Obento, ohagi and sakura mochi.

Strawberries aren't in season right now, so they are pretty darn expensive at the grocery store/farmer's market. Today though we saw some discounted ones (they were kinda ugly, slightly beat-up) so we grabbed them and I made crepes.

The crepes would've been great with the strawberries, but I wanted to take it up a notch, so I decided to make pastry cream. The only thing is, I didn't really plan on making crepes and such until before dinner, so I had limited resources... I made the pastry cream with low-fat milk instead of whole milk and cream, like I've done before. Soooo........ it was pretty meh.

 The strawberries were yummy, they made up for my subpar pastry cream.

Now I can't wait till strawberries are in season to make this again with proper pastry cream :3

Mega nikuman! I should've put something next to it as a comparison. But this was quite mega, believe me.

 Went a little overboard at the grocery store...

 "Chinese" salad

 Kinpira

 Eggplant

 Futomaki

Onigiri

Osechi round 2; this was home made

 Happy New Year!! Starting off with some soup and then...

Osechi!! A significant chunk was taken out before I took the picture, but it still looks so abundant; there's so much food!

And then for dinner we had dinner at the mall.

I really wanted something with cheese... lasagna.

Pumpkin korroke

Today was a parfait day. I just really wanted a parfait. I'm glad I acted on this instinct. It was amazing.

Choko parfait: chocolate and vanilla ice cream, chocolate cake, chocolate sauce, custard pudding, biscuit, whipped cream, corn flakes.

The pudding was semi frozen, it was like ice cream itself. And again, those vanilla beans in the ice cream are comforting :)

When it comes to parfaits, corn flakes are the bomb. I usually don't like hard things in my ice cream (nuts, chocolate chips, etc) but corn flakes are the right crispiness that give good texture to the parfait.

Woooo all the best for 2013!!

Happy new year's eve :)

Sandwiches have so much potential. It's all about the effort you put in to making them. I personally think more is more when it comes to sandwiches, I honestly just put in all the stuff I love and if they stay intact between the slices of bread, then it's good to go. Considering that though, the one thing that I need in a sandwich for it to be awesome: avocado. This one had lettuce, avocado, tomato, boiled egg, with hummus, mayo and pesto (all home made, aw yeah). The bread is from an awesome sesame loaf :)

all you can eat with relatives

mmmmm

mmmmmmmmmmmm

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm i didn't stop to take nice enough photos. There was meat, veggies, tofu, a clear broth and a spicy broth, ponzu dipping sauce and sesame dipping sauce. Use your imagination

and then it was time for the desserts. Creme caramel (which had real vanilla. I could see the little seeds, it was comforting), chocolate mousse, mini cream puff

pumpkin youkan, chocolate cake, caramel mousse. I also had another creme caramel and chocolate mousse, it was so good.

my mom liked the cream puffs. I had cheesecake and coffee jelly to finish off this delicious meal :)

食べ放題