About Bert Tanimoto

Oldish father (still) of two youngish (but now young adult) kids. Zojirushi enthusiast and professional writer. California resident with roots in Hawaii and Japan. Classic rock, popcorn movies, audio books, spam, sushi and cone filtered coffee. Guilty pleasures include donuts and pop bands like ABBA and Wham! Don't laugh, you should see my vinyl collection--I give hair bands and prog equal credit.

Do the Spring Thing

Irish coffee with clover design

Is everyone ready for Daylight Savings Time? Don’t forget it’s “spring foward” on March 10th. Even though some people say to ease into the time change by sleeping earlier by 15 minutes a day because you’re going to lose an hour, I say do it cold turkey and deal with it, ha-ha! There are only two states that do not follow DST—Arizona and Hawaii, and they both have their reasons. Arizona because it’s a desert state and nobody wants more scorching sunlight than they already have throughout the year. The exception is the Navajo Nation part of Arizona which extends into New Mexico and Utah; they wanted to be able to be on the same time schedule as the rest of their reservation, so they follow DST. Hawaii on the other hand, is so close to the equator that the amount of sunlight doesn’t vary that much throughout the year anyway. Interesting, huh?

St. Patrick’s Day is coming too, so I wanted to take a shot at brewing an Irish Coffee using my new coffee maker. Since I didn’t have any bourbon or whiskey lying around I used rum and it came out pretty good—I didn’t really put in that much anyway.

Irish coffee next to coffee maker

There are multiple recipes online so take your pick. The four leaf clover is fairly easy—it’s just a stencil that you can cut out and mount to a skewer. Almost lay it right on top of the whipped cream and sprinkle cocoa power on top. Very carefully remove your clover stencil to leave the design intact. Try not to put the whipped cream on while the coffee is too hot; it’ll melt real quick. If you make homemade whipped cream, be sure to whip it till it gets pretty thick. You can use Cool Whip from the store too, that’ll work just as good.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Irish coffee glasses in a toast

At our house one of our favorite soups is Matzo Ball Soup. The chicken broth is so homey good and I really like how the matzo meal soaks up the soup and gets all the flavor. It’s a fun kind of soup to eat I think, and perfect for Spring weather when it can still get chilly sometimes.

Matzo ball soup in food jar

I still had my food jars out from last month so I decided to fill them up to see what it looked like. The matzo balls look so good popping up, don’t they? Try it and bring some to work for lunch next time.

Matzo ball soup in food jar

For those who are interested, this is a traditional Jewish soup that is often served during the holiday of Passover, which commemorates the Biblical story of the Israelite’s escape from slavery in Egypt. During this major Jewish holiday that lasts a week, leavened foods like pasta, bread or cookies are abstained and matzo meal is substituted as kosher. Fun fact: did you know the famous hot dog eating champion Joey Chestnut once ate 78 matzo balls, each weighing 3.5 ounces (99 grams) in a span of 8 minutes, for charity? Wow! And yeah, he holds the world record.

The last time I tried a steamed fish dish was when I reviewed my Zojirushi NL-GAC 10/18 Rice Cooker and used the steamer basket to make a Chinese style black cod. It was such a success that I took another crack at it, this time using fresh salmon. Fish is always a good Spring food because it’s so light tasting.

foil salmon ingredients uncooked

If you want to try this, here’s a valuable lesson I learned about Zojirushi rice cookers. When I did the black cod I cooked 2 cups of rice and was able to steam the rice and the fish at the same time, all in the rice cooker. Fantastic all-in-one convenience right? The total cooking time was 30 minutes, which was perfect for the fish. For the salmon I made a mistake and cooked 3 cups of rice, which immediately set the cooking time to 49 minutes. Duh! The cooker is smart enough to recognize it needs the extra time to cook 3 cups vs. 2 cups. I wasn’t smart enough to realize that until I switched it on! That was too long; I didn’t want a tough piece of salmon.

No big deal—I still wanted 3 cups of rice so I made it separately and still used the steamer function to do the fish. 30 minutes and it came out perfect.

foil salmon all cooked

Steaming in foil is a great way to prepare fish and it’s easy as heck. Think about it—you’ve already got the rice cooker out anyway. Less things to wash.

foil salmon with rice cooker, two bowls of rice with peasLooks like Spring? If you want to try more foil packet recipes here’s a Mushroom and Tofu one from Zojirushi for you.

Hey, before i go, just in case you missed my Shamrock Bread from last year, check it out! It’s easy and fun and you can pair it with the Irish Coffee.

green shamrock embedded in slice of white bread

Products used in this post: Umami® Micom Rice Cooker NL-GAC10/18, Dome Brew Programmable Coffee Maker EC-ESC120, Stainless Steel Food Jars SW-KA40 and SW-KA52H

Please note that these recipes were not tested by Zojirushi America.

All images by Bert Tanimoto ©2024

Love Bites

heart shaped cookies on dish with strawberries

Chocolate chip cookies and coffee must be a match made in cookie heaven, agree? I decided to combine the best of both worlds for Valentine’s, using the Recipe of the Year from King Arthur Flour® and Zojirushi’s newest coffee maker. The King Arthur Flour company claims to have baked over 1200 cookies to perfect this chocolate chip cookie recipe, and used over 38 pounds of butter in the process.

I didn’t use that much butter, but I did use a cookie cutter and my Zojirushi Toaster Oven to bake these lovelies.cookie cutters in heart shapes

I was worried about the cookie dough spreading out into an unrecognizable blob when it baked, so I simply baked them right in the mold. All it took was greasing the sides of each cutter, then baking like any batch of cookies.

If you like your cookies on the cakey side, this recipe is for you—you can find it on their site. I like mine chewy more than cakey, so I’ve had better IMHO. But they go great with coffee, so let’s segue into my new coffee maker, shall we?Zojirushi coffee brewer

First impressions — Zojirushi didn’t mess around with the design; it’s compact as can be for a 12-cup coffee maker. Fantastic use of optimal height, width and depth in a no-nonsense, sleek, small footprint design. I was happy to see a setting for brewing small amounts of coffee, which I experimented with immediately for my first test. I used grounds that I consider to be a cut above old school 1st wave but lower than craft coffee 3rd wave. If you’re a coffee snob you’ll know what I mean, and you’re probably into a 4th wave yourself.

I brewed only 4 cups, and the coffee was delicious! I tested the Taste Tuner feature that controls the brew strength and that worked too, turning my mid-level coffee beans into a pretty rich blend. I love the sound of percolating coffee.

A few years ago I reviewed my Zojirushi Breadmaker by baking a crazy looking Rainbow Bread with it, kinda going overboard with the food coloring in the process. I decided to tone it down for this Valentine’s, but not by much — ha ha!hand rolling pink and white dough together

I just used the Homemade Course on my Breadmaker to make the dough first, then flattened it out and rolled the two colors together as tightly as I could.

The dough should look something like this when it’s rolled up.rolled dough pink and white

The Homemade Course allows you the time to do this step in between the knead and rise cycle, so when you’re done you simply put the dough back into the baking pan and start the baking cycle again. I would advise you take out the kneading blade at this point because it’s no longer kneaded (get it?). You want to minimize the hole at the bottom of your bread.

Bake according to regular White Bread instructions and the Breadmaker does the rest. Look…look into my bread…are you getting sleepy? Watch the pretty pink spirals go round and round and round. When you wake up you can eat it for breakfast; trust me, it’ll be delicious.

pink swirl bread

What do you guys have planned for Valentine’s? How about a picnic or a brisk hike in the woods; maybe you have kids who play sports like we did and you spend a lot of time following them around, sitting on cold metal bleachers while you watch them for hours. The good ‘ol days! I don’t regret them — it was fun. We didn’t have Zojirushi Food Jars back then, but I wish we did. We would have made clam chowder like here, and packed a hot soup snack.clam chowder soup in food jars

I’m not gonna lie, I was already expecting the thermal insulation to be top notch (it’s Zojirushi after all), but I didn’t expect it to blow me away like it did. We heated and packed this soup in the afternoon at around 2pm, and we had it for dinner at 6:30. It was literally too hot to eat without blowing on it to keep it from burning my tongue. Maybe it was the type of soup too—clam chowder is thick and retains heat well. We also pre-heated the food jars which also probably helped.

Are these the perfect His & Her food jars? These might be the best designed jars that Zojirushi has made yet—minimalistic yet very sleek, in muted colors for sophisticated boys and girls. Lots of features in these new food jars; a better insulated, one-piece lid that’s easier to clean, and it’s designed to relieve the pressure build-up from hot foods when you open it. I even liked the octagonal packaging. Pretty cool.blue and pink food jars shown with packaging

Well, that’s it for me this month–have a great Valentine’s everyone!

Products used in this post: Micom Toaster Oven ET-ZLC30, Home Bakery Maestro® Breadmaker BB-SSC10, Dome Brew Programmable Coffee Maker EC-ESC120, Stainless Steel Food Jars SW-KA40 and SW-KA52H

Please note that these recipes were not tested by Zojirushi America.

All images by Bert Tanimoto ©2024

I cooked every rice type on the menu!

rice cooker display panel

Hello fellow rice fans and Happy New Year! This month I thought about how many menu settings there are on my rice cooker and how I never use anything but “white rice”. What if I made all the rice types available, just to see how they work? Do you think it would really make a difference? I put my rice cooker to the test!

Jasmine

We don’t eat much Jasmine rice at our house—we almost always make Japanese short grain so I’ve never experimented beyond “Regular” or “Quick”. I can tell you for a fact that “Quick” only takes about 35 minutes but there is a difference. You sacrifice a subtle, overall fluffiness that you get from soaking the grain in water for that extra time and it does affect the texture. I’m embarrassed to admit I use that setting a lot, especially if I’m having curry rice. If I’m topping my rice with curry, I’m just not all that fussy about my rice, you know what I mean?

But we had Thai food for dinner, and I wanted authentic Jasmine rice to go with it. So we decided to cook our own instead of eating the takeout one from the restaurant. thai food jasmine riceZojirushi warns in their manual that it may cook firmer than normal depending on the brand of the rice, but ours turned out perfectly. It was loose and not sticky, like Jasmine is supposed to be, and the fragrance of the rice really comes through when it’s fresh.

Porridge

This setting is used to make the watery rice gruel called “okayu” (pronounced oh-kah-yoo) that we eat when we’re not feeling well and have no appetite. It’s warm, comforting and easily digestible. The cooker did its job and left the rice in this soupy texture. Normally regular short grain is used for okayu.porridge in rice cooker

Personally, I like to have mine with the rice sprinkles that you can get at the Asian markets. It adds a great flavor to the rice, and if you have it with a pickled plum it’s healthy for you too. If you have this setting on your rice cooker, try this; I promise you’ll find it amazing. You don’t even have to be sick.rice gruel meal

Oatmeal

Even though our cooker doesn’t have an Oatmeal setting, you can use the Porridge menu to make oatmeal. We made a slight adjustment by adding twice the amount of oatmeal so that it wouldn’t come out too watery like the rice gruel. For more detailed information go to this page in Zojirushi and it will tell you exactly how to cook oatmeal and other types of rice.oatmeal in rice cooker

The advantage to using the rice cooker vs. in a pot on a stove? You don’t have to keep stirring it and watching it. We made it for breakfast and had a self-serve Oatmeal Bar.oatmeal breakfast bar

Sweet

The Sweet setting is used for mochi-gome (mochi rice). You can make a lot of Japanese style traditional desserts using this extra-glutinous rice, but all you need is a stand mixer to make real mochi. After it cooks, transfer the hot mochi rice to your mixing bowl. The Sweet setting does everything, so as long as you’ve measured correctly, you’ll get the super sticky texture you want. We didn’t have a dough hook for the mixer (recommended), so we used the flat beater attachment and it still worked fine. Just knead the mochi rice until you get real mochi.making mochi in stand mixer

Make sure you use a lot of corn starch to make the mochi easier to handle. WARNING: Sticky! If you can get red bean paste at your store, you can fill your mochi patties and form them into homemade Daifuku, a traditional dessert. making mochi with red bean pasteMy impressions of homemade mochi: if you have a chance to do this, do it! The freshness and natural sweetness of the rice gets enhanced, and the flavor is unbeatable. Store bought mochi doesn’t even come close. But the caveat is that clean-up might be a turn off to some—it really is hard to get off of everything. If anyone has any ideas about this let me know.

Mixed

The Mixed setting is used to make Takikomi Gohan, type of Japanese rice dish that you can make right in the pot from a kit that you can buy at the market. All the ingredients are in the box, so all you have to do is set it and forget it.

The extra cooking time allows the dashi flavored soup stock to infuse better into the rice so you get an umami flavored rice dish that goes perfectly with broiled fish or any light entree.

Here are two kinds of Takikomi Gohan that we made with the “Mixed” setting. Both were complete kits. This one is a mixed mushroom dish with bits of salmon.Japanese mixed rice with salmon

If you buy one that is more expensive, you can get one with chestnuts.Japanese mixed rice with chestnutsJust FYI, both of these Takikomi Gohan dishes are kits that come with everything you see, right out of the box. So easy!

Stay tuned for another post where I try the other menu settings on my rice cooker. Hopefully I’ve inspired you to explore your own rice settings—there’s so much you can do with it!

Products used in this post: Rice Cooker NP-HCC10

Please note that these recipes were not tested by Zojirushi America.

All images by Bert Tanimoto ©2024

Twas the Night for Zojirushi (revisited)

rice bowl with santa
Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house–
Nothing was stirring, not even a mouse.
And just when even a mouse wouldn’t squeak,
The Zojirushi products decided to speak!

rice cookerThe Rice Cooker said, “They can’t live without me.
Rice is a staple, their dinners need me.
Whatever the side dish, whatever the soup,
You need fluffy rice, to complete the group.”

Honey brick toast drizzled with honey“You’re wrong you know,” the Breadmaker said.
“What staple is there, other than bread?
I can bake it fresh, and it smells so good,
Their mornings are mine, that’s understood.”

water boilerWait just a minute. Wait for the spoiler!
“That’s not how this ends,” chimed the Water Boiler.
“It all starts with water and I heat it with ease.
Tea drinkers love me, everyone agrees.”

shepherd's pie coming out of oven“So what? Big deal.” said the Toaster Oven.
“I can toast bagels or an English muffin.
I can bake a cake or a whole lasagna
I’m the one and only, I’m tryin’ to tell ya!”

insulated drink mugs“Ah, but here’s one thing that’s wrong with y’all.
You guys are stuck here, you’re plugged to the wall!”
The Stainless Mugs just started to smile;
“We’re tall and sleek, we’re a lifestyle.”

miso soup served in food jarsThe Food Jars, they heard this discussion.
They said, “We agree, we second that motion!
We’re essential, maybe the best of the bunch.
Without us, how can you enjoy your lunch?”

flat griddleAnd that Gourmet guy, you know the one–
that Tabletop Griddle who has all the fun.
The life of the party, always looking so chic;
let out a sigh and rose up to speak.

“Hold it, listen you all. You’re missing the point!
It’s not who’s great, or who rocks this joint.
We all serve a purpose; we follow a plan.
We make life easier whenever we can.

We all love to cook, and that’s the truth.
We satisfy cravings, or any sweet tooth.
So let’s enjoy what we do–we are truly blessed.
It’s not about skill, or who is the best.”

A sudden silence then came over the kitchen.
The arguing stopped and they started to listen.
The Zojirushi spirit is alive and well.
“He’s right, good point! They started to yell.”

And so it was on that Holiday night,
with the fire in embers and the stars out of sight,
a commotion was settled, the rebellion rejected.
Peace came again, with the kitchen protected.

Zojirushi products were once again quiet
They knew better than to start a riot.
It’s so much better to give up the strife—
they started Treasuring Everyday Life.

(with apologies to Clement Clarke Moore)

Click on images to see past posts from Bert-san

Products used in this post: Rice Cooker NW-QAC10/18, Breadmaker BB-PDC20, Water Boiler CV-JAC40/50, Toaster Oven ET-ZLC30, Stainless Mugs SM-VA60/72, Food Jars SW-KA52H/75H, Gourmet Sizzler® Electric Griddle EA-DCC10

Please note that these recipes were not tested by Zojirushi America.

All images by Bert Tanimoto ©2023

Thankful For My Hainan Chicken Rice

I guess at my age, I don’t have to think really hard to appreciate what I’ve got. I’ve never been one to be envious or jealous of my neighbor, or complain about what I don’t have, so it doesn’t take much to keep me happy. Some might say that’s great, some may say that’s why I don’t have more. I say it’s a byproduct of having experienced the hippie generation, when material things were frowned upon in the name of simple peace and love. (Best excuse!)

Take my Hainan Chicken Rice, for example. I’m grateful that I can cook it and steam the Chinese broccoli all in my rice cooker.

Hainan Chicken Rice shown in rice cooker before cooking

The natural chicken broth seeps into the jasmine rice as it cooks, and the steamer basket takes care of the broccoli. I found out that this is a signature Singaporean dish, brought over from the Hainan province in Southern China.

This is what both dishes look like right out of the rice cooker.

Hainan Chicken completely cooked in rice cooker

Chinese broccoli steamed in rice cooker

Homemade Hainan Chicken Rice. The ginger scallion sauce is a simple topping you can find easily online, and Hoisin sauce was sprinkled on the broccoli. This is good stuff, just using our rice cooker!

Hainan Chicken Rice plated showing Ginger Scallion Sauce

I am thankful for my electric griddle, which continues to be a really handy appliance to have in our kitchen. We have the takoyaki plate that fits into the griddle, which is a treat sometimes when we’re craving these.

Takoyaki cooking on hot plate

Out of all the jobs I’ve had in my life, the four years I spent in Japan were the most influential and memorable that I can keep with me forever. And that includes the foods I ate that really opened my eyes to Japanese cuisine. It’s so much more than sushi and ramen, you know? I’ll always look back at my summers in Japan as the most excruciatingly sticky and uncomfortable seasons ever, but also the best time for all the fun festivals going on. Takoyaki and yakisoba are best eaten from paper trays at your local town festival during summertime.

Takoyaki plated with condiments added

Yakisoba on griddle

By the way, just to let you know you can switch from the takoyaki plate to the flat griddle instantly to make these two summer classics at home.

Do you know what else I’m thankful for? I’m thankful I was raised Asian-American. Think about how lucky I am to know both cultures, having been around both worlds since I was born. This is one of the reasons I never let my kids forget that when they were growing up. A big part of keeping that alive is the food that we eat everyday. I think we take that for granted sometimes, but to be able to appreciate good food from whatever culture or cultures that make up your background is essential. And it only gets more important the older we get.

My Mom always used to make meatloaf when we were kids. And the tradition continues today.

And don’t forget the potatoes…

What are you guys thankful for this Thanksgiving? Don’t let it pass without giving it some thought—it’ll do wonders for your day.

Products used in this post: Micom Toaster Oven ET-ZLC30, Umami® Micom Rice Cooker NL-GAC10/18, Gourmet Sizzler® Electric Griddle EA-BDC10, Takoyaki Plate EA-YBC01

Please note that these recipes were not tested by Zojirushi America.

All images by Bert Tanimoto ©2023