Pyj Nommer

Teriyaki beef pizza with kimchi, MHA collab-café taco bowl dupe, beef ramen, my obsession with fancyass junkissa-style soda floats and cocktail cherries.

MHA café collab creamy chilli shrimp spaghetti, salmon and corn chowder, beef kebabs with tomato salad and feta, first barbecue of the year with Thai chicken, chipolatas and bell peppers.

Katsudon, hanami picnic, picnic leftovers, Korean chicken with saucy extras.

Seafood in garlic butter, vegan choco Rice Krispie cake, Easter roast lamb, scrambled eggs and smoked salmon on toast.

I have wanted to eat this pie since the first time I saw the film when I was younger, and when I rewatched with my poorly kid recently I immediately went on a research spiral and ordered the ingredients I thought I’d need. In the end, everyone was poorly for ages and basically no cooking happened for like 3 weeks, but this was the day. Just with slightly modified ingredients since the fresh stuff I’d ordered was long gone.

In the end, I went for a Scandinavian-flavour inspired creamy pie with smoked herring (aka kippers), kind of like a twist on a classic Fisherman’s Pie. The Swedes (and I) are big fans of tinned fish, so that’s what I used here, which also meant they were wonderfully boneless.

I’m not going to go on for ages about what I did, but I do have lots of lovely pictures of the process of making white sauce and then adding stuff to it.

I use dairy-free spread and soya milk and it always works out fine. I added bay leaves, thyme, pepper, nutmeg, frozen dill then frozen peas and microwaved carrot, onion and celery mix. I wanted leeks but they were one of the fresh things that had to be sacrificed.

I also got my husband to prep the pumpkin for me, and since he’s stubborn he peeled it before chopping in small. If I were to do it again, I would be more adamant that he did not have to do that, since big wedges of microwave-steamed pumpkin come away from the skin a hell of a lot easier than the tiny little hard bits I had to scrape off each piece 😮‍💨. Anyway, it took 4 mins in the steamer.

Once I had pumpkin and sauce ready, I just had to add the herring! I used 1.5 tins but it could have taken two, they almost disappeared in the sauce and just made it really flavoursome.

Pumpkin, fish, sauce, poked it a bit to get it even. ⬆️

Then I covered it in pre-rolled puff pastry, using the scraps to try to recreate the cute design from the movie. It was extremely haphazard but that’s just how I roll.

That was it! Next time I’d add capers to the sauce to cut through the creaminess, but other than that it was a really nice warming dinner.

Japanese vegetable curry with pre-made breaded chicken cutlets. Easy katsu curry!

Five Guys! We literally never eat out but the kid was at a birthday party that just happened to be next door to a Five Guys. What can you do?

Roast chicken with mixed root mash (potato, carrot and swede), sautéed lettuce and green beans.

These were an idea from one of my moots on Twitter. Lotus root skulls on spicy mapo tofu!

Cheat pilau with leftover roast chicken, one of those curry packet rices and some chopped tomato and cucumber, mini poppadoms and chutneys

This was so damn good. Bacon, crispy grilled cheese and homemade kimchi sandwich. I urge you to do this.

Eggs Royale for Mother’s Day.

Homemadeish dorayaki! I’d never had pre-made mini pancakes before and was thrilled to find they were exactly the right size and texture for dorayaki. The first one is clotted cream and jam, like a cream tea, and the second is actual anko that we realised we bought months ago with no plans to use it. Totally doing this again.

I used to make this all the time with one of those bags of frozen seafood but it fell out of rotation for some reason. Then my husband came home with a whole octopus for absolutely no reason and we also had leftover roast chicken. We did not, however, have any paella rice. I used sushi rice and it worked absolutely fine!

I sautéd frozen chopped carrot, onion and celery mix with chopped peppers, stirred in the dry rice, smoked paprika and saffron strands until it was all yellow, then added S&P, a fish stock cube and enough water to just cover it.

Once it was bubbling nicely I chopped in the octopus that my husband had helpfully blanched and roasted (that’s lemon zest on it). If you don’t have a partner who impulsively purchases and prepares cephalopods for you, you can use any fresh or frozen seafood here—I like prawns, mussels, clams, squid rings etc.

I pulled some roast chicken off the bone and stirred that in, then just let it bubble until the stock had mostly disappeared and the rice wasn’t hard anymore. To do it authentically you’re not supposed to stir paella at all but I did poke it a bit as our gas ring has a habit of fusing food to pans. In the end it was a bit stuck but in the tasty, deliberate way.

Good shroving to you! We made okonomiyaki with squid and shrimp, followed by Tokyo-style cheesecake and fruit filled crêpes.

Okonomiyaki is a great dinner for a group or family because you can add whatever you like to the batter for each person, and it’s mostly cabbage so it’s obv healthy, right?

It’s Valentine’s Day tomorrow! This is the… [checks numbers] seventeenth one I’ve celebrated with my husband lmao so there’s not much we haven’t done in terms of gifts. However, he is normally the maker of things, and I’ve never made chocolates! I keep seeing Nama Chocolate on a lot of the Japanese food blogs I follow so I decided to go full anime love interest and give my crush handmade honmei choco.

I was going to do normal dark chocolate ones but then I saw this recipe on my go-to jp recipes blog and I’m like a magpie, I’m always going to choose the shiny new thing. Plus hubs loves green stuff and matcha, which is a handy as otherwise I’d have to eat them all myself. Oh no…

I ordered a cute new tin (PINK!) that’s exactly the right size rather than compromising like I normally do, and turfed the kids out of the house with my mum. Having all this dairy around the kitchen puts me on edge so it’s good to be able to get it done and everything cleaned up before the allergic kid gets home. I also gave him a pack of dairy free white chocolate buttons since he was eyeing up the Lindt with such a sad face.

Putting together these photos I realised that I bought the wrong white chocolate lol, so we’ll see how that turns out! This is Lindor that has a melty centre. Don’t be like me, buy the right stuff. I did not have a tantrum though—I remained calm and collected throughout, which is progress for me.

I was wondering why it was so soft and easy to cut… ahhhh hopefully it’ll still set haha.

Melty melty sifty sifty. It looked like it was about to separate while I was stirring but it came together!

So I covered it in foil and put it in the fridge, which is kind of hopeless as he cooked dinner tonight and definitely knew I was up to something but never mind. Anyway, after he went to bed I got it out and sliced it all up! You wouldn’t believe how bloody satisfying that was. Ahhh, it was set firm but super smooth and buttery and it made such nice squares. LOOK AT THEM.

In order to dust them with more matcha I had to decant them into TWO containers that are in the fridge now, he’s gonna be so confused when he looks in the fridge tomorrow. They were so pretty all dusted and cubey! And yes, I did eat those trimmings. They were stupidly delicious. I’m gonna eat so many of these suckers tomorrow. 😤 Seems the Lindor was actually okay for these, perhaps normal white chocolate would be firmer but these are melty and perfect too.

And there they are! My first ever homemade chocolates. 🥰 I wish I had a pretty box to put them in but I think I’ll just plate a few up on a sushi platter and present them like that. I’m sure he’ll be v happy.

Char siu pork bun and anpan that looked like a freckly butt (bought not made this time!)

Mapo Tofu with kimchi and rice

A big Full English breakfast in bed!

Pork Shogayaki that I made for the first time! It was succulent and so so tasty. I had to buy the ginger grater specially for it and it was fun but I’m going to work on a cheaty quick version next time I think.

Argentinian style flat iron steak with chunky fries and asparagus. I made the chimichurri with pickled onions as we had no shallots, but it was amazing!

Honey mustard pork and leek casserole with butternut squash gnocchi, using the trimmings from the joint I used for the shogayaki the other day. It looks creamy but my kid is allergic to dairy so unless we’re just cooking for us all my food is dairy-free. 👌

I don’t get the opportunity to eat out, like, at all, which is why I try to brighten my day with pretty plates of food as often as I can. Even a really rough day can have a little bit of something beautiful in it.

I saw this video at the beginning of December and couldn’t stop thinking about the gochujang chicken bit (start at the halfway point for this one but tbh you’re going to want to make all of them anyway).

I’ve since made double quantities of my version of it twice and I still can’t stop thinking about it. You will want to eat this every day istg, and the tasty part is all pantry stuff that lasts for ages so you’re ALWAYS READY.

I don’t have process pics but there’s a video up there! It looks like they sprinkle crushed almonds on the top at the end, but that’s a bit spendy so sesame seeds are my sprinkle of choice. Obv you can fry it like in the video but I air fried mine because I hate standing there frying stuff. And maybe it’s lower fat, I dunno, hard to tell when I’ve sprayed oil all over the air fryer.

Basically, what I do is:

a) use two big packets of boneless, skinless thighs, since you’re going to want to eat this at least three times once you’ve made it and it reheats really well, and chop them quite little so it’s Extra Crispy like popcorn chicken. Toss them in flour.

b) Air fry the chicken in batches, I use the Instant Pot with the air-fryer lid. The trick to them not sticking is to oil spray the frying tray/basket thing quite well and pre-heat the air fryer by turning it on empty until it’s up to heat. I know, revolutionary. Honestly when I realised that doing that stopped nugs and fish fingers sticking my life was changed.

I put some of the fried chicken aside for the kids since the sauce for this one is spicy. They had it with Heinz curry sauce because it tastes a bit like Japanese curry. Next time I’m going to try doing a batch without gochujang then adding it to the pan once theirs is done. I’ll update here once I do!

c) The sauce is gochujang, sugar (I’ve used stevia and I’m going to try it with honey too), ketchup, garlic and soy sauce, with some water added so it makes a nice layer in the pan.

d) Chuck the chicken in the bubbling sauce as it finishes cooking and make sure it’s all coated and sticky, then make a huge bloody pile of it. Then try not to eat all of it at once because you will want to. We’ve had it with rice, noodles, with stir-fry leftovers, on ramen, on its own and in lettuce wraps with kimchi, all of which were perfect.

I am, by nature, a very lazy person, so there’s nothing I love more than finding a hack for making great food. I’m consequently very pleased with myself for my latest innovation of adding frozen smoked haddock and sweetcorn to a tin of leek and potato soup. Amazing!

I said I liked green and orange food, right?

After watching shitloads of K-dramas this year we fell in love with Korean food, and a trip to our local Asian store today meant we had tteokbokki! I wanted to make a full dinner out of it since it was quite pricey, so I needed to add meat. I’ve used mince to make a sort of mapo tofu/tteokbokki fusion before, but today we had sausages that needed using, and I thought they would probably be alright with it.

I cut a load of cheap sausages into a hot pan, making sure I overheated the pan and didn't add enough oil so that all the sausages stuck and lost their skins. 🥲 I added some water to ‘deglaze’ (aka stop them setting on fire), then took some out for lunches once they were cooked. This picture is embarrassing, don’t do this. Just, like, cook the sausages properly.

I then added enough boiling water to just cover the sausages, a tea strainer full of dried anchovies and a big spoonful each of gochujang, ketchup, soy sauce and some sugar. Normally I’d put more gochujang, but my 8 year old needed to eat too and loves to faff around ineffectually with chopsticks, and I like to watch him try.

Once that was all bubbling, I added half a thinly wedged onion, spring onions cut into lengths with the scissors, 2 packs of tteokbokki and some frozen green beans. I was going to add some pak choi but I thought it was one too many crunchy green things. Something like mushrooms or broccoli would be really good too! Just make sure you have some green stuff, it’s important.

It gets shiny and super bubbly like a volcano as the rice cakes release some starch, then I just tasted it using a tiny bowl like in anime and waited for everything to cook. I also let the boy taste it as it was his dinner too. It was obv a bit spicy for him but he thinks I’m impressed by his mature palate, so he said it was fine. Some of those sausages look so much more cooked than others, but that’s just because of their unconventional hybrid cooking method 😭—if you don’t have to boil them they’ll look normal.

Once the veg and tteokbokki were nicely soft, I thickened it just a little bit with cornflour slurry and stirred it through. The kid had it as it was, but I added fresh spring onions, sesame seeds and toasted chilli sesame oil to mine and hubs’, because I love a garnish. And I wanted it to look pretty for its photo. 🥰