Today I made a special lunch for Jeff and I, a sweet scallion omelet served over sticky sushi rice. The scallions (negi) added a bright green crunch to the soft and fluffy egg omelet (tamago.) This one is so easy, I just had to share.

My omelet (for two people) consisted of 5 eggs, 2 scallions, and about 2 tbsp. mirin all whisked together. If you don’t have mirin, you can either leave it out entirely or just substitute a pinch of sugar.

I poured the mix into a pan set to just under medium heat.

As the bottom starts to cook and firm up, lift an edge of it and tilt the pan to let more of the uncooked egg run under it to the hot pan surface. Do that several times all around until there is very little wet egg left on top.

I tried to flip it and made a mess! It was just too heavy to flip with 5 eggs.

I transferred it to a cutting board and sliced it up then nestled it atop a hot bowl of rice topped with seaweed flake.

So soft and warm, it really filled us up.

We squirted sriracha all over ours and dug in before I remembered to take a picture! We’re both just suckers for spicy stuff. We really didn’t need 5 eggs though, 3 or 4 would have been plenty.

This turned out so well I can definitely see myself making it nearly every weekend as a special lunch. It’s easy, quick, and super-comforting.

Negi-tamago donburi

A fluffy egg omelet filled with fresh green scallions sliced and served over rice.

Prep Time: 2 minutes

Cook Time: 5 minutes

Total Time: 7 minutes

Yield: 2 servings

Ingredients

• 4 eggs
• 2 chopped scallions
• 2 tbsp. mirin

Cooking Directions

1. Whisk together eggs, mirin, and scallions.
2. Pour into a pan set to medium heat and cook through.
3. Turn out onto a cutting board and slice.
4. Serve over rice topped with seaweed flake.
5. Garnish with toasted sesame seeds and sriracha if desired.

January 16, 2011 Alayna Discussion, Recipes 2 comments

Ugh. This year is starting off a little wonky.

We’ve paid nearly $600 towards gas bills in the last two months. That is not ok.

We’ve been being careful with the thermostat, but it doesn’t really matter, this apartment is just really old and poorly insulated.

You can see the giant crack between the door and the frame, our front door has this too. We’ll be making a trip to a hardware store today to get some insulation tape for this but I know that’s not the whole problem.

We moved here because we wanted to pay really low rent for a year thinking that we were saving up to buy a home this summer. Now though, even though we’re saving at a nice rate, we’ve decided to put off buying for a year or two longer for various other reasons. So now, though our rent is low our utilities are making up the difference. It sucks because this apartment is really crappy but we were ok to deal with it with the promise of saving money, but with these high utilities it just feels like we’re living in this crap place for no reason.

I’m definitely feeling the stress, and I can tell Jeff is too. We really hate this place and can’t wait to move in June.

On the flip side, the location is ideal. It has been wonderful to live within walking distance of a cool part of town. I’m going to try to focus on that instead of the bad……and maybe start packing us up in March.

Sorry for the rant, it’s been a trying week with being stuck in the house so much and dealing with several other minor problems at the same time.

Rant back: What is something you love and something you hate about the place you are living now?

January 15, 2011 Alayna Discussion 1 comment

This was so yummy and so easy that we had it two nights in a row!

I started by making 2 cups of rice and set it to keep warm.

I got all my ingredients ready to go. You need:

• sesame oil
• soy sauce
• rice vinegar
• frozen vegetables of your choosing
• 2 or more eggs, beaten

I used a wok but you can do this in a large flat pan too. Just add some sesame oil and vegetables to the pan and get it hot, medium-high heat should do it. I used half a bag of “Japanese Mix” which included broccoli, mushrooms, red bell pepper, and some kind of string bean. I actually added about a half of a fresh red bell pepper in too because this mix was really skimpy on it, but you don’t have to add anything.

Wait until the vegetables have thawed and are starting to sizzle before adding the rice, you may want to add a bit more oil too.

Toss everything every 30 seconds or so for several minutes or until the rice is smelling slightly toasty and you can see either sear marks on the vegetables, slight browning on the rice, or both.

Pour over about 3 tbsp. of rice vinegar and toss.  Swirl over a generous amount of soy sauce (probably almost a 1/4 cup) and toss until distributed. Now it’s starting to look like fried rice!

Turn the heat down to medium and wait a minute for the pan to cool down. Make a well in the center of the pan and pour in the beaten eggs.

Stir the eggs as they start to scramble. Use cutting and folding motions to break apart the egg and distribute it throughout the rice. When it’s cooked through, serve it up!

We topped ours with noritamago furikake (seaweed and dried egg seasoning) and super-hot sriracha. It really doesn’t need anything though.

This dish comes together in less than 20 minutes and doesn’t make a bunch of dirty dishes. It’s so much lighter than the stuff you get in a take-out box or thrown at you in a hibachi restaurant, as you can control the amount of oil and soy sauce.

This fresh-tasting and filling dish has quickly become one of my go-to meals when I don’t have a lot of time to make something. You could absolutely chop fresh vegetables and even saute a little onion in too, but the real magic here is that this dish allows you to get something healthy and filling in you without all the work, and I’m going to keep taking the shortcut because it makes my life easier.

And we have enough left over to have it again for lunch, yay!

Quick vegetable fried rice

Simple customizable fried rice recipe, never greasy because you control the oil content.

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 15 minutes

Yield: 2 to 4 servings

Ingredients

• 2 cups cooked shortgrain rice
• half a bag of frozen vegetable mix of choice
• 2-3 eggs
• 2-3 tbsp. rice vinegar
• up to a 1/4 cup soy sauce
• sesame oil for frying

Cooking Directions

1. Saute frozen vegetables in a hot wok with sesame oil until starting to brown.
2. Add cooked rice to the center and allow to toast slightly, then mix in.
3. Add rice vinegar and soy sauce, mix evenly.
4. Push rice to the outside of the pan and fry the eggs in the center, scramble as they set and mix to incorporate.
5. Serve topped with sliced scallions, toasted sesame seeds, seaweed flake, or sriracha if desired.

January 12, 2011 Alayna Discussion, Recipes 4 comments