So you’ve got a handle on making donburis now right? You know, make rice, put stuff on top of it? Yeah, that.

Time to graduate to the next level, which involves cooking by simmering some or all of the ingredients in a flavorful liquid. It’s easy, trust me.

Here’s a simple method to making the Japanese classic, gyudon (beef bowl.)

Like so many dinners I make, it started with sauteing an onion and a red pepper in sesame oil.

While those were softening up, I got to work on making a stock to simmer the beef in. I put one small piece of kombu seaweed in a pan with enough water to cover. Kombu is the seaweed you use to make dashi stock, and while I haven’t seen it at any of the major grocery stores, it’s pretty accessible in any health food store, asian market, and I think I’ve even seen it at Whole Foods before. It’s ok if you don’t wanna track it down though, I’ve found that a small handful of dulse works pretty well and is more widely available, but you can do without seaweed entirely and still make a tasty dish.

I let that come up to a simmer for a few minutes before removing it. Don’t ever boil kombu, it makes the broth really slimy if it gets too hot. Just gently steep it like you’re making tea.

Next, I flavored it with miso.  This “red” miso, as opposed to your standard “white” or “mellow” miso, is just what I happened to have on hand.  Any kind you can get your hands on is fine.

I added a big dollop like this…

…and whisked it into the hot liquid.

It’s like a lava lamp watching the miso roil away in the hot broth.

At that point I took some strips of flank steak that had been marinating for a few hours in soy sauce, mirin, and rice vinegar, and swirled them around in the broth to partially cook.

This is the fun part. Turn up the heat on both pans to medium high. As the beef gets cooked through, start transferring it to the veggie pan along with a ladle-full of the broth. As the pan of broth boils away getting more and more concentrated, your veggies are soaking up their own broth and quickly about to start burning on the pan. Add another ladle of broth and wait for the meat and veggies to soak it all up before doing it again. When everything is cooked through and coated in a sweet glaze made by the concentrated broth, cut the heat and serve it up!

You can serve this over sushi rice or plain white rice. Don’t forget to spoon over some more of the delicious cooking liquid and garnish with sesame seeds!

Whatever you do, don’t throw out the remaining broth. It makes a delicious soup base to add mushrooms, scallions, and noodles to. I’ve got some in my freezer right now saved up for a rainy day.

This was one of those dishes that had us saying “Mmmm” the whole time we were eating it. Definitely one for the “make over and over again” file!

8am is one of my favorite parts of the day. Jeff gets up and gets ready at 7:30 then wakes me up so we can have breakfast together, and as warm and comforting as that bed is, I really do want to get up for our morning ritual.

He’ll fill up the teapot and put it on the hot eye, we’ll both arrange our tea necessities, he’ll start mixing up his instant oats while I pet the cats who are starving for love after a night alone. I’ll make a remark about how fricken freezin it is in our apartment and then we’ll take our things to the desk and check our email and favorite sites and blogs and whatnot.

I don’t always make breakfast right away while Jeff is making his, and I didn’t today because I knew that I didn’t want oats again but I didn’t know what I did want.

Maybe I could do something with this?…

Picked up this container of quark at the market yesterday, not really knowing what to expect. I just thought it’d be an interesting departure from yogurt.

I plopped some on top of a chopped apple with cinnamon, granola, and honey.

It had the consistency of greek yogurt with the smell of sour cream and the taste of cream cheese. The flavor was really strong in this big dollop so I mixed it all in to distribute it better.

I ended up pouring a bit of maple syrup on top as well to try and cut through the rich cheese flavor. I thought I didn’t like it at first bite, but as my palate got used to it I really started to enjoy it. The whole mixture tasted like a deconstructed apple cream cheese danish.

All in all, I really like it. I don’t think I would eat it straight like yogurt but it was really good mixed in with other flavors.

Ever had quark?

Something else you can think of that I should try?

Mmmmmm….sushi.

I wondered the other night exactly how many days it would take of eating sushi every night before I got tired of it. I’d guess it’s well over a month, possibly longer. I’ll have to try that experiment sometime.

Saturday night we went out for sushi with a group of friends to a restaurant called Ege. It’s always a good sign to walk into a sushi joint and hear “Irasshaimase!” being called out to you as a welcome.

Check out the cute handwritten specials menu with all the adorable sea creatures on it!

I especially like the little octopus at the bottom with another octopus on his head. I think it is a zombie eating his brains!

We ordered A LOT of food, starting with some edamame…

…teriyaki salmon…

…and beef tataki that I couldn’t snap a picture of before it was devoured!

Then came the sushi. Here’s what was shared between the 6 of us…

At that point I loaded up my first sample plate, knowing there would be lots more coming and we needed to clear these out!

Turns out I wasn’t the only one snapping photos that night. Emily has a pretty new toy she was testing out…

On to even more sushi…

Apparently I didn’t get a picture of the last plate, which was tamago (egg omelet) and anago (sea eel). Here’s my second helping…

That buttery soft anago is one of my all-time favorites! I had more than what you see here too.

So after all that sushi and 4 caraffes of hot sake, we wanted dessert! Off to Cafe Intermezzo for a slice (or 6!) of the best cakes around and some yummy cocktails.

It was dark, but I got the best photos I could. This picture came out crazy with the ghostly figure in the background. That’s John, Emily, Marshall, and Kelly; Jeff is to my left but he got cut off.

We started with a round of drinks. I got a Manhattan Deluxe…

Intermezzo has an enormous menu, but everyone seemed to stick to the classics…white russians, mojitos, old fashioneds.

After drinks were on the table, it was time to go pick out cakes…

I got a huge profiterole type thing. It was filled with Nutella whipped cream and topped with chocolate!

I laughed at Jeff for getting plain cheesecake with so many interesting choices available, but it was so good that I ended up eating more of it than he did!  Wise man, my husband.

Here’s a pic of Johns’ 7 Layer Amaretto, another one of my favorites…

I actually used to work at Cafe Intermezzo back when I was 19, so I get warm fuzzy feelings every time I go in there. Also, I know which cakes are the best, as I’ve tried every single one of them.

Another great night out. Can’t argue with sushi, booze, and cake!