Review- Watts Premier RO-Pure Reverse Osmosis Drinking Water System from Costco

We decided to purchase the Watts Premier RO-Pure Reverse Osmosis Drinking Water System from Costco since the Brita pitcher takes up so much room in the refrigerator and can barely keep up with the amount of water I drink. The system seems to be the most economical one that is easily available to purchase. The replacement filters are supposed to be easily available also from the website. They don't carry them in the store. Interestingly, I searched Costco.com for this model, but the system doesn't show up, only the replacement filter pack. They also only sell the sediment, pre-carbon & post carbon filters with this pack. They are missing the membrane filter so I'll probably need to buy those somewhere else and the membrane filter is the most expensive! I think I'll ask Costco to also provide that missing membrane filter since the box says, "replacement filters available at costco.com". Even after the major re-design of my apartment's kitchen, there is still dead spot that isn't very useful. This corner in the photo and the dead spot is under the dish rack. It's the only partially inaccessible corner. I am able to crawl under the sink and stick stuff deep inside and 10 years later crawl back in and discover some ancient artifacts, but basically it's not very useable for much. The sliding racks found at stores that are supposed to make use of these dead zones will not work because the stuff will just end up banging into the sinks drain pipes not to mention having to remove everything stored under the sink area just to slide out that storage slider. I decided this would be a perfect spot for the reverse osmosis system. Here is a photo of the under-sink area and the difficult to reach void to the right. As you can see, there is still lots of space to put my time capsule of things to be rediscovered when I move out of this apartment, but the reverse osmosis system is already installed. I installed it in the interior of the front panel, the most difficult area to reach. I kept the area that can be seen in this photo open because it's the easiest to access if I store things there. Here is what it looks like installed. I have the tank as far in the corner as possible and I opted to mount the reverse osmosis filter manifold horizontally. With the filter manifold mounted horizontally like this, all I need to do to replace one is swing the filter out 90 degrees and push the release button. The feature of allowing the filters to swing out 90 degrees is very convenient for me using this odd location. This is what the filters look like when they are all swung out 90 degrees for replacement. It's a 4 stage filtering system. Stage 1 is the sediment filter and is estimated to require replacing approximately every 6 months. Stage 2 is carbon filter that is also expected to require replacing every 6 month. Stage 3 is the expensive membrane filter that is estimated to require replacement every 2-5 years. The 4th stage is the final carbon filter that should be changed every year. I won't need to be accessing these filters very often. After the 4 stages of the reverse osmosis filtration process, how does the water taste?? Fine. I can't say I taste any difference between the water filtered by the Brita pitcher or the reverse osmosis system, but I do know there is a difference. I notice a significant difference in the ice cube. The ice cubes made with the Brita pitcher water, on the right, were like normal ice cubes. Softer with lots of white colored ice in it (like air bubbles and stuff). The ice cubes made with the reverse osmosis water, on the left, are crazy hard and clear as ice. The photo of the ice cubes might be difficult to distinguish that the right one has a larger, denser white center in the ice cube than the left, but it is distinguishable in person. You can tell there aren't any (or as much) impurities in the reverse osmosis water ice cubes. Another side affect is that it has made using these silicone ice cube trays very difficult. The reverse osmosis ice cubes are so solid that I can't twist this tray to pop out the ice cubes! I'll have to go back to the solid plastic ice cube trays until get a refrigerator with a built in ice maker. It's so convenient to have the drinking water available on demand rather than having to wait for the Brita pitcher to filter a half gallon at a time. This system's tank store about 3 gallons of purified water for use on demand, cost about $130 at Costco and took about 30 minutes to install. The most convenient thing about not needing the Brita pitcher anymore is all that extra space in the refrigerator!! =)

The "Other Stuff" we bought @ the Executive Chef Sale...

These are the other things we picked up from the awesome Executive Chef sale we went to last Saturday. The major score was the 12 Quart All Clad Multi Pot for around $80, but these are the othe little knick knacks that we picked up. It was 25% off the entire store for 3 hours of the morning. I picked up some nice Microplane graters because the one we have looks like this <----. It's the type with multi options. I haven't grated many things in my home kitchen, but I did try to grate a potato last week to make hash browns. What I noticed was that the stroke surface area of one size of the grater is too short!!! I couldn't stand having to take such short strokes on this grater! I guess that's why I've never used one of these in a restaurant kitchen. It never really crossed my mind until now. I also got a 14" CulinHome Brand Speed Loop magnetic knife holder. I haven't installed it yet so I don't know how well it looks and works for me. This has a lot to do with my granite counters not being installed yet! I don't really know where I'll mount it yet because I know I don't want to drill holes into the wall surfaces that are covered with the granite! I'm still trying to figure this out. The Kuhn Rikon box is a "Vase Whisk" that I figured I would use to make and store my own dressing since I have to follow my restricted diet. I haven't used it yet, but I'll probably try to fix some dressing over the weekend to test this baby out. I hope it works well because it was pretty costly at around $23 after the discount!! There was another brand that was a little cheaper, but it was so big that I couldn't figure out how it would fit in the refrigerator. Not pictured is the professional style ice cream scooper that Kelli wanted. It's not pictured because we returned it after finding it at Williams-Sonoma for about $10cheaper!! Kelli used to be a professional ice cream scooper back in the days when her mom owned and operated a Dave's Ice Cream franchise in Aiea. That's why she's so picky about her ice cream scooper. Some other day I should post a photo of all the various ice cream scoopers we've tried and she's rejected. I admit I personally rejected one that I bought from the Marukai 99 Cent Store, but that's because the stupid thing broke the first time I was using it! The durgol box is the cleaner that is used to clean my espresso machine. Might as well buy it when it's 25% off! :)

My Kitchen Counters...

Well... I planned for a week to be ready for the longly anticipated custom granite counter tops to be installed on the custom cabinets that have been functioning in my kitchen for about a year and a half now with plywood tops. It's definitely been a lengthy journey to this point, but guess what... It's not done yet! The granite comes on Wednesday and I cleared all the kitchen plywood countertops off so the installer(s) could work on putting some real countertops in. It's a lot of work to clear off the counters! Not to mention figuring out where to set up the espresso machine, microwave & toaster to be operable for a day or so during the install. It's not like I'm in a house with a garage to throw stuff in. I'm stuffed to capacity in this 2 bedroom condo! So anyway, I find out while they are bringing it in that the installer had to finish another job so he wasn't able to come today!! So now I have to wait until some time next week and set aside another couple days to watch the granite people install the granite. Well, I don't have to watch them, but I at least need to be here for them to come and work. That's not so much of a concern. What is a concern is that I will need to keep all the stuff I moved off the counter tops in it's odd locations... I'll also have to try to find a street parking again some time next week so that I can keep my parking stalls open for them to park in. That's a real challenge some times. I peer out from the lanais looking down to the streets, trying to spot that stall. If just so happens I see one, I'll run to the elevator and press the down button and wait for what seems like minutes for the elevator to come get me. Then I run into the elevator and press "1" and ride the elevator to the lobby. Then I run to the entry to the garage to get to my car, start it up and zip out to the street just to see that someone has already taken the parking spot!! Oh well that's the condo life in the city... at least there is non-metered street parking around this block! So here it is... the granite. Happily garnishing my lanai for the next week or so. It enjoys basking in the afternoon sun and gazing at the sunset views. In the morning it watches the Trump Tower Waikiki as it reaches completion. It's anticipating the brilliant Hilton Hawaiian Village's Weekly Friday Night Fireworks Display. It also greets us and says, "how was your day?", while we step into our entry way just like a pet dog. Makes me want to respond... "Move! Get away from the door!" Hahahah... Oh well... at least I didn't remove the kitchen sink, stove and refrigerator to help speed up the install. I had to move some things back onto the counters, but will not put everything back just to remove them all again next week!

Great Price on All-Clad 12 qt Multi Pot & Martha Stewart 7qt Oval Enamel Coated Cast Iron Pot

I anticipated all last week for Saturday morning to come. It was the annual 25% off everything at The Executive Chef store in Ward Center. The sale is only from 9a-12p, 3 hours. You must be standing in line with your purchases by noon to receive the 25% discounts. Kelli and I bought a whole bunch of stuff to simplify MY tasks in the kitchen. Today I'll blog about the All-Clad #59912 12 quart Multi Cooker seen above in brushed stainless steel. We also headed to the Macy's One Day Sale right after we made our purchases at The Executive Chef sale. We purchased that Martha Stewart 7 quart Oval Enamel Coated Casserole Pot there. Our morning got off to a slow start because the night before Kelli & I went to a late showing of "The Time Traveler's Wife" with our friends Tara & Shad. Ok ok, it was a 915pm show, but it's late for us since we usually only go to matinees due to the cost!! Anyway, the movie is fine to me, but Kelli & Tara obviously read the book and didn't feel it was all that great. (I didn't read the book.) I don't understand why people insist on reading the book then watching a movie knowing that the movie will never be as good as the book. Oh well, I'm sure Tara will explain in a comment. Anyway, on with the subject... at The Executive Chef, I found the All-Clad 12 quart Multi Cooker that I was hoping to receive as a gift some day (hahaha)! Knowing that it costs so much normally, I decided to buy it because it was an awesome bargain! I put some on my on-line shopping lists that were different models well over $300. I am not that particular, but those were the only ones I was seeing. This 59912 model appears to be around on the web for around $150 plus shipping and we are in Hawaii so shipping will either be another $50 or we won't be included as part of the United States! (Although, last Friday, Hawaii just celebrated its 50 years of Statehood... perhaps another 50 years and on-line retailers will consider us part of the United States and Google Voice will not charge long distance charges as high as calling international countries to call to/from Hawaii!!!) The regular price of this multi cooker at The Executive Chef is $105 + tax, which is already lower than on-line. With the 25% off and including tax it came out to $82.46! What a deal! If anyone finds it cheaper in Honolulu, Hawaii, don't tell me about it... just let me be happy with this great deal! They didn't seem to have the Le Creuset Oval Dutch Oven that I wanted so I didn't get that. We then went off to the Macy's sale. It was already 1230p or so. By the time we got to the housewares department, we had missed the "door buster" specials that ended at 1pm!! =) Why the =)?? Because I decided to save several hundreds of $$ and not get a Le Creuset and replace it with a much cheaper but functional Martha Stewart Collection version. It was a door buster at Macy's. $79.99 for the 7 quart oval that I would like. Yeah, we missed the door buster time, but it also said in fine print, "May not be combined with coupons." The after door buster price was $89.99, just $10 more and still a great price. We asked the sales person if the 20% off 1 day pass would apply and it did!! The result is the same pot for $71.99 + tax, $8 less than the "door buster special". Yay! That box was heavy! I think it must be around 20 pounds because I weighed the pot alone and it seems to be somewhere just under 20 pounds using the high tech bathroom scale technique. I had to carry that thing all through Macy's then all through Ala Moana Shopping Center and by the end of my work out at Ala Moana, I think it seemed like it weighed 50 pounds! We stopped at Neiman Marcus' Mermaid Bar for some much needed sustenance. Had had a custom salad in accordance to my special diet restrictions and Kelli had a Greek Sandwich. It was delicious. Kelli also bought this ultra-cute ceramic coffee mug from Starbucks. It has all these animals around it and even a few birds inside! You would think we went home and rested after all that. Nope. I busted out the brand new pots and cooked a Beef Short Rib Curry to add another 5 hours of my work out for the day. That curry will be in the next blog post...

Silly Silicone Cup Coasters from Target...

These silicone coasters come in a set with other colors. Kelli and all her friends always comment that they are "so cute". I'm certain they are very popular and Target must be selling tons of them. Why am I posting this photo?? As you can see, they aren't very functional. They may be cute, but the moisture either on the coaster of from the condensate of the cold drink on the coaster is not retained on the top surface of these coasters. The result is moisture dripping off the coaster and leeching under the silicone coaster. This results in moisture being retained between the coaster and the counter or table top surface. If you are using these on wood finishes, it will leave marks such as these where the coaster was. It's quite disturbing and makes the coaster non-functional. Of course if it was on a glass, Corian, granite, formica, stainless steel or some other solid surface material that is easy to wipe away water stains, just wipe it off. If it's used on a more delicate surface like this wood dining table, you can only hope it will wipe away and not leave a permanent mark. Luckily there are no permanent markings left... yet! Since these are soooo cute, perhaps they should remain on our table tops for decorative purposes only!

Stimulating the Economy...

A few weeks ago, we decided to help do our share in "stimulating the economy". Everyone knows how badly the auto industry is affected by this situation. So what did we decide to do?? No, we didn't go out and buy a new car. I would think that is a foolish thing to do. We did decide to help support the home furnishing industry. We took advantage of "Red Tag Clearance Sale" that was going on at the Honolulu Design Center next to the Moana Pacific condominiums. Actually, a couple weeks before that we tried to find stuff at their warehouse sale in Kapolei. That was an experience we'd probably never try again. It was hectic and not really organized. They probably plan it out that way so that people can't really get more than one "deal" during the sale. To make a long story short, we didn't find anything we wanted there. This dark brown wooden cabinet that I am using for a t.v. stand with extra storage (much needed in a condo) is actually a buffet. It was a clearance item and when I saw it, I immediately pictured it working out for our living room entertainment center. It has three doors that enclose several cubic feet of storage and an open area above it with a built in light which I am using for the components of the entertainment center (dvd player, Nintendo Wii, etc.). What I haven't done yet is make some holes in the back of that area to run the wiring and cables out the back. That's why they are all hanging forward in this photo. The UPS Battery Back Up and my HP Printer will also call the cabinet space home soon. Another modification that I have already done to this buffet is remove the legs. This allows it to sit flush on the floor and also lowers it by about 6 inches creating a perfect height for the t.v. Another reason why we chose this buffet is that it matches the color of our recently purchased coffee table and side table. Believe it or not, we found the coffee table and side table at Marukai 99 Cent Store. Unfortunately, it wasn't 99 cents, but the pair was just a little over a hundred bucks on sale. We couldn't find anything we really liked at the Honolulu Design Center and we were so excited when we saw these at Marukai. You can't see the side table in this photo, but it's under the lamp to the left, which we purchased from Target in the mix-and-match section of lamps. Don't pay attention to the curtain (temporary), the white filing cabinet and black refrigerator. Those are only there until we figure out where to arrange them. The white leather sofa and chaise lounge sectional was actually our first furniture purchase a couple months ago. This is what led to the other purchases. These are the new bedroom furnitures that we just bought. It's a high chest and a wide dresser. The old furnitures we had were too low and narrow so we didn't have enough drawers for all of Kelli's... um our clothes and stuff. With these 2 pieces, we actually still have extra drawers with nothing in them... yet. What have you done to help support the struggling industries?

AIA Honolulu Third Annual Free Historic Walking Tour of Honolulu Down Town

On Saturday the 25th of April, Kelli and I joined up with a friend of mine who invited us to the "Third Annual Free Historic Walking Tour" conducted by the AIA Honolulu. We registered and started our walking tour at 1015am and finished our walk a little over time at about 100pm. It was a cool and sunny day. The registration and tour started at 119 Merchant Street at the AIA Honolulu Building, formerly known as the tallest highrise building of Downtown, Honolulu (at 6 stories high). A guide book was provided with color photos of the buildings on the tour and a brief, but detailed summary of the building's highlights. It was very interesting to be able to spend so much time in each spot and reflect upon the surroundings. I think this is the most time in my life that I have ever spent in Downtown Honolulu. It's not the same driving through or walking from 1 parking structure to another office building for appointments. The sidewalks were not crowded with other business people rushing from point to point because it was on a Saturday. To be able to recognize the fine detail in most of the older buildings and see the back drop of modern day highrises towering over them was a very dramatic feeling. I wouldn't mind signing up for some of the paid walking tours and other candle light walking tours that are conducted through out the year or even this AIA walk again! It was a fun way to burn some calories and spend the day out on an urban Honolulu walking trek. No mosquitos or mud provided in this experience... Most of you know I only take and publish photos taken from my Nokia N82 5.0MP Camera Phone. I don't like carrying extra devices on me everyday or any day. My friend's blog should have photos from a "real camera" posted up soon.

Kitchen Update

Current Photo... :] Finally, an update to my blog. It's been a while. I just really haven't been able to sit down and post anything to my blog. Lots of it had to do with the big mess of construction junk taking up most of the place. Anyway, it's not complete, but at least it's a fully operational kitchen. We're still waiting on countertops and a few cabinet pieces, but other than that it works as well as the Death Star did for Vader... Mid-Demolition (Almost 2 years ago...) :|

Home Made White Bread Bake...

I've been missing from the blogging world for about a month. Things were getting a bit hectic and I have not been having time to blog. :( I've been wanting to bake some bread at home for a few months now. My kitchen is still not completely finished with the renovations, but at least I have installed my range/oven and have some plywood counter tops. Here is my 1st loaf of "Basic White Bread". I kind of used the recipe from the KitchenAid Mixer book with a bit of variation. Eventually after practicing, I hope to finalize my favorite recipe and use it from then. Oh, I forgot to mention that I found a temporary hire job as a "Baker Assitant" for a Japanese bakery. The ad looked very tempting requiring no experience and only 1030pm-5am for $16/hour. I figured why not get paid to learn?? So that's what I've been up to about 3 nights a week. It's at Kimuraya, on Koko Head Ave., for those of you familiar with Honolulu. By the way, they are planning to close down February 15th or so that's why they have the temporary hire baker assistant. That's sad news because I remeber this bakery being there since I was a child. Here is my 1st loaf of white bread. It smells so good I just want to eat it! At the same time it looks so good I don't want to cut it! What will I do? I'll let you know how it tastes and what I do with it... Ok I couldn't resist so I sliced off a piece. Tastes like bread. The crust is very tasty and soft. I think I will increase the sugar and milk quantities in my next dough and see how that goes.

Lazy Sunday Morning - Toaster Oven French Toast Casserole

The end of a 4 day Thanksgiving weekend is always tough... Trying to fight the rush to the Walmart Black Friday sale left me in absolute disappointment! (They decided to change their proceedures and thousands of people were waiting in a dark line exposed to the elements while last year we were killing time inside the store for hours just waiting for 5am! Tricky buggers!) Anyway after all that exhaustion I woke up on Sunday and had some energy to cook breakfast. But wait... my kitchen still looks like this! The cabinets (2nd try) are expected in this week by the way. In all that Safeway excitement, they lewered us to purchase $25 of groceries to receive a dozen eggs for FREE! Yay! Free Eggs! Then I bring them home last week and start to think, "how will I cook these 12 eggs without a normal kitchen?". Finally I decided I'll whip up a batch of french toast baked in the toaster oven. These are the very basic ingredients that I used. Eggs, milk, cinnamon, vanilla extract, wheat bread and sugar. In fact I didn't even use fresh milk, I used Milkman powdered milk. This method of making french toast in the oven was very interesting to me several years ago. I can't remember where I came across it, but I think it was on Martha Stewart's show. Anyway after I thought of it, it's pretty much the same as bread pudding. Ingredients: 6 slices wheat bread (mine was from the loaf in my freezer) 4 large grade A eggs **FREE from Safeway!** 4 teaspoons sugar several drops of vanilla 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon 1/2 cup Milkman milk (prepared) or regular milk is better Your favorite Butter, fruits and Syrup to serve with french toast. Combine all ingredients in mixing bowl (except bread!) and mix well. Put slices of bread into a baking dish that can hold the bread and liquid just at the right angle. If it's too big your bread won't stay standing and you'll need more bread and mixture. Pour mixture over bread and make sure all the bread is moist from soaking the mixture. All the liquid should be absorbed by the bread. Preheat (toaster) oven to 350F and bake french toast for about 30-35 minutes. There should be a golden brown top and the insides should still be a little moist. Slice into portions, server with your favorite fruit, butter syrup and breakfast meats. A hot cup of home roasted coffee goes really well with this also! I've been reading a lot of bread baking recipes and blog posts recently. I really want to bake some bread!! All I have is this toaster oven. Has anyone tried to bake a loaf or bun of fresh yeast bread in a toaster oven? I'm anxious to bake bread and I think I'm going to have to try to bake some before my kitchen oven is back in action!!

Hydroponic Salad Mix Seedlings...

It's been about a week since I revamped my condominium vegetable garden. This is a picture from today. I added on a homemade water diffuser sponsored partially by Starbucks Coffee's recognizable green straw the labor and engineering was provided by me. The mixed greens and other seedlings seem to be sprouting very well. Most are about 2 inches in length or more. A few have began showing their 1st true leaf sprouts. This water sprinkling design I made is not the most effecient for several reasons. 1st of all it allows the water to evaporate faster and there is more splashing, another reason is that it wets the above ground part of the plant and if you have a plant that prefers to only have moist roots (like some flowers) this will not be good. I set this system up like this because it just looks neat when the water is pumping. It's the "Garden Water Feature" of my condo. PS- In the larger picture above, you can see a part of Kelli's 2nd bonsai tree in the foreground. The original look of that ficus tree is in my previous hyrdoponics post from last week. We're loving the "Art of Bonsai" classes!

Home Coffee Roast - Disaster!

Home Coffee Roast - Disaster! It's been pouring rain for the past few days here and we've been having winds from the south. Here, in Honolulu, it means humidity! Today it's not raining, but it's very hot and humid. According to weather.com Waikiki's humidity is 69%. I checked this after the disaster. Normally, I chill the pan and have it ready to put the roasted beans on and get it over to the fan to cool as quickly as possible. I also put one of those freezer ice bags under a cooling rack and rest the pan on it as the fan blows. This usually draws the heat from the pan pretty quickly and makes sure the beans don't sit and bake. I noticed something unusual today. It was so humid, the pan formed condensation while the beans were cooling!! This was bad! Moisture is not something that should be going into your fresh roasted Sumatra Classic Mandheling beans!! I better work on my mesh colander & vacuum cooling set-up. There's just no space while my kitchen renovation is in progress. I roasted this small batch to a "city" roast just after the 1st cracks were heard. I wanted to try a lighter roast because I read another foodie blog about lighter roasts (Lisabeeen Homeroasted Coffee)<-click. I usually roast to a darker Full City+ or Vienna roast. Because of my concern about the moisture ruining the fresh roast, I decided to test a cup right away even though you are supposed to let the bean rest a few days. It tasted ok. Looked really light after grinding and even the coffee looked light. I could taste the difference from the darker roasts. I don't know for sure how it will taste after the bean rests though, but due to the moisture contamination I'll have to re-do this roast. Related Links: Guatemala Fraijanes- Finca Aqua Tibia to Vienna, Sulawesi Grade One Toraja & Rwanda Butare Bourbon, Mexico FTO Oaxaca Pluma - "At City+" & Sumatra Classic Mandheling - "Full City+", Guatemala Fraijanes, Brasil FTO Poco Fundo, 1st Home Roasting Post, Zimbabwe AA -Dandoni Estate Full City + Roast, CoffeeGeek.com, Sweet Maria's Coffee, Sweet Maria's Roasting Guide.

Foodie Blogroll!!

My "anything" blog is now part of Foodie Blogroll! I came across the Foodie Blogroll while reading through another foodie blog that I always read. It's Kat n Satoshi's blog located: here. Anyway, up at the top of my blog you will see a scrolling list of all the other Foodie Blogroll members' "foodie" blogs. There are some really delicious looking blogs in that list! Check it out! Kat n Satoshi's blog has been one of my favorites to read because of the Hawaii/Japan connections! They also have a forum you could join. Here is my introduction to the forum of Foodie Bloggers. "Hi! Thanks Jenn for this great Foodie Blogroll concept! I'm Rick from Honolulu, Hawaii. Some facts about me: -grew up in "local drive-in restaurant" family business... Megs Drive In. -A.S. Degree in Automotive Mechanics Technology (nothing to do w/ food besides eating it). -Food related work include "decades" of Megs and a while at Izakaya Nonbei, a Japanese tavern. -I obviously think I am a "Foodie", I like to critique the places I eat and do a lot of cooking and coffee related things at home. -Interests/Topics found on my blog: home cooking, home coffee roasting, espresso, Waikiki lifestyle (I live in a Waikiki Condo), entertainment & restaurant reviews, aquaponics, hyrdoponics, bonsai, my kitchen renovations (at the time of joining Foodie Blogroll, my kitchen is undergoing complete renovation), cooking w/out a kitchen & links to my separate blogs of my car stuff and work stuff. -Career: Honolulu Real Estate (Rick Nakama REALTOR-ASSOCIATE GRI, EAST OAHU REALTY, INC.<-Required disclosure) and on-call position at Outrigger Reef Hotel Guest Services (restaurant/entertainment recommendations, etc.). My blog is http://RickNakama.com/anythingblog.php. Most of the posts are about restaurants or cooking of some sort, but it is a blog that I post about almost "anything" except my car racing stuff and my work stuff (I keep those separate because they are just entire categories of their own). I also refuse to buy or carry an independent digital camera so I try to take the best photos possible with my mobile camera phone. The mobile phone photos is what got me started with this blog so I've decided to keep it as much as possible related to photos taken with my phone. I try to post at least 3 times a week. I'm hoping to pick up more readers and your comments... Thanks for letting my blog be a part of Foodie Blogroll! I'm enjoying reading everyone's foodie blogs... " You can find food information on the forum: http://www.leftoverqueen.com/forum/index.php.

Strawberry-Honey Glazed SPAM Green Tea Musubi...

Picnic Potluck Over the weekend, we had a picnic potluck to go to at Ala Moana Beach Park. Kelli wanted to make musubi (japanese "rice ball" <-click for Google) for us to bring. I thought it was simple enough, but a bit too simple so I tried to think of a way to make it a little more than just a musubi. This was not easy to do because I don't have a kitchen right now since it's still being renovated. That's why I just thought I'd make the musubi a little more fancy. I had a can of SPAM, Hawaii's favorite meat product, and not much else. I had honey and strawberry jam in the refrigerator. Put it all together and got something a little more fancy than just a plain musubi. I washed 3 cups of white calrose rice. I wanted the rice to have more flavor so I thought of getting an ochazuke <--click flavor into the musubi. Ochazuke is ocha or green tea poured onto steamed rice with some other toppings of your choice. Japanese sometimes have it for breakfast or in the evening... actually anytime. Anyway, having ochazuke at a picnic is not convenient because you don't have boiling water and bowls etc. so I thought I can get some green tea flavor into the musubi by steaming the rice with the ocha (green tea). I steeped 1 pot of ocha and added it to the washed rice in place of water then started the rice cooker. For the SPAM, I made a mixture of honey, strawberry jam and apple cider vinegar. It was about 1 part honey, 1 part jam and 1/2 part vinegar. I stuck it in the mircowave to fuse them together (since I have no stove) and mixed it up. I sliced the SPAM into small slices resembling the slice of sashimi that may be seen on sushi. Then I used the panini grill thing I have to grill the SPAM while basting it in the sauce. After the rice steamed, it was formed into the musubi shapes. I chose to just make them in rounded rectangles like some sushi. Use some salted water to keep your hands moist and rice from sticking to your hands. These are hand shaped. You could also use a plastic form that they sell to make musubi or sushi if you prefer. The salted water also adds flavor to the musubi. Then place 1 SPAM on top of the formed rice ball and cover over the top with a piece of nori, Japanese dried seaweed. Use a dab of water on the ends of the nori to get it moist so it sticks to the rice. Try not to make the whole piece of nori wet and soggy. It tastes and looks best when the nori is crisp. These came out tasting good. If I were to do it again, I would make the ocha flavor a lot stronger. Probably at least double or triple strength of the normal that I made. Of course, if I had more ingredients available or actually went shopping for this, I would have added some other flavors that I love like shiso or ume to it. I'm sure I'm not the first to steam rice using green tea. I am sure there are several Chinese dishes that use tea in their rice. Does anyone have the ratio or method of getting the good ocha flavor into the rice?