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I made this dish as a lunch after Christmas since we made a large rib roast and had leftovers. In Japan, "Beef bowl" or "Gyudon"牛丼  is a popular fast food.  One example is " Yoshino-ya " 吉野家  made of braised thinly sliced beef and onion in a soy sauce based broth  (with other "secret" ingredients) placed over a bowl of rice. While braised beef is fairly common, roast beef is not. Roast beef bowl, however, is also getting more popular in Japan. Some appears excessive in terms of the amount of meat they put on the rice. I made a much tamer version. I thinly sliced the rib roast choosing the medium rare part. This is a small bowl and I served it with miso soup. The Japanese version is often topped with an egg (either raw or onsen-tamago) but I topped this with thinly sliced cucumber, sweet onion and blanched green asparagus. The miso soup was made of scallion, aura-age and tofu. For the sauce, I just mixed soy sauce, mirin and prepared horseradish.

We have given up cooking holiday Turkey for some time. Since Turkey meat is dry and rather tasteless and  produces a large amount of leftovers, we would rather have chickens. As a matter of fact, for this year's Thanksgiving, we barbecued cornish game hens. For us, half a cornish hen is more than enough. For Christmas, we cooked a rib roast which is something unusual for us. We did it because prime rib or rib roasts were very reasonably priced at our grocery store. We barbecued it in our Weber with a light hot smoke cooked to medium rare. My wife made " broccoli stuffing balls " and mashed potato with cream cheese and chives. This was the rib roast before cooking. It was over 5 lbs with ribs attached. I removed the excess fat and seasoned it with onion salt, garlic powder, fresh rosemary from our front garden (finely chopped), Kosher salt and black pepper. I had a bit of difficulty keeping the inside temperature in the Weber kettle below 400F but managed to keep it below

Sushi taro osechi box inlcudes " Jako " braised with Japanese sansho pepper じゃこの有馬煮 every year. "Jako" is a very young and small sardine or anchovy, boiled and then dried. Many small fish are a symbol of prosperity and a traditional dish for osechi. It was braised with the fruit of the Japanese " Sansho " pepper tree 実山椒. The name "Arima-ni" 有馬煮 came from a spa resort called " Arima hot spring 有馬温泉" near Kobe 神戸.  In the past, inns in Arima served dishes to their guests using the fruit of wild sansho trees which were abundant in the near-by Rokkou mountain (六甲山).  Japanese pepper from the Rokkou mountain is called  Arima sansho "有馬山椒" which supposedly has distinctive flavors different from sanshos from other regions in Japan. It is a bit difficult to serve this dish as it is, so I decided to make a rice bowl or "donburi" 丼 from it with the other items that remained in the osechi box. I served this as a lunch with mis

Here is a description of how to grind buckwheat grains into flour, using a coffee grinder capable of making a grind suitable for espresso. コーヒー豆をエスプレッソ用に挽けるコーヒーミルを使って、蕎麦の実を粉にする方法の説明です。   Equipment: Coffee grinder 2 large pots 1 coarse sieve 1 #60 mesh sieve 1 bucket 器具類： コーヒーミル 大きな鍋　２つ 粗いふるい　１つ #60メッシュのふるい　１つ バケツ　１つ (Grinder or bucket not shown in the photo) （写真にはミルとバケツは映っていません）   Buckwheat grains: 蕎麦の実：  Previously put in a mesh bag and cleaned by rubbing 既にメッシュの袋に入れて、揉んできれいにしてあります。   Commercial grade coffee grinder: 業務用コーヒーミル：  Fuji R-440, "cut type" (not grind type) フジのR-440（アールヨンヨンマル）の「カットタイプ」（グラインドタイプではない）    1. Set the grinder to the Coarse position. Place one pot under the outlet. 1. ミルを粗い設定にします。出口の下に鍋を１つ置きます。 2. Close the dumper. 2. ダンパーを閉めます。    3. Put the grains in the hopper. 3. 実をホッパーに入れます。  4. Turn ON the grinder and open the dumper. 4. ミルの電源を入れ、ダンパーを開けます。  Contents of the pot: 鍋の中身：  5. Filter the contents of the pot, using a coarse sieve above the other pot. 5.

Dough : ingredients and method in Cinnamon Bun.   Except 1 tsp yeast. 1 cup milk 3 Tbs butter 3½ to 4 cups all purpose flour (stir, spoon flour into a measured cup and leveled ) 1 egg 1/4 cup sugar 1 tsp rapid rise yeast  1 tsp salt 2 rimmed baking sheets  In a small saucepan, heat milk and butter until very warm 120-130 oF.  In a mixing bowl of a standing electric mixer, add 3½ cups flour,sugar, salt & yeast.  Stir well.  Attack dough hood, add warm liquid and egg to the bowl, beat with low speed and scrap the bowl occasionally until combined.  Increase speed to speed #4 and beat until the dough leaves the side of the bowl  but still stick to the bowl at bottom about 6 minutes total .  If the dough still sticks to the side of the bowl after 4 minutes beating add flour 1 Tbs at a time, scrap the bowl occasionally.  Beat 2-3 minutes more until the dough smooth and elastic.The dough should be soft and tacky.  When you pick it up with floured or oil hand, it should not form a firm bal

My wife found Japanese sweet potato (satsuma-imo) at Whole Foods and had to get them. We like these kind of sweet potatoes because they have firmer flesh than U.S. yams and are very sweet. We made a few of our usual dishes from them. One is cooking them in the Weber grill when we grill chicken. Simply, wash, prick all over with a fork (so they don't explode while cooking), wrap them in aluminum foil and stick them in the Weber at the same time the chicken is put in. By the time, the chicken is done the potato is also done. We grilled 4 sweet potatoes this way one weekend. We ate some of the sweet potato with the chicken for dinner. The next day, my wife made these sweet potato rolls with the leftovers. Although the rolls are based on a recipe she found, as my wife was making these rolls she realized she had lots of extra sweet potato. Since she is particularly fond of rolls with surprise fillings she decided to put the extra sweet potato into the center of the the roll as shown. It

Using bento-boxes to serve New Year's dishes was good idea and I pushed this idea further for the 4th New Year's day lunch. I used a small square stackable "Juubako" 重箱 box (4 1/4 inches, or 11 cm square) which we used in the past to serve candies and small sweets. I thought the small size would be perfect for lunch. We started making  grilled cheese mochi  few years ago. Once we started, this became my wife's favorite way to eat mochi. This time, I put grilled cheese on both the top and bottom instead of just one side. I also served small sheets of "nori" dried sea weed to wrap the mochi. Most of these items were what I made. Salmon kelp roll, chicken patty with fig and gorgonzola, red and white New Year fish cakes stuffed with guacamole I made and ikura (the guacamole stuffed fish cake was really good), poached chicken tenderloin dressed in wasabi soy sauce, date-maki, thinly sliced rib roast with horseradish soy sauce, Russian marinated salmon, my ver

On January 14, I harvested some of the fruits from the two amanatsu trees, as requested by my father. １月14日、父に頼まれて、２本の甘夏の木から一部、収穫しました。   To harvest the fruits on branches too high to reach, 高くて届かない枝になっているのを収穫するには、  I used a "taka eda kiri basami" (high branch pruning scissors)  高枝切りばさみを使いました。  rather than a stepladder. 脚立ではなく。   I harvested the bigger ones, and left the smaller ones on the trees. 大きいのを収穫して、小さいのは木に残しました。  Kaki (persimmon) tree: 柿の木： Ume tree: 梅の木：  As you can see, there are lots of buds on the branches. 見て分かる通り、枝には蕾（つぼみ）がいっぱい付いています。   I also harvested some grapefruits. グレープフルーツも少し収穫しました。   Hana yuzu tree: 花柚子（はなゆず）の木：  The fruits can be put in a bathtub (to take a "yuzu buro") and can also be used in cooking. 果実は風呂にも入れられます（柚子風呂に入るため）し、料理にも使えます。   While I was harvesting the amanatsu and other fruits, my father worked in the other areas of his field. He reported that the door of the greenhouse for strawberries had been blown off by strong wind, so tha