Perhaps I'm just getting older, but I'm finding that I'm often happier eating starters than I am having a big main dish... Sometimes I don't even get to the main dish. Tonight was one of those nights. I had enough energy to do a little preparation of a few simple things, but nothing required more than three or four ingredients.

Salted roasted ginko nuts

These ginnan, or ginko nuts, were simply soaked in water for a few minutes, doused in salt, and roasted until tender. It's probably better to gently crack these before cooking them, because they'll be easier to peel at the table. Since these were all for me, I cracked and peeled all of them at the table.

The flesh varies from yellow to greenish. As with peanuts, there's an intermediate brownish skin inside the hard outer shell. You'll generally want to discard that thinner skin, as it adds nothing to the flavor and may be unpleasantly bitter com.

Salted, roasted ginnan are one of those snacks that I can't resist ordering when I spot them on a menu in Japan. There's really not much to making them. But the gently yielding texture, the mild bitterness and the touch of salt makes them a remarkable accompaniment to dry beer, sake, or shochu. (I'll have to take the beer thing on faith... I'm more of a sake and shochu guy myself).

I wasn't having anything to drink with dinner tonight, but I'm still a sucker for this salty snack. They also happen to have a fairly plentiful protein content, without the heavy fat burden that most nuts have.

Roasted Tomatoes Stuffed with Cheese and Basil

Small tomatoes, slightly larger than cherry tomatoes, with some Seastack cheese and basil. Any cheese would do, but that was the creamiest cheese I had handy. Roasted for just a bit over 6 minutes at 425°F, the cheese just begins to melt and the tomatoes become a bit sweeter as the roasting process claims some of their water.

The tomatoes are served atop some curly endive. I would normally be inclined to dress the endive with a vinaigrette. Thanks to my urge to keep things simple, and because I already had a nice creamy cheese in the tomatoes to go with the greens, I just mixed them with a little citrus juice and a tiny sprinkling of salt, making something closer to an ancient Roman salad.

Roasted Potatoes

I baked these potato wedges with a couple of cloves of garlic and a knob of butter. They've been seasoned with a chili-cumin salt blend, and the garlic cloves gently roast in the butter, adding a subtle hint of garlic flavor without becoming overwhelming.

Grilled porcini with balsamic vinegar

I've taken some thick slices of porcini and pan-seared them in a little olive oil, sprinkled with salt. They're finished with a simple splash of cheap sake and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar, which thickens up and coats the mushrooms beautifully. The slightly pine-like aroma still comes through, allowing the sauce to provide just enough complexity to wake up the natural flavors of the porcini.

I thought I might want some pasta or something to fill me up, but I was happy with just the addition of roasted spears of garlic shoots sprinkled with red pepper flakes and parmesan. Perhaps my breakfast and lunch were a bit too heavy today?

Though I've made some cake doughnuts from time to time, and I've made decent cake-based anko donuts, I really haven't spent much time trying to perfect the yeasted donut.

I'm not sure my waistline could handle me getting it right.

Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure my waistline couldn't even handle the number of trials required to approach getting it right.

Peach glazed donuts, not ready for prime time

After being sold on some great peaches at the Pike Place Market (not local, but very flavorful), I had an impulse to make something pastry-like. I thought I might be able to make a passable peach glaze.

A little lemon juice, a good peach, and a heavy hand with powdered sugar, and a little amaretto liqueur cooked into a glaze: It seemed like a good idea at the time. The flavor was nice, but it turned out not to make a very good glaze, most likely due to the excessive moisture in the peaches. The texture was very filling-like, or, if used as a glaze, more suitable for something like a Danish or Brioche-based pastry. Had I the foresight to make Berliner instead of donuts with holes, this might have been the perfect use of some good peaches.

My urge to be as natural as possible while minimizing the sugar content turned out to fight me with the donuts, as well. I relied on a German recipe for yeasted doughnuts that I've eyed for years in the back of a cookbook I bought ages ago, thinking that it would be far more likely to get the sugar balance close to my preference than most of the American recipes I've seen.

Donuts with cinnamon sugar and powdered sugar

I was right on that count, but the texture left something to be desired. The dough was a bit tough and excessively chewy. Even early on, working the dough was a bit of a fight. I should have followed my instinct and habit: normally, I don't precisely follow yeasted dough recipes, because the weather, the temperature of the water and other ingredients affect the moisture content. I always work in the flour until I get the texture I want, then add no more flour, even if the ratios don't quite match my usual recipe.

Next time around, I'm going to wing the dough recipe a bit, and probably create a much moister dough, kneaded a lot more gently. I still want to keep the sugar content low, but I might add another two or three teaspoons to see if it helps the texture. I also think I'm going to need to do a bit more research on glazes.

I've gotten busy the last couple of weeks... I was so tired after my day job on Wednesday that I ended up eating out with a friend downtown just to make my late return home a little more relaxing. Thursday I had my usual Japanese Meetup, and since this week is one of the three weeks of the Seattle International Film Festival, a few of us went to watch a Japanese film afterward.

This week I also learned that what I thought was just a severe foot sprain caused by my own clumsiness a few weeks ago also decidedly involved a couple of small fractures in my foot. That means that I'll be wearing a clunky medical support boot for another few weeks. The initial X-ray a couple weeks back was inconclusive, but it was so obvious even I could see it on the follow-up. Thanks to that, and thanks to some ambiguity on another one of my left foot's bones, I also had a CAT scan on Thursday, and I'll hear back sometime Monday if it's anything more severe or if I can just continue relying on the ugly boot.

Friday night I got home late, too, and tried to keep dinner simple. I wasn't in the mood for complications today, either; I did go to another Japanese film this morning, this time on my own. I was feeling a bit under the weather after doing some vegetable shopping at the Pike Place Market, so I just made a simple pasta dish, along with a side dish of baked egg with porcini mushrooms and vegetables.

One of my go-to pasta dishes when I'm being lazy is whatever pasta is on hand served with a simple tomato-basil cream sauce. It's completely unhealthy, but it's always satisfying: Butter, cream, garlic, concentrated tomato puree, parmesan, and a little salt make a nice sauce, especially when the final dish is served topped with chiffonade of basil and a little pepper.

Since such simple dishes only require a few minutes of attention, I didn't need to struggle much to get dinner on the table.

I'm keeping a low profile tonight... I hope to catch up on some long neglected things on my task list tomorrow.

Umeboshi and homemade kyuuri no sunomono

Umeboshi (pickled Japanese apricots*) are an acquired taste, perhaps, but I grew to love them early on in my encounters with Japanese food.

They are the olives of Japanese cuisine.

They range from very salty and sour, to slightly sweet and sour. Some are tiny and some are huge.

I'm very fond of the flavor of sweeter, generally medium-sized varieties, but one look at the ingredient list of most hachimitsu umeboshi (honey umeboshi) or usu-jio (lightly salted) varieties makes my head spin. I appreciate receiving the better-tasting of those additive-heavy variants as gifts, because I can enjoy them as a gesture of kindness, but when my pocketbook is involved, I prefer to buy all-natural umeboshi with short ingredient lists.

Ume (Japanese apricots*) themselves are greenish, firm and incredibly tart when fresh. Thanks to the magic of red shiso, they transform into something very red as they cure. If you find very red umeboshi made without shiso, they likely have added food coloring. I usually like to umeboshi that come packed with pickled shiso leaves, because I'm as big a fan of shiso as I am of umeboshi.

Umeboshi larger than life

The beautiful umeboshi featured above is made with very good Wakayama ume, salt, and red shiso, along with some additional shiso just used in the brine. Wakayama is one of the most famous locations for ume, and I recall the ume trees all around Wakayama castle when I visited a friend in the capital city several years ago. Further west, I remember standing under blooming ume trees in Dazaifu, eating a candied strawberry, thinking that ume blossoms surely give cherry blossoms some serious competition.

Since this is an all-natural umeboshi, it's fairly salty... you'll generally want to eat one or two with rice and several nice side dishes. The other dishes can be assari (lightly seasoned), as the intense ume flavor will brighten up the whole meal if you nibble a little bit at a time.

* Ume are not plums. I promise. When you see them fresh, you can clearly see the telltale fuzz. Anzu-zake (apricot liqueur) has much of the flavor of umeshu (usually mistranslated as plum wine) with less acidity.

Beets deserve a little respect.

Long abused by the canned food industry, which has perfected the art of turning perfectly good beets into gelatinous salt licks, beets rarely get the attention they deserve. The best you can hope for, on average, is a nicely done borscht.

While I'm as big a borscht fan as anyone, I can only make it so often... I always end up with too much. I end up eating the borscht for days and days on end.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. But sometimes, I just crave a simple, refreshing dish to accompany the rest of my dinner.

I had some nice golden beets with their fresh greens still attached, so I decided to blanch the greens as a base for the beets themselves. My greens were full of mud and required multiple baths in cold water, but once washed, they require just about 15 seconds in boiling, salted water. The water should be about as salty as the ocean, much like you'd season water for perfect pasta.

Drain and shock the greens with ice water.

The beets themselves can be sliced with a mandoline, or with a knife, if your knife skills are more consistent than mine. I put them on a Silpat mat on a baking sheet and baked the slices until tender, but not mushy, at 350˚F (about 175˚C).Without an oven handy, I might  carefully boil the beet slices instead.

Taste the beet greens to make sure they have enough salt for your taste. If you like, you might toss them with a little vinegar to counter the slight bitterness of the leaves; I didn't feel the need for that.

Arrange the blanched leaves on a plate with the cooked beets.

Gently simmer slices of garlic on low heat with way too much olive oil for at least 5 minutes... don't let the garlic brown. Pour the olive oil all over the arrangement. Don't worry about the fact that you are using so much oil; it's mostly used to transfer the garlic flavor onto the greens and the beet slices. Certainly you consume some of that, but much of the oil will simply rest on the bottom of the plate.

I topped this with some soft chevre and a drizzling of real balsamic vinegar, and some freshly ground black pepper. This particular chevre is made from delightfully grassy spring goat's milk, and comes from Port Madison Farm on Bainbridge Island.

Yakinasu (grilled eggplant) is one of those incredibly simple but irresistible dishes... I can't help but order it whenever I see it on an izakaya menu. Sometimes we've even bought it at department stores to take home, as when Hiromi and I ate at her parents' home during my last trip to Japan.

Ideally grilled over Japanese charcoal with a shichirin, yakinasu can also be prepared on an ordinary grill or with a small flame on a gas konro. I used to rely on the broiler feature of my stove, but that requires very careful monitoring to pull off successfully.

You can use either the long, skinny 5-6" nasubi (Japanese eggplant) for this, or the 2-3" roundish ones reminiscent of kyō-nasu (Kyoto eggplant), sometimes called Indian eggplant here in the U.S. The larger European-style eggplants common in the U.S. are probably too big for this.

The one important question to ask when preparing this: Skin on or skin off? I tend to prefer the variations which keep the skin, mostly because it looks more appealing, but you can get a slightly smokier flavor if you're willing to sacrifice it. If you do that, you grill or broil the eggplant on all sides until the skin is more or less blackened, then wrap up the eggplant in aluminum foil, or place it in an airtight container to steam the skin until it becomes easy to remove.

When you remove the skin, you might dress the eggplant with some katsuobushi and soy sauce, or some nerimiso (sweetened miso sauce). Since I'm vegetarian, I make the latter.

For the skin-on version, I typically score the skin on either side, first lengthwise, then about 30 degrees off axis. I've chosen to cut the eggplants in half before grilling, and I rubbed the flesh with a little salt. Each side is grilled gently until the flesh slightly softens. After a few minutes of rest, the eggplant becomes a bit more tender thanks to residual heat, so it's better not to overcook it.

This version is ideal with some freshly-grated ginger, chopped scallions and a little splash of Japanese soy sauce.

Beyond their slightly mustardy flavor, mizuna greens share some of the peppery character of arugula. I had a bit more mizuna with perhaps less than a day left in its usable lifespan, so I thought I really needed to find a way to make good use of it.

I still had some pizza dough retarded in the refrigerator from a few days ago, which can only hang on so much longer...

Pretty odd leftovers

Even better, I also had some buffalo mozzarella, already open, which also has only a little time left, and some aged, intense gouda-like cheese whose name I forget.

Oddly enough, I also had an ear of corn that needed attention.

Americans don't put corn on pizza.

Although the carefully constructed menu of an "American" pizza place near my dormitory in Marburg, Germany, whose signature "American pizzas" almost invariably included either corn or canned mandarin oranges, might make certain people think otherwise, Americans do not put corn on pizza.

I've seen corn on pizza menus in Japan, Hong Kong, and Korea, but Americans do not put corn on pizza. The only time I ever ate corn on pizza was when we had lunch delivered from Domino's Pizza when I was on a business trip to Hong Kong about 7 years ago. Because that lunch involved the dual tragedy of eating mediocre chain pizza inches from hundreds of other culinary treasures, pizza with corn did not make a good first impression.

Never again would I ever have pizza topped with corn, I thought.

And then I made a small exception.

Thursday night I was out at one of Seattle's very few izakaya, and our table had at least two butter-shōyu dishes: one with renkon, or lotus root, and one with lightly sauteed potato shreds only slightly different from a dish previously featured. One we didn't order, for whatever reason, was "corn butter"... so I made up for that tonight.

I scraped all the kernels off my corn cob with a knife and sauteed them in butter, later adding a splash of soy sauce.

Originally I was thinking this would just be a nice little side dish. And then I did something that I'm not, by nature, inclined to do.

I put the corn on the pizza.

The mizuna pesto, like most basil or arugula pestos, featured garlic, olive oil, and pine nuts. It served as an excellent base, though I think it would be even better from mizuna a day or two fresher. I still don't know what possessed me to add the corn, but its salty, buttery goodness was not harmed by its appearance on a crisp foundation of pizza... and the herbal notes from the pesto were surprisingly complementary.

Corn on a sweeter base, such as more conventional tomato sauce, still seems bizarre to me, but I'd do this one again.

Contrary to Tony Bourdain's impression of vegetarian cuisine, salads don't necessarily play a prominent role in an adventurous meatless diet. But occasionally, when presented with some respectably fresh greens and impeccably fresh tofu, I get the urge to eat a little bit raw.

I spotted some fresh kabu (Japanese white turnips) and mizuna (potherb mustard, or so I hear... I just call it mizuna) at the Ballard Farmer's Market on Sunday. I couldn't help but to take some home... both just looked impeccably fresh and hard to resist.

The greens on the kabu (kabuna) can also be eaten raw, so I incorporated some of those into my little salad as well. I sliced and blanched the kabu just long enough to yield a little translucency, without destroying the texture.

I also had some orange bell peppers handy, so they provided a splash of color and a touch of natural sweetness.

The miso dressing is simple:

1 tsp. white miso
1 tsp. mustard
1-1/2 teaspoons jabara juice (see below)
3-4 drops toasted sesame oil
A little honey to taste
2 tablespoons olive oil (something more neutral is fine)

Mix all ingredients other than the olive oil until combined, then gradually incorporate the olive oil to maintain an emulsion.

You probably don't have jabara juice, a citrus juice much like kabosu, sudachi, or unripe yuzu, handy... I spotted some in the Wakayama specialty shop at Yūrakuchō, and Hiromi bought one bottle for me to take home and play with. It's aromatic, and distinct from other citrus fruits in an indescribable but pleasing way... Its aroma is vaguely reminiscent of candied limes.

Since you aren't likely to make a trip to Yurakucho, or Wakayama for that matter, just for a little bottle of jabara juice, substitute another tart citrus fruit... Meyer lemon or maybe key lime would be particularly nice.

Thanks to my excessive shopping habits, I always end up with a couple of special treats to take home when I travel.

During my recent trip to Korea, I grabbed a trio of artisanal sauces in fairly small jars... gochujang, the fermented chili sauce, dwaenjang, which is Korean miso, and ssamjang, a combination of the two with additional seasonings, including a touch of sugar, usually used for lettuce wraps such as ssambap.

I tasted the dwaenjang and gochujang at the department store in Korea, but I added the ssamjang mostly for completeness, without having a sample first. So when it came time to break the seal on these essential sauces, the ssamjang was first on my priority list.

Ssamdubu

To make use of ssamjang, I usually make ssambap, which involves wrapping lettuce, herbs like gaennip, or kelp around rice and other ingredients. The ssamjang is used to add flavor. Koreans regularly construct baseball-sized lettuce wraps and eat them in one bite. My jaw, however, doesn't quite have the capacity required for such a challenge.

Since I went tofu shopping at Thanh Son this weekend, I thought it would be nice to have these with tofu instead of rice. I also sautéed some sad-looking enoki mushrooms in butter and soy sauce.

Not wanting to accumulate three or four plates for such a simple dish, I went ahead and assembled the wraps ahead of time. To serve them, I used another treasure from my recent trip: An Aomori-style urushi plate in the shape of ichō, or gingko leaf.

Simple Pajeon

I so jealously guard the crispness of my pajeon (Korean-style scallion pancakes) that I generally don't sacrifice valuable seconds to shoot a photograph, lest the ephemeral textural ideal be lost before I have a chance to take the first bite.

This time I made a smaller one than usual... somehow I figured, with some rice, kimchi and the tofu dish, I would have enough. It was just right... maybe even a little too much.

As I sometimes do, I followed the technique recommended by a Korean friend, who rather unconventionally replaces water in her pajeon with milk. It makes for a fluffier, more flavorful variation.

A little kimchi

Dinner wouldn't be complete without a little kimchi and rice... I cheated and used a passable imported gimchi bought at Uwajimaya, though I usually try to get kimchi made at one of a number of Seattle-area Korean markets. No time for that this time... and this did the trick, anyway...

Tamago-don is a homely thing. It's the stuff of busy, frugal mothers trying to throw something together for lunch on a Sunday afternoon. It's the kind of thing a salaryman trying to save a couple hundred yen on lunch might choose during a particularly rough month. It's comfort food.

Little more than sautéed onions with eggs, seasoned with a heavily mirin-sweetened, soy-sauce based dashi base,  cooked to a soft curd, the prospect of tamago-don won't trigger a lot of enthusiasm in most Japanese, but perhaps you'll catch a hint of wistful nostalgia.

On the other hand, if you offered to cook such a thing when the weather is bad and spirits are low, your efforts would probably be appreciated.

Tsukushinbō-don

And if, for example, you happened to have a huge supply of local morels that you really needed to make use of, and some just-picked mizuna greens, and perhaps a little chopped negi, you might be able to enliven this dish just enough to make it interesting.

If you happened to use a heavy hand with said morels, and sauteed them until almost, but not quite charred, along with the softened onions, then added a little seasoned dashi, folded this into an omelet pan full of your seasoned egg mixture, stirred the curds, and poured the just-barely-set eggs over rice, you might have something else entirely.

You might consider how much the shape of morels, more properly translated as amigasatake, resembles the tops of tsukushinbo, or horsetail shoots.

In that case, you might call this variation of tamago-don tsukushinbo-don.

Up way too close 

The result?

Well, it's still tamago-don. It's not life a life-altering transformation, but it's certainly a worthy use of an excess of morels. I'll probably continue to cook my morels with lots of butter or olive oil, but when I'm looking for a more assari taste, this is a good alternative.

Note: Hiromi deserves all the credit for seeing the similarity between tsukushinbo and morels.