviously this is the easy step, since the thing is pre-made. Pretty awesome and simple.

When the rice is done, mix it will with the sauce ingredients that you’ve mixed together. Careful, the rice is HOT.

Now get your prepped aburage ready. They look like little pockets.

Using a spoon, stuff the prepped rice into the pockets and serve. It’s that simple!

‘Moffles’ are mochi thrown into a waffle maker, thus calling themselves…moffles. While that’s all well and good, I wanted to make an actual WAFFLE. So I made up some waffle batter but changed the ingredients to add mochiko. What I got was a crispy waffle with a mochi chew, not too far off the weirdness path and perfect for brunch. (It tastes better in a Hello Kitty waffle maker, for sure)

ingredients:
1 cup flour
1 cup mochiko
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1-1/2 cups milk
2 eggs

Prep your waffle iron by buttering it up. The mochiko makes this batter pretty sticky, so you want to make sure you can get them out.

Combine all the dry ingredients, then add the wet. Mixing until just combined.

Pour into your waffle maker, and wait til they come out a nice crispy brown.

You’ll notice the familiar mochi chew. Great with fruit and syrup – something different for your morning breakfast.

All the coffee lovers in the house say HEY…HO! I LOVE coffee. I thought it’d be cute to make Coffee+Donuts Cupcakes, using the coffee cupcake and frosting as a nice flavorful base. I know not everyone has a mini donut maker, so here’s just the recipe for the cupcakes. They are really excellent on their own.

ingredients:
1/2 cup butter (1 stick) softened
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1-1/3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoons baking powder
pinch of salt
1/2 cup strong brewed coffee
1/8 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

(coffee frosting recipe, below)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prep a cupcake pan with liners.

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Combine the coffee and milk, set aside.

Alternate the flour and the coffee mixture into the butter mixture, beating until combined.

Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake for about 15-20 minutes depending on your oven. Let cool on a wire rack.

The cakes become more coffee-vescent the longer they sit. These make a really nice cake as is. The coffee frosting is just a nice touch.

Coffee Frosting:
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
3 cups confectioners’ sugar
2-1/2 Tablespoons coffee
1 Tablespoon milk (as needed)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

In the bowl of an electric mixer cream butter, carefully adding the sugar, coffee, and vanilla; mix until light and fluffy. Add a little of the milk at a time to get the right consistency. Turn the mixer up to high and beat well.

Quite obviously, if you have a donut maker OR a tiny sous chef to help sprinkle the donuts: top these with a donut to make coffee+donut cupcakes. Or just buy mini donuts from the store, they make a really cute presentation.

Then you can just top these with a donut to make coffee+donut cupcakes. Or just buy mini donuts from the store, they make a really cute presentation.

A Hawaii classic, this is the short cut way. This recipe is so easy it’s ridiculous. I remember making it a lot when I was trying to get the babies started on solid foods. The kids loved it. Personally I find it very comforting when I have a cold or just feel cold.

Ingredients:
2 cans chicken broth
2 chicken breasts
2 (serving) packets of long rice
1 small brown onion
4 green onions
couple of slices of ginger

Put the chicken breasts in the bottom of the pot. Sit the long rice bundles next to them. Chop onions and throw on top. Nestle the ginger into the mix.

Pour cans of chicken broth over the ingredients, then add enough water to cover the chicken and the noodles.

Turn on the pot to HIGH.

Go away.

Come back 4 hours later.

Add salt and pepper to taste. You don’t have to put the onions – in fact my kids insist that I DON’T. You can also add mushrooms if you like.

This looks like sludge, but it’s delish – as a side dish or a main dish!

Mochi is fantastic stuff, it can be savory or sweet. When made into desserts it has a nice familiar ‘chew’ that let’s you know mochi is a key ingredient. These are dense little cupcakes with just a little sweetness.

ingredients:
1 (1 lb) box mochiko
1-1/4 cups sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
1-1/2 cups milk
3/4 cup oil
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 (16 oz can) an – sweetened red bean (optional)

Mochiko can be found in most japanese markets, it’s a white flour, in a one pound box. Really useful to keep in your pantry, you can use it for a lot of other recipes.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Prep a cupcake pan with liners. I get about 18 cupcakes out of this recipe.

Mix all the ingredients together, EXCEPT the an, in a bowl.

IF you are using the an, only fill the cups about 1/2 full, add a teaspoon of an, then cover with more batter. If you don’t want the an, just fill the cups 3/4 of the way full.

Bake for 30-40 minutes depending on your oven, until you get nice little slightly browned tops. Let cool on a wire rack. Now these are best, just like this, dusted with a bit of powdered sugar. However, I was making these for New Year’s Day and added a little something extra.

I made some kagami mochis out of fondant, iced the cupcakes with a lemon frosting and stuck my little fondant creations on top. They were festive for the party and were a fun nod to the tradition of New Year’s Day mochi.

Green Tea ice cream. Some people adore it, some people think it’s awful. It doesn’t bother me. I like this recipe 1) because you don’t have to ‘cook’ the base (I hate cooking ice cream bases) and 2) it’s not overly rich, but just…right. Great for an after dinner palate cleanser.

The thing is – the ONLY way to make this is to use MATCHA. That is powdered green tea. It’s super concentrated. Not for the weak. It’s also expensive as hell, but so worth it.

ingredients:
1/3 cup water
1/3 cup sugar
3 teaspoons powdered green tea (matcha)
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup whole milk

Cook the sugar and water over low heat, basically making a simple syrup. Remove from the heat, and add about 1/3 of the syrup into a separate bowl, with the matcha.

Don’t freak. The stuff looks nasty. Almost seaweed like, and believe me, it could smell better too. Dump that mixture back into the pan with the simple syrup and mix well.

In a medium bowl, add the cream and the milk – then add the matcha mixture. Cool it down in the fridge for about 15 – 20 mins. It will turn a lovely lime green color.

Pour it into your ice cream maker – according to manufacturer’s directions and there you have it. Yummy green tea ice cream….great with shave ice, too! If you like this, you should try my lychee sorbet…

Just look at all those toppings!

This is ’street’ food. Just rice balls, tossed on the grill, basted with soy sauce. Couldn’t be easier.

ingredients:
cooked rice
soy sauce
sugar (if you want)

Take your cooked rice and form it into onigiri balls. You can use a ‘maker’ like I did, or just form it with your hands and some saran wrap.

Heat up your grill, or you can even use a grill pan, up to you. Put the rice balls on the hot grill, baste with soy sauce, turn over and baste some more. I also sprinkle with a little sugar, which gives it more of a teriyaki flavor, but you don’t have to. Turn and baste until the rice is crispy and brown. That’s it!!

A surprisingly good flavor combination. Working with ice cream on a hot summer day, not fun. Be warned, it’s way too melty, and thus frustrating – but worth it in the end.

ingredients:
chocolate cupcakes
green tea ice cream
chocolate frosting

This is a how to, so I’m not really giving you recipes. Just how I did it. Deal with it. I used a vegan cocoa cake recipe for the cupcakes – 1. so that the Kid could eat it (who is allergic to chocolate) and 2. I figured a cake without butter wouldn’t freeze as ‘hard’.

When I made the cupcakes I only filled them about halfway so that they gave some room at the top for the ice cream. Once out of the oven and cooled, I popped the cupcakes in the freezer to firm up.

Next step, I scooped the green tea ice cream on top, sort of in a mounded shape. I usually make my own green tea, but I saw this Haagen Daaz green tea at the market and I had to try it – plus it was just $2 a pint, what a deal! (I still like my own recipe better, but hey.) After you top the cakes with ice cream, pop them BACK in the freezer. I’m telling you these things are not cooperative and melt fast.

Then finished it off by icing chocolate frosting OVER the ice cream. Put them BACK in the freezer and keep ‘em there til you are ready to serve.

The result made a beautiful cross section when you cut into it. And the flavor combo? Just perfect.