New Year Eve

We were cleaning our house today! In Japan, it is a custom to clean the house at the end of year and start the new year with a fresh feeling.
Anyway, my husband enjoys cleaning very much so he likes this custom. He was in charge of cleaning the 5 Venetian blinds. He washed them on the clothes line in the garden. I was in charge of washing the two bed rooms, the stairs and windows. Then we cleaned our favourite kitchen appliance - the stove!!!
We were so exhausted, but it is very good feeling.

By the way, the above photo is taken from my old flat in Tokyo. I could see the scenery from my room. It is very nice view, isn't it?

Carry bag

Recently, I have been concentrating on quilting. I have completed 3 projects which were a Christmas tapestry, a pouch and a bag. I made a carry bag for my sister in nine patch pattern. It took 2 weeks to make. I used a sowing machine for piecing together and I quilted the side and bottom with 1.5cm wide quilt lines by hand. My left forefinger was peeling from so much quilting.


At present, I don't need to hurry to make any projects so I feel good, but my quilter friends gave me a lot of scrap fabric so I think I have to start making pouches for them.
I made this cushion in mariners compass pattern that I displayed at a quilt exhibition in my quilting class.

Quiche

We made another quiche. Actually, this is the second time.
It had a good taste this time, but we have not perfected the recipe. When we find the best recipe, we will blog it!! We used bacon, onion, emental cheese, tomato and olives in the filling. The method of preparing of the pastry is very well explain in a book called The science of cooking by Peter Barham. He explains all the science behind strange steps of short crust pastry preparation.

Hamburgers

I cooked Hamburgers today. Normally, I don't cook mince meat because mince meat needs preparations such as kneading and mixing. I like cooking, but when I am short of time, I prefer to cook chicken or pork. Anyway, hamburgers were very juicy and delicious. My husband cooked mash potato and broccoli with garlic and soy sauce.

Baked cheesecake

I made baked cheesecake. It was a bit hard to control the temprature of the oven.
It was a little over cooked on the top, but taste was OK.
I will make it again on Christmas day.

Roast Chicken

We cooked roast chicken in the BBQ. Actually, it was the second time. I haven't shown you the first one because it didn't look so good. ( It was almost totally black!!! , but still tasted good underneath.) If we cook it in the oven, cleaning is a big job so we tried using the BBQ.


We covered the chicken in foil and it took about 1 hour to cook.
It was very tender and delicious. Unfortunately, the skin stuck to the foil. We will try to cook it again. Perhaps it will be better to coat the foil with oil. We cooked potato and pumpkin as well. They took about 45min to cook.

SQUID'S

We tried to find a new restaurant. We went to a seafood restaurant which I had made a note of a while ago. The restaurant has oysters, which are my favourite seafood. I knew there was an oyster happy hour (from 4 to 6:30 pm) when oysters are half price. I didn't know it also was on weekends. When we went there, it was crowded because it was the end of the happy hour. Of course, I ordered 1 dz oysters, but we missed out on the happy hour. The oysters tasted weak, but I still enjoyed them. There were a variety of toppings such as lemon, ketchup, horseradish and Tabasco. My favourite is lemon and Tabasco.


My husband ordered "Grilled Trout Modena Balsamic marinated boneless trout with honeyed pecans and lemon butter, served with herbed polenta and a sauté of spinach, tomato, and garlic" ( yes, it is a very long name.)

The trout was tender and the tomato garlic sauce was quite delicious. The polenta went well with the dish.


I ordered "Pan Seared Salmon with black beans, fresh guacamole, crisp tortillas, roasted squash, and spicy tomato chipotle sauce".

It wasn't as good as I expected, but I ate the oyster so I was quite satisfied with my dinner. They also have lobster and shrimp so we will come back another time.



To finish, we ordered chocolate silk pie. I wondered if it really was a pie because it didn't have a crust. Somehow it tasted like water. Not so good. Maybe next time we will try the creme brulee.





Unfortunately, we haven't found the best seafood restaurant because they adulterate the taste of the fish. It looks like it will be difficult to find a restaurant that uses delicate seasoning.

SQUID'S
1201 N Fordham Blvd
Chapel Hill, NC 27514
Tel: (919) 942-8757
Fax: (919) 929 0780

Pizza

Pizza is easy to make and delicious. We made a thin crust pizza.
It took about an hour and we used tomato sauce, ham, tomato, minced onion, anchovy, capers, olives, cheese and fresh grown basil.

This photo is before it went in the oven. It looked like a lot of cheese. Unfortunately, we didn't have Mozzarella so we used Emmental which was OK, but it wasn't stringy. Anyway, thin crust was successful so we will make it again.