The Thrill of the Grill

Posted on July 4, 2024 by Bert Tanimoto

Grilling season has started and we’re ready to rock and roll at our house. Mind you, I have a Weber® that I break out once in a while, but I’m not great at it. I often miscalculate the amount of charcoal I’m supposed to use and that leads to undercooking or overcooking the meat. But thankfully, and this isn’t a shameless plug or anything, grilling indoors on an electric grill has benefits. I still get the charbroiled marks, I’m not fighting the wind and it’s safe for amateurs like me.

For these grilled vegetables, I coated them with a little olive oil and salt in a bowl before tossing them on the grill. Then like an assembly line I moved them over to a serving platter as they got done.

Of course since I’m not a vegetarian, I’m not against adding a nice steak to this cook-in.

For steak aficionados, it might be a sin to pre-cut a beautiful piece of sirloin into slices like this, but we do this sometimes if we have a side dish like these grilled veggies that are just as beautiful as the steak. Seriously though, since I like my steak with rice, it’s easier for me to eat this Japanese style—with chopsticks. Here’s a tip—when eating with rice, try dipping in soy sauce and wasabi, as if you’re eating sushi. Trust me, you’re gonna love it.

It was so much fun using the grill to cook those vegetables, you have a lot of leftovers and no more steak to eat it with. What do you do? Make a grilled veggie pasta salad of course. This is the kind of salad that holds up well in the refrigerator and probably tastes better on the second day anyway, as the dressing soaks into the pasta. I brought mine for lunch the next day and had it at room temperature—my favorite way to eat a pasta salad.

Did you do grilled pineapples like I did? If you did, you can cut them into small chunks and marinate them in rum for about 30min. Then all you do is use them as a topping with vanilla ice cream and you get the most delicious dessert. Get some Häagen-Dazs® and this really starts to taste like their rum raisin ice cream. Hey, I won’t judge you if you decided to drizzle more rum on top either (hic!).

Last month I tested some Zojirushi recipes. I’m going to try doing this from time to time so you guys can get an idea of how they actually come out. I’ve never baked their Baguette recipe in my bread machine, so I tried it. Even though you need to bake it in your own oven to get the shape you want, it still helps to let the machine do the dough. Follow the recipe to do these steps:

Once I got the bread baked, I wanted to make a Pan Bagnat, a French sandwich that is a specialty of Nice, France. Yay! I’ve been there (a long time ago) but I didn’t have this at the time. If you’ve ever had a niçoise salad before, this is kind of like that salad in between two slices of a baguette. Personally, I love tuna so this kind of sandwich was made for me. Here are the basic ingredients.

The dressing is just a basic vinaigrette that’s brushed on the bread. You can leave out the anchovies if you don’t like them, or add for more punch.

After I assembled it I decided to smash it down with a cast iron pan just to get it more easy to manage. This is the type of sandwich that gets better with allowing it to sit for a while to let the dressing soak through the ingredients. The baguette remains crispy on the outside so it doesn’t get soggy as long as you eat it in a reasonable amount of time.

As a matter of fact, my Pan Bagnat made a perfect lunch box. Try this—it’s not hard at all, but remember, it all starts with the bread!

Products used in this post:Home Bakery Maestro® Breadmaker BB-SSC10, Indoor Electric Grill EB-DLC10

Please note that these recipes were not tested by Zojirushi America.
All images by Bert Tanimoto ©2024

Testing Zojirushi Recipes

Posted on June 4, 2024 by Bert Tanimoto

Have you ever tried any of the recipes on the Zojirushi site? This month I tried making as many of them as I could because I thought you readers might be interested! So in honor of Father’s Day (June 16th), International Sushi Day (June 18th) and Fresh Fruit and Vegetables Month, I made Diced Steak, Sausage Rolls, Chakin Sushi, and Green Vegetable Sushi from the Zojirushi recipe page. Fun! Let’s see how they turned out.

I changed up the Diced Steak a little bit to make it easier for me. The version you see above was pre-seared on my griddle to get it nice and browned before getting ready to sauté. The heat on the griddle is not as high as on my skillet, so if you have a skillet I would recommend using it instead. It took a little too long to achieve the fast sear I was looking for.

The Zojirushi recipe this was based on, the Diced Steak with Japanese Grilling Sauce, is more about making a sauce for dipping so it’s less important to have the meat be rare. My Diced Steak was further cooked with a butter and fresh garlic mix after searing, so I really only wanted it browned. This looks good, right?

I mean, this is pretty simple stuff and great for Father’s Day. Of course, I’m going to have mine with rice.

Next up for Father’s Day I tried the Smoky Sausage Roll from Zojirushi. After using the Pizza Dough course on my breadmaker as instructed, I divided the dough into 6 pieces and rolled them out into long pieces, roughly twice the length of my hot dogs.

Then I rolled them up! Make sure you give the dough plenty of time to rise before starting the baking—that part only takes about 12 minutes, so most of the time is spent waiting for the dough to rise properly. If you’ve done that, your hot dog rolls should bake perfectly.

See that? Take them out as soon as you see it brown. The hot dogs get roasted at the same time. I mean, these guys look beautiful!

This recipe is very easy and doesn’t really take much effort because the breadmaker does the hard part of preparing the dough. The only tricky part is working with the dough because it’s stretchy and you have to get used to shaping it. Mine don’t look so great, but once you wrap it around the hot dogs it doesn’t really seem to matter because they still bake nicely.

Serve with whatever condiments you like.

As you probably already know, there are several sushi recipes on the Zojirushi site that I could have tried making, but I chose their Chakin-Sushi because it looked challenging. He-heh; I was right. The ingredients are simple enough, and most of it we had around the house anyway. I only had to go out to get the imitation crab. This recipe uses a lot of eggs (9 of them) so be forewarned. And the other thing is to find the longest green onions as you can. It’ll make it easier for you to tie your chakin sushi egg pouch.

The other thing is to make the egg crepe as thin as possible if you can. I think mine came out too thick, so practice and try to do better than I did.

Once you get the hang of it you’ll be fine. Don’t overstuff them, but if you follow the recipe you’ll have the correct amount of rice mixture for each one anyway. And like I said—thin egg crepes allow you to make the pouches easier, and a longer green onion stalk gives you more to tie it with. BTW, the flavoring was excellent with this recipe, and it still came out looking halfway decent!

My last Zojirushi recipe was the Green Vegetable Sushi to celebrate not only International Sushi Day, but also Fresh Fruit and Vegetables Month. This recipe seems so simple (and it is) but it brings out the true flavor of sushi rice and its sweet vinegary aroma. If you’re a fan I would recommend it because it packs a lot of flavor and it’s so light and refreshing. Wait a second..nuts and raisins!? Trust me, it all works out in the end.

Make your sushi rice in an unfinished wooden salad bowl, or if you have a Japanese hangiri like this one, use it to absorb the moisture of the rice and retain the heat so that it doesn’t get watery when you toss it with the rice vinegar dressing. Toss the rice with your paddle, chopping it vertically and turning it over in sections rather than stirring.

Since I’m more of a meat/fish eater I wasn’t sure I would like this all-veggie recipe but it was really tasty and satisfying. I think the minced ginger helps to bring it to life, and I didn’t mind the raisins and chopped nuts at all. It’s kind of more like a salad than sushi. It just looks so healthy, doesn’t it?

How many Zojirushi recipes have you tried? If you haven’t tried any yet, what are you waiting for? The recipes are a great way to introduce you to new ways of using your Zojirushi product, and you learn a lot about different styles of cooking too.

Products used in this post: Home Bakery Maestro® Breadmaker BB-SSC10, Rice Cooker & Warmer NP-HCC10, Gourmet Sizzler® Electric Griddle EA-DCC10

Please note that the Garlic Butter Cube Steak was not tested by Zojirushi America.

Bert-san’s Kitchen Hacks

Posted on April 3, 2024 by Bert Tanimoto

What are these? They’re miso balls! Huh? Did you know you could pre-make these little guys and store them in the fridge for a week, or freeze them even longer than that? Wrap them in plastic wrap and yes, miso keeps very well.

To make these, get your ingredients together (dehydrated ones work best) and mix together. Here the ingredients you see are dried wakame (seaweed), fu (a dried wheat gluten) and freeze dried green onions, plus some fresh green onion. BTW, that dried mixture came in a bag that you can buy at a Japanese market! (I never knew dehydrated miso soup ingredients like this existed)Form the miso ball in 1 Tbsp sizes. If you freeze the miso mix for about 10 minutes to firm it up, it might help to make it easier to shape. Then use plastic wrap to store in your fridge for a week, or even better, store in your freezer and it’ll keep for up to three months. One thing about miso, it doesn’t freeze solid so you don’t have to thaw it ahead of time to use it. This makes these miso balls perfect for meal prepping for a week of lunches.

To use your miso ball, just add 200ml (little over 3/4 cup) of hot water, which is just about one full soup bowl. Boom! One serving of REAL miso soup instantly.

It also happens to be the exact capacity of the soup container that comes with your Zojirushi Lunch Jar, if you have one. So instead of bringing the hot soup with you (even though I know you can, in your Lunch Jar), why not add hot water to your miso ball and have it super-fresh?

Just in case you didn’t already know it, you should be aware that leftover rice makes the best fried rice, and leftover rice can be frozen and stored for a month. If you already plan to put away some of your rice after you’ve made a fresh pot, it’s best to put it in an airtight container immediately when it’s still hot, so the steam and moisture gets trapped inside and be there when you’re ready to thaw it in the microwave. No worries if you don’t though, just sprinkle some water on it before microwaving to bring back the moisture. At our house we simply use plastic bags to save space in the freezer.

What’s the best kind of fried rice? Bacon Fried Rice, of course!

Don’t use fresh rice to make fried rice. It’ll tend to get clumpy and not separate as well as it should, leaving areas of the rice not completely covered in the flavor you want. Plop a fried egg on it to make it Bacon Fried Rice á la Tanimoto.

Wait, ice cold drinks next to my Water Boiler? What’s up with that? Just bad photo composition?

Somebody’s got some ’splaining to do…

I know, we missed April Fools—but if you want to fake out your kids or even your adult friends with a clever gelatin trick, try these out. I just thought they were hilarious; plus, who doesn’t like gelatin desserts? (And yes, the ice cream is real)

Just use clear gelatin to get the “ice” for the tropical drink. An ice cube tray works for the mold and all you do is scoop it out. You’re going to have to “float” them and the fruits by partially hardening the gelatin halfway in the glass, then add more of the liquid on top and refrigerate again until the whole drink hardens. Be sure to let the new liquid cool before adding it—you don’t want to melt what’s already in the glass. I used pineapple gelatin mix. By the way, it’s much easier to make something like this if you have a water boiler; the hot water is always ready.

OK, that seems easy. And the orange juice is just gelatin mixed into real O.J.; yeah, I get it. But how did he make those beers?? And the foam?

1. Make apple juice gelatin first, then whip it up to get the foam to appear.

2. Pour the juice carefully into a glass or cup and leave the foam.

3. Spoon the foam onto the top of your “beer” gelatin, then refrigerate.

4. After it hardens, your beer gelatin is ready to fool your friends!

Be sure to account for added sweetener when making gelatin from natural apple or orange juice. You can sweeten the gelatin ice cubes as well, if you want.

Cheers! ¡Salud! Kampai! Serve with a spoon!

Products used in this post: Gourmet d’ Expert® Electric Skillet EP-PBC10, Micom Water Boiler & Warmer CD-LFC30, Mr. Bento® Stainless Lunch Jar SL-JBE14

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

Love Bites

Posted on February 4, 2024 by Bert Tanimoto

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.

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?

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Twas the Night for Zojirushi (revisited)

Posted on December 3, 2023 by Bert Tanimoto

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!

The 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.”

“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.”

Wait 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.”

“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!”

“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.”

The 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?”

And 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.