Summer Squash Casserole (p. 307) and Johnny Marzetti Spaghetti Pie (p. 95)

First off, don't forget to enter the Japan Treats Contest.

Second, in all likelihood, even if you are a regular reader of this blog, I've posted four blogs in a very short time (even though they are dated to the dates they SHOULD have been posted) so make sure to go back and read them :)

My trip to Japan was an awesome experience but I am really grateful to be back...and back to The Joy of the Joy of Cooking!!

So what did I decide to make on my reentry into the world of TJOC?

I made Vegetable Stew but I haven't eaten it yet so I'm going to blog about it later. I also made Summer Squash Casserole (p. 307) and Johnny Marzetti Spaghetti Pie (p. 95)--strange, totally out-of-season choices. No idea why I made these choices other than I've been meaning to make the spaghetti pie for a while (because it sounded horrible to my Italian sensibilities) and zucchini was on sale at the grocery store.

The recipe for summer squash casserole pointed out that either yellow squash, pattypan, or whatever is available will work--so I used zucchini.



Next step...soften the onion. I really dislike onion. But it didn't seem like that much and this was onion from my dad's garden so it should be better than most. I do recognize that this isn't even close to a fine dice--I didn't notice that until it was already in the pan.






At this point you can add Monterey Jack, Swiss, or Brie to the concoction...I LOVE MJ, but didn't have any, and had a feeling that Brie would overpower the squash (plus I didn't have any), so I added Swiss. Another choice I got--sour cream or creme fraiche. Easy choice--I didn't feel like going to Whole Foods for the creme fraiche, so sour cream it was. White vermouth or white wine? Being that we don't have a full bar, and thus lack vermouth, white wine it was.


All of this was pretty easy--but then I came upon it....


ANOTHER TJOC MISTAKE! It's exciting (and confusing) to find TJOC mistakes! The recipes call for Au Gratin, but gives the page number for Breadcrumbs and obviously is requiring breadcrumbs...so I used the breadcrumbs. But I wonder how many people poured au gratin all over their casserole....

***Correction*** This was a Jessica mistake! Apparently, I had only paid attention to the Au Gratin recipes earlier in the book and thought that Au Gratin was the sauce rather than the topping. But I was wrong! The Breadcrumbs are next to the Au Gratin and it is not a mistake :) Actually, I haven't found a mistake in TJOC since the cauliflower (and that might not be a mistake but sure is confusing). ***Correction***



Doesn't it look delicious!?




Although squash is really summery...sticking a casserole in the oven for 35 minutes isn't summery at all. Hmmm....not a great move for a hot August day... it was tasty though! If you had more attractive casserole dishes, this would be a great dish for a backyard barbeque or something.




Onto the Spaghetti Pie...

This recipe is the intro recipe in the Brunch, Lunch, and Supper Dishes category and I've spent a lot of time in the last year looking at it. Most of my friends know that I really dislike pasta casseroles so I wasn't very optimistic about this. The recipe began easily enough...

Brown beef, another of dad's prize onions, and some garlic.




Then add diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, oregano (I still have some dried oregano from mom), a bay leaf, and some salt and pepper. Add cooked pasta (it recommended ziti, spaghetti, or anything else and the idea of making this with spaghetti seems really really gross to me. I used penne) and cheese (sharp cheddar).

So far so good. I re-read the the intro and it said that the TJOC authors like to add olives, mushrooms, or mozzarella. I LOVE black olives and have about a thousand cans in the cabinets, so I added some. It was a great addition--I really recommend it.






So what to pour this concoction into...a 13x9 inch pan??? That is a HUGE pan? How much does this make anyway?? At this point I started to get concerned about the recipe.

This is the casserole post-cheese pre-breadcrumbs:




Again, this recipe is totally a winter recipe. Anything that requires the oven for 30 minutes or more is a winter recipe in my book. Apparently I'm ready for colder weather!!


So how was it??





It was good but made soooo much casserole!


Let's just say 6-8 servings my ass. Josh and I have already eaten five servings out of it and it's only half gone. So don't make this unless you a) have a crowd or b) really really want to eat it for a week.

JAPAN CONTEST! CONTEST NUMBER ONE!

Contest! Contest! Hooray! (and yes, this is entitled NUMBER 1! I hope to have a contest for a copy of TJOC--for those of you that don't have a copy--later in the year).


I know I picked up some readers with my Japan exploits--how would you like to have a "taste" of Japan? I carried back plenty of cool Japanese snacks and want to send you some! So if you want to try Japanese snacks, here's what you have to do:

1. You will get ONE entry for leaving a comment on this page. You must also email me your name and address at thejoyofthejoyofcooking@hotmail.com

2. Because I would like people to actually READ the blog, you will get ONE additional entry for leaving a comment on a blog entry OTHER than this one. That's two entries! But make sure you email me your name and address.

3. This contest starts today (August 25th) and ends in one month (September 25th).

There will be at least 1 prize, but if lots of people enter, there will be multiple prizes :) The winner will be chosen by a random number generator.




If you have any questions, let me know! I will update this page as I need to...(hopefully, I won't need to).

Now back to my regular TJOC programming...

Frequently asked questions

Frequently asked questions!

**If you have a question you would like to know the answer to, email me at thejoyofthejoyofcooking (at) hotmail (dot) com***


So how much weight have you gained since starting?
None! My personal opinion is that since the food in Joy is so filling (full fat, etc) that you don't eat TONS of it. It also makes great leftovers which means NO fast food!

I bet this has been really expensive, right?
No, the food in Joy is pretty simple. Once you start cooking a lot of recipes out of it, the same ingredients are used over and over, so it's not very expensive. And more cooking=less eating out=less expensive.


I think I read your blog but then I seem to miss entries. What's up?
I date the blogs when I actually made the food. Sometimes it's a couple of weeks ago--so the blogs show up as old but are actually new. It's not a problem in most blog readers! I also have a bad habit of writing several blogs at once, so if you only read the most recent blog, you might miss others.

Do you have contests?
I do and I hope to have more!

I am fully intending on stealing your pictures for my blog/presentation/whatever. Is that okay?
No. It's fine if you credit my website for the picture. If you don't, it's wrong.

I heard you went to Japan. Did you blog about it?
Heck yeah, I blogged about it! Look under keyword "Japan".

When do you think you'll finish all the recipes?
About fifty years from now. I'll probably be cooking the final Joy recipes for my grandchildren.

What edition of TJOC are you using?
I'm using the 2006 edition. I truly hope to finish this before the publish the next version!

What do you consider "vegetarian" versus "vegan"?
I go the ova-lacto route when I think of vegetarian--no meat (red or otherwise) or fish but eggs and milk products are okay. Vegan means no animal products.

Pondering America and Japan

As I sit here in the airport, waiting for my delayed flight to take off, I have been pondering Japan and America. This list is not complete and I'm sure I'll update it! I promise to upload my final Japan blogs in the next few days (probably about two more blogs?) and then back to The Joy of The Joy of Cooking!

Things I love about the US:

1. When a smallish 27 year old woman is struggling to get about 140 lbs of luggage down her stairs and to the taxi, someone in the US would stop to help. I refer to this as the "Emily's couch" effect, such named, because when Emily asked how I thought we were going to get her new couch into her truck and out of the estate sale, I said, we are going to struggle with it, and some guy will come to help. And that's exactly what did happen.

2. If someone fell down the stairs in the US, people would ask if they were okay. They might snicker, but they'd ask. I'm not confident of that in Japan (not that I feel down the stairs--although mom almost did). It could be because they don't want to embarrass you by pointing out that you just fell down the stairs--but I would still rather someone ask if I was okay!

3. If you are even close to the correct word or sentence in English, people can understand. If you aren't exactly correct in Japanese, nobody has any idea what you are saying (unless they've spent a lot of time with Westerners--then sometimes they can "interpret").

4. Apparently, I like "American" food because I missed it. Foods I missed include: Loaded baked potatoes, Chimichangas with queso blanco and guacamole, Steak, Oven-roasted potatoes coated in garlic, Heinz ketchup, various soups, and Americanized Chinese food like Hot and Sour soup and crab rangoons. This is not a complete list, of course, but a short list of things I wish I was eating right now.

5. Americans are friendly. I like smiling and striking up conversations with strangers.

6. I've never been body slammed in America. But it's happened to me about a hundred times in Japan. Shoving=extremely common.

Things I love about Japan:

1. It is bizarrely safe. People leave their Gucci bags on the table at a McDonald's (to save the table) and go to a different floor to order. And nobody steals their bag--or their table! In the US, the purse would be stolen and people would be sitting at the table when you got back.

2. People are so helpful with directions. In fact, sometimes I felt like I was in the Amazing Race, as people would walk me to the address I was looking for. That was great.

3. Even with no tipping, the salespeople and waitstaff in Japan are still a billion times more friendly and efficient then they are in the US. Even at high end stores, where I would get ignored in the US, people were willing to help me.

4. Tokyo's public transportation is spectacular. Just amazingly great. Clean, safe, cheap. And you can get ANYWHERE for less than three dollars. I can't say enough about it--they should be really proud.

5. Grapefruit sours. The best mixed drink ever.

Mom's visit and my return to the US!

As some of you know from my last blog, my camera went missing before I could pull my pictures off of it...so all I have are mom's pictures and there aren't that many :(

One of the cool places that mom and I went was Ueno park/zoo. This zoo wasn't near as bad as the Himeji zoo. Apparently, until recently the zoo had a panda, but the panda died. This was a giant tragedy to the zoo and the zoo has a strong panda theme--but no panda, which was strange. My mom kept bemoaning the fact that she didn't get to see the panda, particularly strange because I could never remember her talking about pandas (in any context) before that point.

I had a better picture of this on my camera but one of the first exhibits had prairie dogs, a bison, some wild pigs, and a turkey together in a cage. It took me a minute to come up with the theme--but I finally did. It was an America exhibit! I thought that was a particularly funny mixture of animals to represent the US. I'm not sure what I would have put in there (I'll give you the bison, I probably would have picked that too) but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have been that combination. Anyone have any better ideas?




At the edge of the zoo was a giant pond full of enormous flowered water plants. I thought they were REALLY cool but a little creepy--almost like something out of a sci-fi movie. Enormous lotus blossoms.






There was just an enormous amount of these huge flowers. And they were STRONG smelling.





Mom and I went to Asakusa and wandered around. Asakusa is a touristy area but is pretty cool.




I took all of my guests to the Meiji shrine because it's one of my favorite places in Tokyo. I think it's really cool to see the weddings. Mom wanted her picture taken in front of this giant door for some reason. It is a cool door.




Some of you know that I was on a wild hunt for Mexican food. I started ccrrraaavvviiinnnggg it, so when mom and I were in Harajuku and I spotted a Mexican restaurant, I knew I HAD to have it. The restaurant was in a cute little spot on the second floor of a building.

So how was it?





It was good, but too high-end. I was craving the cheap, low-end La Mexicana, local Mexican dive type Mexican food. And that wasn't it. But I want you to know--you can get excellent Mexican and Italian food in Japan. The Italian place by my house was deliciously good!

While mom and I were shopping we came across my shop again! So, I posed with it again :)



I was sad to see mom go--we had a really great time (even though mom insisted on getting up at five am every day). My mother also managed not to eat a single Japanese meal while we were there due to her fear of chopsticks. After mom left, I only had two more days in Japan! I took lots of pictures, but of course, they were on the missing camera, so I have no picture evidence :(



After the spectacularly long ride home (with delay after delay and my poor father picking me up at eleven even though he was leaving for South Africa first thing the next day) I finally made it back to Iowa!


The dogs were happy to see me again! I missed the silly little ladies :)



Mom and I also bought both Gracie and Duchess kimonos! Who doesn't love a dog wearing a kimono? SO CUTE!



Duchie actually has two kimonos...and a sushi toy...so cute...

Week six and Emily's visit

Okay, I haven't blogged for a while, mostly because I'm so angry! My camera was either lost or stolen (in America) and of course I hadn't got the final pictures off of it! So the vast majority of pictures of mom and I? Gone. The final pictures of me at work? Gone. I'm so angry about it...and this refrain is going to return in the next blog because I'm really really angry about it.

But I'm hoping it will be cathartic to write this blog.

First--Emily came to visit me in Tokyo around the sixth week. It was awesome! We had a lot of fun and we went out on the town every night.

Night 1--Only planned on getting something to eat after E got in, but got approached by a couple of Australians to see if we knew any fun places to go. We all went to Roppongi and then to a dance club in Roppongi hills, which was very fun. I don't know how E made it though--I don't think we got home until six in the morning. The oddities from that night: I was served french fries with honey on them (tasty and strange) and a guy bought a round for the bar (which I've seen in movies but never experienced in real life).

Night 2--For some reason, I thought we should go out in Kabukicho Shinjuku, the red-light district of Tokyo (probably because I didn't want to go by myself). We went in the first place I spotted with English on it's sign. It was down a couple flights of stairs and was the size of a walk-in closet. That being said--it's a very unique experience to be dancing to AC/DC in a closet in Tokyo with people from all over the world :) It was well-lit and clean, and didn't seem all that seedy.

Here is a picture of me in the smallest bar in the world:



Our waitress--real close to the happiest person I've ever met:



Night 3 through the last night--We tended to end up in Roppongi. One of the nights, we were at a bar and I went to move a stool and heard a squeal--there was a DOG in the bar. I just thought that was bizarre. I love dogs, but when I'm trying to chat with a friend, I don't really want to be shaking off a puppy's amorous pursuit of my leg.

We stayed out late every night but didn't drink much, which was good, because each beer was about $8.

It was a great time! We did wander around during the day. For example, we walked ALL the way around the imperial palace. I was exhausted by the end but E looked fine, so I thought I was just being a baby. Later I found out that walk was about 5 miles and all of my co-workers were shocked that we did that!

During the walk around the palace:



This is me after the walk around the palace--I don't look TOO bad...



At the Meiji Shrine:



We also found a sample sale and bought some awesome designer clothes for cheap! But as we were walking away I saw:



A store that said NoJess! I apparently wasn't allowed in this store! So that made me sad..... :)



I think one of the most surprising things that I noticed in Japan was how many women wear kimonos. I guess I thought that kimonos would only be worn for really formal events--and they are worn for those--but they are also worn more casually. I think they are beautiful--



(oh, and women carry parasols A LOT)

End of week five and Russian Roulette??

So I know you are all angry at me for my lack of posting. I'm a terrible blogger! I'm sorry! I think I'm going to end up posting a set of twoblogs so make sure to look for them both :)

First things first, I got to go to Japanese cooking school twice! It was super awesome! Both times were taught by famous (in Japan) cooking school chefs and it was a blast. What did we make?

I got to make four delicious dishes:

First, we made tenderloin in a tomato/caper sauce. It was delicious! The most interesting part was how we made the pork tenderloin--it was pan fried, which I would never have thought could have cooked it all the way through (I would have expected burned on the outside, raw on the inside)! It was seriously tasty.



The second thing we made--a sort of cake made out of cabbage, belly, and some sort of EXTREMELY salty Chinese root vegetable that I had never seen before. Isn't it pretty though? It was tasty, although extremely hard to eat with chopsticks. Some things are much more easy to eat with chopsticks--for example, selecting one piece of food among a lot of foods, or anything that will fall apart if you skewer it. But SOME things, like cabbage cake, are really difficult to eat with chopsticks. I HATE cutting with chopsticks--I have this terrible fear I'm going to launch food across the room.



The third dish we made was deep fried pork with potatoes. Yum! This is one of those dishes you just can't go wrong with. The interesting thing about this dish was that we put the potatoes in the oil BEFORE turning the heat on--which is totally different than any way I've ever seen to fry anything. But they were delicious!




The final dish was stir-fried pork in a miso sauce on a bed of lettuce. This was good but, frankly, I make something similar at home, so it wasn't that exciting.


Kimchi! Lindsay, I'm totally channeling your experience in Korea here!





Yakiniku! I hadn't tried Yakiniku yet but it's one of those TOTALLY Japanese food styles (well, except it totally came from Korea, but let's not mention that). You take the raw meat, place it on the little burner in the middle of the table, dip it in sauce, and eat it. Yum!



The Japanese just LOVE intestine. Now it isn't as terrible as I would have expected. That being said, it's not that good either. And it's really really fatty. So it lights on fire when you are grilling it, which was by far the best part.





There are a lot of restaurants in Tokyo that have private rooms for groups. I've only eaten in a nice one once but it was really exciting! Any time you walk on tatami mats you have to take off your shoes--I haven't gotten used to taking off my shoes in public places.




The restaurant also had a cute little dessert--orange sherbet in an orange peel. Tasty AND adorable!




We also went to the Meiji shrine. The Meiji shrine is one of the most famous Shinto shrines in Tokyo. It's a pretty cool shrine. Really beautiful and sooo calm. It's one of those places in Tokyo where you would never guess you were in a big city...which always amazes me.

Barrels upon barrels of sake...that's a HECK of a lot of sake! And there is a matching line of whiskey on the other side!





People write their wishes or prayers on little wooden cards. At certain times, the cards are burned and the wishes are sent up to the gods. I'm just saying--I wrote on one of the cards and my wish DID in fact come true...so take from it what you will :) And if you want me to write anything on a card for you, let me know in the next day or two!





There are TONS and TONS of weddings at Meiji. I was told that Meiji is one of the shrines that rich and/or famous people want to get married at.





I'm no kimono expert--in fact I know about zero about them but I had never seen the big fancy hat before.



I've been to Meiji twice now...and probably seen about six or seven weddings. Super cool!





A giant fish market tuna. I know you've all seen pictures of the tuna at the fish market before but they are amazingly huge. I mean, look at that fish in relation to the people!



Watermelon kitkats! Now THESE tasted strange. They DID in fact taste like watermelon. It was just really strange.



You know, I love going to eat places that offer me my own personal mortar and pestle!





This is totally random, but I found a bagel place in the train station called Bagel and Bagel, which I think sounds like a law firm staffed by Bagels.

I got an everything bagel and a basil bagel. The Everything bagel was particularly interesting. I really wished I had a toaster but...I don't...so I had to microwave them. Still pretty good!



The cream cheese came with it's own little pad. Unfortunately, I chose the basil cream cheese. It was WAY too much basil. A sickly amount of basil....ugh....




People were asking about the little fishes that I've eaten (whole I might add)--you eat them totally, head, belly full of eggs, and all.



So where is the Russian Roulette that the title speaks of? The Japanese Izakaya's have this dish known as Russian Roulette. It basically consists of six or nine little octopus puffs. But ONE of them is incredibly super spicy. And there is no way to know which it is. So one person in your party gets their mouth burned out!






In other news, I was watching Hannah Montana because it was the only thing in English on. And Miley's love interest is named "Jake Ryan"--do you think the young'uns even GET that reference? And how in the world do the hillbilly jokes that Dolly Parton says translate into Japanese?

End of week four and ENGAGEMENT! Part 2/2

First off, this may be a long blog--I have a LOT of pictures :) And I'm going to date a second one directly behind this blog, so be sure to look at them both! Plus, this is exciting blog, so stick with it!


Josh came up on Thursday and on Friday we went to Kyoto and Osaka, and then onto Himeji where there is a UNESCO World Heritage Site castle that is considered one of the best in Japan. We took the bullet train, using a JR JapanPass, which is really a good idea if you are ever going to Japan--it's only for foreigners and you have to buy it in your home country, but it's a pretty good deal for traveling.

First thing we decided to do was meander around Kyoto. This took us an exceptionally long time--although it was exciting to stumble upon a shrine in a residental area. I think these are fairly common in Japan.



On the front were swastikas. As most of you probably know, swastikas mean "to be good" and were usually used for luck. They are very common in the Buddhist religion. The symbol is about 3,000 years old. Here is some really interesting history on the symbol.




As we kept wandering we came to a river. It was really calm and pretty and there were ducks all over! I love ducks. Duck feet aren't really made for walking up slippery stones so they would fall back about one step for every step they made forward---slow going :) They all had pretty blue patches on their wings, which would probably tell me what kind of duck they were, if I knew anything about birds.



We also saw a crane. I think these are the same cranes we saw in the zoo, which means this crane was ENORMOUS.




Of to more wandering. This would have all been helped by having a map that was a even a little more precise then the map in the "So you want to go to Japan" type book I had with me. It really reminded me of that Simpson's episode where Homer is trying to navigate the Nile (I think it was the Nile) using the side of an animal crackers box.

At this point we came to another shrine. A big one. Like most of the shrines in Japan, it had calm, nice, cool places to sit, so Josh and I got a soda and sat there. It was also one of those times where you know that all the stuff around you has meaning--but you don't know what any of the meaning is. What do I mean? There were dried leaves all over. No idea why, but there was obviously a religious reason. I mean, other than being a very attractive backdrop to the picture.




So we kept walking. Walking, walking, walking, and finally stumbled upon another big temple. A temple that is the Chion-in temple (I think--if anyone knows better, please, please correct me!).



Josh and I started wandering around--the temple was almost entirely deserted. We took some pictures.





We were walking along this path (well, this picture is from the opposite direction, so use your imagination) when IT HAPPENED!



Josh dropped to his knee and asked me to marry him!!! With a beautiful (and distinctive) blue bag in hand--and in it? A Tiffany's ring :) Exactly my style-- not too flashy but beautiful diamonds and a platinum band. Of course, I said yes!!

The ring is even my size! I'm not sure how he managed that!

Here is the ring--



It's seven diamonds and beautiful.




Here is a picture of us in front of that fateful spot :) It was truly romantic! What a great location and time. Everyone keeps asking if I knew it was coming and I really didn't. Josh had considered asking me at Himeji or seeing if sensei would help him with the setup but he got stressed out carrying the ring around. The location was great :)





How exciting!! And it's a great thing Emily's coming in a week because I have so many ideas that I want to talk about! And, I'll see Rachel when I get home to talk her ear off too I'm sure :)

Obviously, we continued to explore the temple.

Josh and Buddha. It was mentioned to me at work that we pledged ourselves in front of their gods, so they will look out for us.



Me in a field of giant flowers, trusty guidebook in hand:



The graveyard:




So that was obviously super exciting!!! It's hard to know what to follow a proposal up with so we went to another temple. This temple was the only temple we went to where we had to pay money to get in. I liked several things about this shrine. One, the koi filled pond. I love koi and have been horrified to hear that the Japanese eat them. They are for decoration, not for eating! And they have lots and lots of bones! Second thing I loved--this bell. It had a sign saying not to try to ring the bell with the giant stick. Come on, who would think they were allowed to do that?? But, obviously someone did, because not only do they have a sign, but it's in English.





Thirdly, Josh and I are both very fond of foxes and Inari's foxes, so we were excited to see a set of them (even though they are very common in temples). This one had a ball in his mouth,



And this one had a scroll--here is Josh, doing his best Inari impersonation










After that, we were pretty tired and sweaty (well, Josh was sweaty, as a lady, I was glowing, but glowing rather profusely), so we got back on the bullet train and headed for Osaka. I was pumped about going to Osaka!

I had managed to find my high school Japanese teacher and we were planning on meeting him when we got to Osaka. I was slightly worried that we would have a hard time finding each other--it has been nine years (terrifying thought!) but no worries--we both looked identical to the way we looked back then :) Sensei was one of my favorite teachers of all time and it was absolutely great to catch up with him--plus Josh got to ask all of his kanji questions to someone who actually knew some answers :)

I think that sensei was also excited to be involved in our big day--so that was awesome. I will admit, some heavy drinking occurred, and we all left the bar p***-drunk. In fact, I was bemoaning the fact that I forgot to get a picture when I looked through the camera--and there was a picture! So Jennifer, Erin, Mom, and Dad, you should all be happy that I got a picture! The other lady in the picture is involved in the movie industry here--she was super nice.










From Osaka we went Himeji, where we went to the Himeji castle. Unlike most places in Japan, the Himeji castle is really really well signed and easy to spot--lot's of signs with pictures of castles and arrows, which was really nice. It was so majestic! I've never been to a castle before so I was really excited.



It was very beautiful--and behind THREE moats! We almost had to stand in line to get this picture taken--the background makes it a popular place to stand :)




The architecture was absolutely stunning and I think a fair amount of the castle is still original. I really recommend reading the wikipedia page--it's truly interesting.