The mail, the Japanese, the Irish

It's gotten very cold and wintery here since last week. We had a crazy storm and even snow Friday last week (where I live, if we get snow at all, it's usually only a day or two in early January). So you can tell I felt like some stick-to-your-ribs goodness. A certain Irish girl that's sorta my flatmate at the moment requested stew, so we ended up making Dublin Coddle after Cherry's recipe but with homemade seitan sausages.

Seriously, I don't like European cuisine much usually, and especially not potato-based dishes, but this was the best thing I've eaten in a very long time. I was sceptical at first because the recipe seemed very simple. But all the spice and flavour from the sausages were coddled (=slowly simmered) into the stew... soooo good (and omni Dublin girl approved, what more can you ask for?).

This should probably be served with soda bread, but I didn't have any time for baking so we had it with whole wheat sandwich bread (yes, I was that busy!).






Some lovely things arrived in the mail the last two weeks or so (yay to Christmas bonus!):
This is what I received from the "Savoury Snack Swap"

a) a couple of rice cracker mixes and Mushroom Crisps! My co-workettes went crazy about the rice crackers but I haven't dared to try the shroom chips. Though, it's mushrooms and chips, so how can those possibly be bad?

b) Tapioca sticks and banana chips and from Saudi-Arabia! Haven't tried them yet... I'm scared of getting addicted to banana chips again, like I did when I was 12 or 13.

Even without celebrating Thanksgiving, these are days of friends and family feasts.
Yesterday was my grandmother's 60th birthday and I made the most awesome banana hazelnut muffins... and forgot my camera! They looked and tasted ace, I promise!

But I've got some pictures from last Saturday, when we had a small girly weekend cooking session + wine + British comedy (far too short though!).


Rachel and mystery girl sitting in my kitchen, ready to dig in! We had Japanese curry, teriyaki tempeh and stir-fried bok choy and bean sprouts with garlic (not pictured).
























Another fab Japanese thing is my new Monokuro Boo bento! I love San-x, and Monokuro especially because it's not all pink and girly, but still ridiculously cute. I already have a four container-black/white piggy bento set, and a bag, so this completes the collection:










(bento holds millet risotto with peas, a plum, mixed salad with cucumber, olives and sprouts)