We’ve arrived!
I hate five hour plane flights. Actually, we might have been in that plane for six hours or more… I’m not sure. My legs were cramping, my joints were aching, and I had a murderous headache. We got lost a few times, and quite frankly, I wanted nothing more than to get back to the hotel and go to sleep.
Hawaii is beautiful from above
Good food makes everything better.
Sugoi Restaurant
On our way from the airport to the hotel, we stopped by a place called Sugoi. When I had researched restaurants to visit before we left, I had read that Sugoi is known for it’s garlic chicken. Heck, if a restaurant is known for something, and it involves garlic… we’re definitely getting it. Son, well, he’s been known to eat garlic raw. He adores garlic, in any form.
Best bento!
Oh. My. Gosh.
Garlic Chicken
If you’re ever in Honolulu, go to Sugoi, and get the garlic chicken. I’m not kidding. This stuff is amazing. It’s as if the chicken has been fried to a crisp, and then drenched in this sweet, garlicky sauce… but it’s still crispy. We both stuffed ourselves to the max.
*drool* More garlic chicken
However… don’t get the teri beef plate. The beef is dry, severely lacking any sort of sauce (no “teri” at all!) and looked super-processed. Definitely not recommended.
Teri beef
Go for a double order of the garlic chicken instead. *drool*
Such amazing garlic chicken
Update: We went back there for our last meal in Hawaii, because we really can’t get enough of that amazing garlic chicken. Another good one to get: misoyaki butterfish. This is Son’s new addiction… he got it as often as he could in Hawaii, and is now searching to find it in CA. Also, there’s another place that’s supposed to have good garlic chicken, called Mitsu-Ken. Nope. Not even close to Sugoi. Mitsu-Ken’s garlic chicken was rather dry, where Sugoi’s garlic chicken was oh so moist and juicy, yet still crispy. *drool* I’m serious, don’t even bother with Mitsu-Ken. Sugoi, all the way.
Spam Musubi
Every now and then, it’s good to take a vacation. A time to relax and put all your worries aside for a week. Generally, it’s recommended that you take a vacation once or twice a year. Of course as with many things in life, things can get in the way of this – work, school, family, or life in general. However if you let yourself go to long without a good vacation, there can be negative effects. Stress, burning out, even sickness can occur when you work non-stop for long periods of time.
The last time I have gotten any significant break was in the spring of 2005 – I took a leave of absence for the Spring quarter of my freshman year in college. However, even this wasn’t much of a break – I was bedridden for much of the time, and in some ways this was even more stressful than being in school. (Another story for another time.) Since then, I’ve taken a full load of classes every quarter – even summers. Since graduating three months ago, I have been working non-stop, so there haven’t been any breaks for me.
So Son (my boyfriend) and I have decided that we are taking a vacation. I know what you’re thinking: “You just invited us to your spiffy brand new food blog, and now you’re going to leave us?” No. I’m not. Yes, I’m taking a vacation from work and other stressors in my life, but I couldn’t possibly take a break from you. Instead, everyone wins – I get my vacation, and for the week that I’m there, you get daily blog posts about all the good food I’m eating. (Of course we’re going for the food. Why else would we travel?)
But where, you might ask, am I going? Hawaii. The land of spam musubi (and, I’m sure, plenty of other amazing food.) Thus I leave you with my recipe for spam musubi… although I’m sure in Hawaii they’ll show me how it’s *really* done.
Spam Musubi
Ingredients
Cooking Directions
- Cook the rice, using equal parts rice and water. I use a rice cooker, but you can also cook it on the stove if you don’t have a rice cooker.
- Mix the shoyu, oyster sauce, and sugar in a bowl until the sugar is completely dissolved.
- Cut the spam into about 10 pieces, horizontally (like you are slicing the top off each time). Keep the can!
- Place the spam in the shoyu mix, marinate for about 5 minutes.
- Put the oil in a frying pan, heat over medium heat.
- Fry the marinated spam until brown, about 2 minutes on each side.
- Cut the nori into strips about 2.5 inches wide.
- Wash the can that the spam was in very well.
- Fill the can loosely with rice, then pack the rice into the can very tightly. It should end up about an inch or so thick. To get the rice out of the can, I slammed the can upside down on the cutting board until the rice came out. You might also try to line the can with plastic wrap before you pack the rice, so it’s easy to pull it out.
- Place the rice on one end of the nori, so that they are perpendicular.
- Place a slice of spam on the rice.
- Wrap the nori around the spam/rice stack. Hold closed for a few seconds, it should stick. If it doesn’t stay closed, use a drop of water to close it.
Spam Musubi
By the way, we’ll be staying on Oahu. Any must-visit restaurants that you would recommend?
Teriyaki Grilled Shrimp
Summer is over. Or at least, that’s what I’m told. The kids are back in school, and the college students are, for the most part, back to their dorms and college apartments. (I, on the other hand, am extremely excited to not have to go back to school, for the first time in as long as I can remember.) All signs are pointing towards it being fall.
But do we really have to let summer go? I think not. After all, the days are still sunny, the nights still somewhat warm. I can still go out in shorts or a skirt, and not freeze my little butt off. So why not continue to enjoy summer, and hang on to it as long as we can?
Heck, I even went to the beach last week, and I have the sunburn to show for it. Despite any sunburns, this is the best time to go to the beach. It’s still warm enough to go in the water, and most of the locals are back in school. Sure, you have to deal with all the tourists, but it’s much less busy than during summer vacation.
Perhaps you can’t go to the beach, but you can still fire up the grill. There’s no reason not to try these teriyaki grilled shrimp… not only are they incredibly easy to make; they are also a delicious bite of summer that everyone will love. I just can’t get enough of these!
Teriyaki Grilled Shrimp
Ingredients
- 30 large raw shrimp
- 1/2 cup shoyu (soy sauce)
- 1/2 cup water
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 clove garlic, crushed
- 1 tsp grated ginger
Cooking Directions
- Peel and de-vein shrimp.
- Wash shrimp, pat dry.
- Mix shoyu, water, sugar, garlic, and ginger to make a teriyaki marinade.
- Marinate shrimp in the teriyaki marinade for one hour.
- Soak ten wooden skewers in water for 30 minutes.
- Thread shrimp onto skewers, three to a skewer.
- Grill shrimp until they are no longer translucent.
Welcome, my friends, to my new home. Well, not so much a new home as an addition to my house. A second story, if you will. Calling this my new home would imply that I’m moving out of my old one, which isn’t the case at all. Rather, this will be a supplement to Sushi Day.
As Sushi Day is the place where I write about the types of sushi I make, Fridgg will be my place for writing about everything but sushi. My diet and my life consist of so many foods aside from sushi, and it was very nearly driving me mad not to have a place to share them with you. Every time I bake, or make dinner for myself and Son, or go to a restaurant, I want to be able to share my recipes and experiences with you. I’m so excited that I finally can!
So come on in, kick off your shoes, and make yourself at home. I’ll be in the kitchen, where you’re welcome to join me, cooking all sorts of delicious goodies for you.
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Spinach Dip
Memories.
I was turning three years old, and I had chicken pox. Since I was so highly contagious, my parents cancelled my birthday party with my friends from pre-school, so none of them would catch it from me. Instead, we had a party with all of my relatives, who had all had chicken pox already. My sister was only eight months old, not even walking yet. It would be several years before my brother was born. I recall very little from that birthday, except that there were a lot of big people standing around (What? I was tiny then) and there were many balloons floating by the ceiling. The only thing I remember about the food was a three tiered serving dish (this dish made appearances at many parties) with spinach dip in the bowl-shaped tier, and cubes of French bread on another tier.
Elementary school. Every year I would have a birthday party, and everyone loved mine. Perhaps I’m a bit biased, but I always thought my birthday parties were the most fun. I never had sleep overs, and I was never allowed to have a bounce house like many of my friends did. No… what made my parties so great were the treasure hunts. In the weeks before my party, my dad would make up different puzzle hints that we would have to solve in order to find the next clue. Each clue was accompanied with a box of silly little prizes – erasers, pencils, pieces of candy… and the team who finished the treasure hunt first would win a prize. We always had so much fun running around the house and the yard, trying to figure out each clue. For every birthday party, I would request spinach dip. Some of my friends would be a little hesitant about trying a green dip made out of spinach, but once I made them try it, they always loved it.
In 2006, I threw a graduation party for Son. He had just gotten his master’s degree in computer science, and I wanted to throw him a party to celebrate. I spent the entire day cooking. I made won-tons, apple pie, deviled eggs, even a little sushi. (This was several months before I started Sushi Day, and my sushi-making skills were severely lacking.) But my favorite dish of the night was the spinach dip. Out of everyone who showed up, I probably ate the most spinach dip.
Spinach Dip
Every family has their one food (or two or three) that makes it to every party. For some it might be a pasta salad, for others it could be your grandma’s cheesecake. For us, it’s spinach dip. Since the beginnings of time, there has not been a party at my parents’ house (and now at mine) that did not involve a dish of spinach dip, accompanied by cubes of French bread to dip in it.
Not only is the recipe ridiculously easy, it’s also the best spinach dip I have ever tasted. Don’t believe me? Just try it… you may not be able to stop yourself from eating the entire batch.
Spinach Dip
Ingredients
- 1 bunch of spinach
- 1 cup sour cream
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise
- a dash of onion powder
- a dash of garlic powder
- French bread
Cooking Directions
- Break the spinach leaves off of the stems, discard the stems and any bad looking leaves.
- Wash the spinach very well.
- Put the spinach, sour cream, and mayonnaise in a blender or food processor, blend until smooth. You might have to add the spinach in several batches, blending it in between, since an entire bunch of spinach takes a lot of room. When you add the spinach, try to mix it into the sour cream/mayonnaise or the already blended dip – this makes it so the spinach is heavier and will sink to the bottom where the blades are. Otherwise it takes forever to blend it all!
- Chill the spinach dip. (You could eat it right away and it will still be good, but trust me, it is SO much better cold!)
- When you are ready to eat the spinach dip, cut the French bread into cubes.
- Generously dip the bread into the dip, and enjoy!
