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.

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!

Pancake. Sandwich.

Just imagine that for a moment.

Here, lemme help you with that…

Mmmm…pancake sandwich. Actually, these little guys are delicious and fluffy dorayaki, a Japanese confection consisting of a layer of sweet azuki bean paste sandwiched between two sweet little pancakes.

I had my first dorayaki ever on the plane-ride back from our honeymoon in Japan. It was a sweet I bought specifically so that I could take a little of Japan home with me, and I savored every pillowy bite.

I thought it might be interesting to use this green tea I picked up at Tomato and make green tea flavored dorayaki.

Here’s what I used to make them:

• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 tbsp. honey
• 1 cup flour
• 1 tsp. green tea powder
• about 8oz. anko (sweetened red bean paste)

I started by whisking together the eggs and sugar…

Next I combined the baking soda with the water and then added that to my egg mixture…

I added half the flour and then whisked in the green tea and the rest of the flour, mixing well but not over-mixing…

The batter was super thick, I set it aside while I let my non-stick pan heat up…

I went ahead and sprayed the pan with non-stick spray, even though the pan is already non-stick, because there is a lot of sugar in the batter that could cause the dorayaki to burn.

In went three test dollops…

Just like regular pancakes, you know they’re ready to turn when bubbles start appearing on the surface of the batter. When flipped, they should be golden and crisp on the outside, like this…

I sat them aside on a tea towel to cool while I got my filling ready…

I used this brand of red bean filling, also from Tomato…

I love that stuff. I just spread a bit on one side of the pancake…

And topped it with another!

Pancake. Sandwich.

Good for breakfast or dessert.

Jeff and I both agreed that while absolutely delicious, the pancakes came out bigger than most dorayaki pancakes. Next time, I would definitely just use one pancake and cut it in half like an english muffin.

Soooooooo goooood though.

CHOMP!