1) I figured out how to make an easy, drinkable "meal replacement" type drink: barley milk.
I used to drink oat milk in the States if I didn't have time for a meal. As with the barley milk above, there's no milk involved, but it has a milky texture/appearance. But no one sells oat milk here, and shipping it from home would be insanely expensive.
Last week, I tried to make brown rice milk first since we have more than 5 kg left. But it was a flop because the hull made it taste more like watery, flavorless congee, despite my adding some sugar, vanilla oil and cinnamon.
Alton Brown had a recipe on his "Just Barley" show for a barley drink, but his called for straining the liquid after processing and blending.
I made my own version today with cooked pressed barley (in the rice cooker), water, and agave syrup. It's yummy and although I thought I was putting a lot of sweetener, it didn't taste too sweet. I just eyeballed everything, but maybe next time, I'll follow a recipe more closely so I'll know just how much agave syrup is going into the thing.
Rough recipe was:
- 1 Japanese rice cups of pressed barley (actually, a little less than one full cup since I was using these little packets, and two of them were a little less than a cup)
- 2-1/2 rice cups of water for cooking
- Water as needed to pulse and blend
- Maybe 1/3 or 1/2 cup of agave syrup (not sure...)
Made about 800 ml (two skinny Thermos-ful), plus one overflowing coffee mug, I drank on the spot.
2) Oh dammit. I forgot what other other good news was. But I do love my blender already! :D So far, I'm glad I bought it. One of my fellow cook/foodie friends here in Japan said she didn't like any of the Japanese brand blenders (she has a KitchenAid), but I figured Zojirushi has decent rice cookers and other appliances, so why not? And generally, Japanese consumer electronics are supposed to be very good and durable (except maybe for Sony).
I got a Zojirushi blender with rubber gasket on the lid, glass jar, mill blade and two small containers for milling--a small, plastic one and a larger, glass one. It even came with a little, flexible plastic tool, with one well-designed bristly end for cleaning all the parts of the blender, and a spatula on he other end for scraping down the inside of the jar. I love the thoughtfulness.
(I have a Japanese humidifier back in NY that also came with a bristle brush, and that was stored on the inside of the base unit--which is convenient and keeps it from getting lost. I'd seen another blender before I decided on this one, maybe a Japanese brand--I forget--which had a jar in such a shape that you could put it upside down on top of the base, so it saves space and prevents the buttons from getting dusty).
The only downside of this blender that all the instructions are in Japanese. x_X I'll have to get a friend to help me with it. Good thing there are pictures. I can probably figure out most of it from online; most principles should be the same. Eg. Pulse in short bursts rather than blend for prolonged periods of time (ie. more than a minute at a time), etc.
3) I placed my order yesterday for my electric griddle/grill/takoyaki maker. It's a Tiger brand, which I'd never heard of. I hope it's not the same one that makes computers in the US, because a friend used to work for them and they had really shady business practices.
Bad News:
1) I didn't have time to do gongyo this morning, even though I woke up at 9 am. It's quite early for me, especially on a workday. I remember the first few weeks of work, I couldn't wake up before 10 or 10:30 because I was so tired.
Now, I'm less tired, though I'm not sleeping as well.
2) I've been having a lot of stress dreams lately, in which I am teaching English to people who don't understand me at all--which is really the case sometimes. Sigh.
If you are students, please do yourselves and your teachers a favor: If there's anything that you don't understand, please ask for clarification rather than pretend to get it.
And, when asked a question, please respond with "yes," "no," or even "I don't know." Or at least *try* to explain. Nothing is more annoying than a classroom full of blank stares. Except maybe kids who openly mock me, disrespect me by containing to talk despite several requests for them to stop, or take advantage of the fact that I don't know Japanese.
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