Chicken & Brown Rice

I kept tonight's dinner simple.  My favorite foods, chicken & rice.  Kelli will attest to that.  I rarely have a chance to cook my favorite dish because Kelli doesn't care much for chicken thighs & that's what I want! 

Anyway, I used the pound of Diamond G Brown Rice sample package I received when I attended the 8th annual L&L Convention at the Sheraton Waikiki last Saturday.  I was invited to attend by my client just for fun because of my restaurant background & continued interest in food.  It was an interesting day of workshops & presentations by food supply vendors.  Those vendors were also giving out lots of samples of the food products they were there to promote.

Of course, I realize brown rice is not so fascinating, but I took a picture of our dinner so I thought I'd accompany it with a story.  I'll have more stories about the convention experience as I use the various sample products I received that day!  :)

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Rick Nakama (R) GRI, SFR, SRES
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Another Re-bedding of our Worm Compost Bin... & some Fat Lizards!

Last weekend we re-bedded the worm bin.  It's getting to be a really long process to do the main worm bin and the others that are the various stages.  I don't know if we'll do anymore total worm volume measurements the next time.  It takes too long to try to find all the worms!

 

Anyway, it looks like our worm family has grown to be about a Starbucks Iced Venti cup and a half now.  It's been just about 1 year.  I originally posted about the worms back on April 25th here http://nakama-m-photos.blogspot.com/2009/04/compost-worm-bin.html and on August 3rd here http://nakama-m-photos.blogspot.com/2009/08/harvesting-our-compost-re-bedding-our.html.

 

I took a lot of photos and videos this time to try to keep up with the times.  Ever since Kelli's co-worker, Lisa, sent us her You Tube Video Blog of her trying the Japanese Kit Kats while she had all the props and make-up and wardrobe set up for it, it just seems like I'm not making the cut without some videos!  Hahaha.  I'm still trying to get her to share that video to the whole wide world!!  I'm starting a petition!

 

OK here are the photos and some really EXCITING National Geographic <i>like</i> video of some of those crazy, aggressive lizards that have invaded Honolulu attacking the little bugs coming out of the compost pile!  **PG 13 contains graphic footage of "animals" in the wild eating for their survival...**  Hahaha.  Don't fall asleep watching or the lizards in your house might pounce!

You Tube Videos

Watch out Steven Speilberg, this is only my beginning... Hahahaha!

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Curried Pork Eggplant

I got to cook dinner again tonight.  We're slowly settling in, giving us a little more down time to go grocery shopping and cook rather than buying fast food for every meal.  Thank goodness!

I chopped up some round onion, green bell pepper & Japanese long eggplant.  Heated up my pot with some butter & ground pork & seasoned it with some salt, pepper,garlic & a few tablespoons of curry powder.  Then I added in the vegetables & let it cook a bit.  In a separate pan I had a few tablespoons of flour cooking that I added into the pot & continued cooking it for a few minutes.  I opened up a big can of Swanson's chicken broth & poured that in.  (I had to cheat a little because I don't have time to make my own stock!)  Then I let it simmer & seasoned it to taste.

Another very satisfying dinner! 

Kelli even put her Williams Sonoma techniques to use tonight & made a box of Duncan Hines Brownies for dessert!!  OK it's time for dessert now!  :)

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Alrighty... Replacement Nexus One Has Arrived!

Well, my wonderful Nexus One's power/wake-up button konked out last week Thursday.  I was having a difficult time waking up the phone for several days until finally mid-day Thursday my Android said, "NO!" and he went to sleep.  I got on the phone to Google/HTC Support and after about 50 minutes of going through phone authorizations stuffs the phone was on its way! 

 

I just received it about a half an hour ago and I am so relieved!  I managed to get by over the weekend with my Nokia N82, but there were several instances where it was quite obvious how dependant I've become on my Nexus One's capabilities! 

 

I did have some fun taking photos with the far superior N82's Carl Zeiss Lens camera over the weekend and I'll post those up later.  Here's a few for now.

Sent by Nokia Mobile.  Rick Nakama R GRI 808.382.6761 East Oahu Realty Inc.

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Strange Flavored Hi Chew

Ok the other day, Kelli's co-worker gave her an odd flavored Hi Chew candy.  Before that, Kelli gave that same co-worker a variety of Japanese Kit Kats.  I told her she has to blog about it.  She made a You Tube Video of her eating the Kit Kats.  She exceeded my expectations because what I expected was a photo or 2 posted on her FB page.  I'm not sure if the video is private so I won't post it.  I wish I could because she went all out with costume and props and even tried background music, but the sound didn't work!  Hopefully she'll give permission to make that You Tube video go viral!

Anyway, when Kelli came in the car with 1 piece of Hi Chew and told me is was from her, I thought I would have to blog about it in return.  I set up the Hi Chew on the dashboard and immediately photographed it.  Then Kelli stuck it in my mouth.  The initial taste was ?????????!!!!!!.  I couldnt' quite make what it was.  It was weird.  I guessed, "lychee?", "mango?"...  I didn't know what it was.

It was durian!  I knew it was strange!  Thanks for the weird durian flavored Hi Chew sample... I probably never would have tried it if Kelli didn't just stick it in my mouth!

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Tonkatsu Dinner - Finally a Home Cooked Meal!

We've been eating out at various restaurants & fast food places for a few weeks.  I've been tired of eating out or eating at home, but eating take out food.  Finally, tonight I was able to go grocery shopping and cook some food!

Times had pork tenderloin on sale so as we browsed the ad posted up at the store it turned into the menu.  Looked like Tonkatsu (Japanese Pork Cutlet) is the special of tonight!

I love eating my home cooked Tonkatsu!  It's always so much better than eating it at any restaurant!  No need to wait for rice or finely shredded cabbage okawari (refills). 

I need to make more meals at home.  I'm getting fat eating fast food junk everyday!  =)

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Another Breakfast Ala Leftovers

Last night we had an Easter Eve Dinner at the "in-law's".  (I'm not used to that & rather refer to them as Kelli's parents.)  The dinner was a roasted turkey with stuffing & gravy.  We came home with some leftovers.  I know that I need to use up leftovers right away or it will just end up being lost in that refrigerator black hole for days, weeks or some cases months!

I decided to make a creamy spinach based casserole type of breakfast because I need to be so fancy!  :p

Threw all the stuff in a buttery pot of a little browned flour, finished it with some half & hald and put it in our finest Corelle bowls.  Topped it with a little mayonnaise (I made the decision to buy a 3 pack of Best Foods squeeze bottles from Sam's, the saw that they expire in November!  So *warning* lots of mayonnaise to look forward to!  ;> ).  I don't have my kitchen torch here in the new digs yet so I popped it into the toaster oven set to broil for a few minutes.  Not quite as effective or quick as a kitchen torch or salamander, but oh well...

Delicious!  Easter Brunch!

Anyway, we started using our new little cups & saucers for my single americanos.  Perfect size, makes me feel so Italian.

Happy Easter!

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808-382-6761

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YoonCy Korean BBQ in Kapahulu.

Last night after a long day of work, I stopped by our favorite Korean take-out restaurant to pick up dinner.  YoonCy Korean BBQ is located in the Safeway Shopping Center at 888 Kapahulu Avenue.

We always get a Meat Jun plate here.  We really love the Meat Jun they make.  This time I also tried the Spicy Fried Chicken plate.  Both plates were delicious, but the fried chicken wasn't spicy, so either it was regular fried chicken or for those that don't like spicy food, don't be afraid of this one.

The owners/workers here are always very friendly.  Great service is always a good thing, but at other places I have almost come to expect not to receive satisfactory service as a norm.  Anyway, you can count on friendly & good service when you visit YoonCy.  :)

I like restaurants that have nice printed menus that I can photograph easily & post up.  I've decided that it's a great way for me to check their menu to phone in an order without carrying around or looking for the printed menu.  I can just search my own blog for reference. 

As usual, if we get ourselves 2 regular size portions, we'll have leftovers.  The next morning I make us some Bi Bim Bap for breakfast.  It's always so tasty! 

I've downloaded Pic Say application for Android & have been playing with it.  You'll see a couple of things I did with the leftovers photos.  I'm using the free version now & it seems really good so far!  Give it a try if you're an Android user.

Those of you who follow my tweets may have noticed we stopped by a certain other Korean BBQ place a few days back that caught bad headlines in the local news the past couple of days!!  Thank goodness our food was OK that night!!  :P it was good.  I hope that place is able to make a good recovery from that incident.

For now, we know we can always count on YoonCy!

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