Bits from last week. Homemade tortillas from scratch, homemade banana bread, "date day" with my husband and a few other things

Does this 3DS game and green Nerf cover look familiar? : ) Yep, it was on auction alrighty. An auction that's long over but this was Branden's 3DS. American version. In English and the games for this could be bought from Amazon.com that ship to Japan. Anyway, Branden had been wanting the new 3DS XL (the American name) LL is the name in Japan. I said, you can have one, but let's sell your 3DS first and that way you can put that money towards your new one. Great idea, Noboru said and Branden thought so too. It sold immediately! Like right away. Like hotcakes and funny because Noboru was thinking it wouldn't have sold at all, go figure. We gave them the Nerf cover, the SD card that came with it, they got it all. And because it's been in that Nerf protector it hasn't a scratch on it and also the film cover over the screen means no scratches anywhere either, it was in like new condition. The person who bought it was really happy with it also.  Left us a really really good review also. So that's all done now. : )

I watched the 3 debates between President Obama and Mitt Romney. This pic was taken from the 2nd debate. Candy Crowley was the moderator for the 2nd debate. I watch her a lot on CNN, I like her.

Obama did so well! I was really pleased! I am also happy that absentee voting for us, Americans living overseas is so much easier for this election 2012! I have never missed a vote since turning 18. And I never plan to either.

Last week, my good friend Rumi had given me this while at the plaza one day while we waited for our sons. She said, I know you like dried fruit, like yuzu. I said...yes, I do. : ) I was really happily surprised she knew that and I appreciated it very much. I enjoyed eating this a lot. They were delicious.

Fall is another time to switch that nylon shower towel for us here in our household. I switch them in Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring. I actually try to switch them every 2 months. But at least I get them every season. So the old ones got thrown in the trash last week. And I switched the boys to these. Branden got the one on the left, a green frog sitting in a tub. Noah got the orange one with a bunny wearing a beret. They didn't have the best selection this time around : ) And I picked bright pink. I also bought Noah some face masks for lunch. They cover their mouths when they serve food. And our particular school lets you use any type or design, because at first I was buying the plain white ones specifically for lunch, but when I attend the observation days since even Branden's days, their classmates use all the character ones, so that's why we do too.

Time for the washing machine to get a through Fall cleaning. The bottle on the right. I start the wash just like regular. Not the fast cycle. And pause it after it swishes a few times. I pause it for an hour. To soak and then un-pause it and run it through once. It takes all build up that washer machines can get. Ours is now Fall ready. I did this last week also. And the thing on the left is for bathtubs. It cleans the reheating thing on tubs. It's super clean now. I did that last week also. We will be taking our first bath of the season tonight. I have the bath powder already. : ) So the tub is Fall and Winter ready now! Woohoo!

Last week, Noboru and I went on our weekly lunch date. We go to lunch during the day once a week. It keeps us focused on us as a couple and I like that. However before our lunch date, he wanted to check out Don Quijote.  I said sure! I tried on some Halloween wigs! Noboru was especially fond of me in the neon pink bob. LOL! We bought curry senbei. He was looking for something related to our wifi. But he didn't find it.

Look at that cold gray sky! @_@ Fall weather right?! We went to the Ohsho in the pic.

After lunch we went to Hanamasa. It's close to the Ohsho and also DonQui.

There's also a Starbucks drive thru right near there also. So we went through the drive thru, ha ha ha.

Caramel machiatto for the both of us. Perfect for a chilly willy day, we headed right home after this and we had about 10 minutes to unpack before we both headed to the shogakko together.

We munched these last weekend during movie night.

Hanamasa stuff. Fries (198 yen for 1 kg) hash browns, Noah loves hash browns, we just throw them in the toaster oven. Green beans and broccoli.

Shrimp. Already peeled and cleaned and stuff.

Size 2L, ha ha ha. We had ebi fry last Saturday, Noboru made it for us, he doesn't cook very often but I enjoy it when he does. : )

The day we had our date, picking up the boys at the plaza. See Noah in his bright orange and yellow raincoat. Branden had his raincoat but didn't wear it because he thought it wasn't raining hard enough, lol. He's on the right with blue long sleeve and yellow soccer gym bag design. You can see some mama's chatting under the covered bicycle area and a grandma wearing pink apron pointing to her grandson in the crowd of kids. And you can also see some rain drops on the windshield.

What is this? It's not pizza dough.

If you guessed tortillas, you are right. : )

These are big plates, same plate that held the chicken cutlet and salad the week before this. This is the 2nd time I've given it a shot of making tortillas. My first try, I blogged about, but maybe that was a few years ago? I think they came out better this time and I realized they are pretty easy and they taste yumm.  Granted if I lived in the US and could buy them easily at the store, I'd definitely buy them and not make them, ha ha ha. And I'll still buy some here in Japan. But....I think I'll also make some too every once in a while.

And a cheese quesadilla with a homemade from scratch tortilla, omg really good.

Bananas for....banana bread also last weekend.

3 loaves, and I saved the biggest and best one for my dad (froze it). We meanwhile enjoyed 2 loaves of banana bread here at the house. : )

We bought 2 whole chickens from Hanamasa also last week that we baked. And we had lots of leftovers and a little rice on a homemade tortilla, add some roasted chicken and some mozzarella cheese on top microwaved with a little salt and pepper. So good. The boys enjoyed this for lunch last Saturday.

Monday afternoon 2:10pm, this Monday. I had chopped the chicken for the gratin, stir fried it./skillet fried it and them added the mushrooms. Added the pasta and sauce. And boiled it up, it thickened. And the gratin was now 98% done. All I had to do was put it into a baking dish and cover for a while. I picked up the boys at 3pm. They came home. And I threw this in the oven and by the time Kumon was over and homework was finished dinner was done.

I did uncover it the last 10 minutes and added some frozen broccoli florets and added some white cheese/pizza type cheese found here in Japan at my local shop. I sliced some fresh baguettes of bread and buttered them and we enjoyed this... this Monday.  Okay so that's just a few bits and pieces from last week and weekend and up until this past Monday. This post stops at October 22nd. : ) Anyway that's what we've been up to. Just hanging home...cooking...eating. having movie night with the family. I've been getting more and more Fall ready. You know, just regular stuff, I guess. : ) 

A Hanamasa run

The Sunday right after Noah's recital was over, we did not go home, we headed directly to Hanamasa. We had planned going there for a few days before and that day worked out best for us. I had brought a spare change of clothes for Noah, so he wouldn't have to go to Hanamasa in his yochien uniform. At this point, on Sunday was when we had heard that the typhoon would be heading our way. This is important to mention because we had heard of a big typhoon coming to Japan but it wasn't expected to come towards the Chiba area or Narita area at all. So, even the day of undokai, we had all heard of an upcoming typhoon, but no one around here was too worried. It wasn't until the Sunday of Noah's respect for the aged recital, that morning on the news did we hear it switched course and would be heading towards us. Again we didn't know if it would be downgraded to just a storm, which happens. Or be the big one, so to speak. Either way, we were glad to get ourselves to Hanamasa anyway and like I said, it was planned before we even heard of the typhoon heading our way. What did we pick up? Well we only get ourselves there about every 6 weeks. We picked up, quite a few packs of lean 100% ground beef (5 packs). For meatballs, hamburg and family cheeseburger night.
Thin pork for ginger pork and thick for fried pork chop night.
The chicken leg quarters are for roasted chicken leg quarters with teriyaki sauce. We had that the night/evening of the typhoon. It was quick, just throw in the oven. We had rice, teriyaki leg quarters and steamed veggie, so a nice filling meal. Noboru and the boys also had miso soup. After working that day and picking up Branden and coming home. The easy meal was very appreciated. : ) We also picked up 2 whole chickens, this we had for Sunday roasted chicken this past Sunday with mashed potatoes and veggie.
French fries, this 1kg bag was 238 yen? Something around that price. Which will be great for cheeseburger night.
10 apples in this bag and they were 450 yen. Which is quite a deal considering my Cainz store usually sells 6 apples for 395 yen in a pack. So, yeah I think another apple crisp/crumble will be coming up in the very near future. Will probably bake it this coming Friday, tomorrow.
Lots and lots of frozen veg. I also like to buy fresh veggies too obviously, but knowing I at least have veggies in the house at all times is peace of mind for me.
Pasta, very good price here and a big bag of mozzarella cheese.
2 cases/boxes of jasmine tea, it's cheaper here. And that way when I do my regular weekly shopping at Cainz and a few other shops, I can just pick up milk, Calpis, apple juice, Natchan, you know that type of stuff. The day the typhoon hit, we were cozy here at home, we had plenty of food here in the house. Dinner I had purposely made by 4:30pm, just in case of power outage. We ate quickly, everyone showered. And that's when we had the power outage. Just 2 outages, and only for a few minutes. Our area had tons of rain. heaps of it. But no damage. We had seen on the news parts of Japan that were really hit hard. Last week, for 2 days, the weather was quite chilly. Like you'd need a long sleeve top type chilly. It hasn't been that cold in this area. So it was a surprise the weather dropped like that. Some days are still sunny. But you can really start to see that Fall is under way. The seasons are indeed changing. What are Noboru and Noah doing in this pic behind the Jasmine tea bottles? They're studying. Noah's going full throttle in Japanese study, reading and writing. At Kumon and also at home with workbooks and library runs with dad. And I'm meanwhile going full throttle with English Kumon with him same time and with the same reading books I used with Branden. With Noah reading everything these days, he's reading labels at the store. Reading the TV guide/schedule on the satellite. I was watching my cooking show the other night and when it started and the name of the show flashed on the screen...he said...Everyday Food. Yes Noah, that's the name of mommy's show I said. : )

Friday's trip to Costco Makuhari and Hanamasa. And gearing up for tonight's Christmas movie marathon and pizza night! ; )

Friday morning, we had a plan the hubby and I. As soon as we sent both Branden and Noah to school, we'd head to Costco Makuhari and then on the way home we'd stop off at Hanamasa (meat shop) and then to the drive thru at Starbucks and head directly to Noah's yochien by 1:40pm and then straight to get B who got off early at 2:20pm. So, as planned, we sent the boys to school and drove straight to Costco. Man what a very long drive. Especially since we drove the normal roads and not the highway. But on the way back we took the highway though.

I'm not sure why or what but it was so crowded. We went on a weekday hoping for a dead/uncrowded store. The parking on all levels were totally full. We parked on the roof and even still had to drive around and around until a space opened up. Once inside it was so crowded. I've never been in there with THAT many people before. Was it on TV the night before or something? I mean, you could barely push a cart through there. And there are usually a few foreigners in there like myself. But this time...none but me. How very unusual. So, through crowds and crowds galore, I felt like a fish going against stream. I tried so hard to make my way to the Kirkland premoistened cleaning clothes for the house. People everywhere. Carts left in the middle of the aisles. It was crazy. We quickly shopped made it downstairs. The check out lanes were even longer. We waited and waited and finally checked out. We ordered a pizza for Saturday night. And Noboru meanwhile got 2 hot dogs for his lunch for Friday. And I got a quick slice of pizza for mine. We ate outside quickly and with no real time to spare, we hopped in the car and left. We got to Hanamasa around noon. I was now worrying greatly about our timing. So, I ran into Hanamasa and grabbed the things I was looking for and quickly checked out. Luckily for me, Hanamasa was deader then a door nail.

A quick drive through the drive- thru Starbucks and both of us grabbed a Christmas latte of our choice and back onto the highway we went. To Noah's school as fast as lightning. Would Noah fit into my tiny red car with all the meats and Costco stuff? Hmm, we'd see. And more importantly would Branden fit in the car afterwards too. Yes they did. A tight squeeze but it worked.

Went to pick up Noah. Had a little time to spare. So dropped off Noboru and the tiramisu. And with Pizza and the rest still in the car...off I went to the elementary school. Kirkland wipes, tortilla chips. 2 packs of plain dinner rolls. And 1 large cheese pizza.

And 1 very large tiramisu.

From Hanamasa, 5 packs of very lean 100% ground beef. 2 packs will be hamburg, 2 packs will be cheeseburger night and 1 pack will be meatballs for pasta night. 1 big pack of thick pork chops for fried pork chop night. And the 2 whole chickens for the super cheap price of 1080 yen. I am planning to cut them into pieces for homemade fried chicken for Christmas dinner. Don't laugh but we're simply sick of turkey. We love turkey but the nearly 20 pounder we had for Thanksgiving was enough for us for a while. We were then thinking...buy a spiral ham. And then I got to thinking. All my Japanese friends order KFC family party meals for Christmas. It's sort of a tradition for Japanese to do this at Christmas. Seriously. So, I guess I started thinking....you know, I could make an even better fried chicken. I have an excellent southern cookbook. And it has an amazing recipe for some seriously delicious fried chicken. I can make mashed potatoes, chicken gravy, we can have biscuits, the whole shebang. Heck, I can even make homemade baked in the oven macaroni and cheese. The real kind. So...yeah I started getting excited about the idea. Mentioned it to Noboru and he *loved* the idea so much! Probably because he hears from his coworkers how they all also eat KFC for the Christmas holiday. And so yeah....and plus this is even cheaper then the colonel. I bought 2 whole chickens, and will fry up the both of them. So, like 4 breasts, 4 wings, 4 drumsticks. And so on. It's gonna be really good. The dessert I'm still deciding on, maybe an all American apple pie or maybe a pumpkin pie, who knows. Anyway...so while we were there, perfect time for us to pick up the Christmas chickens and they are now frozen in the freezer as well as the rest of the meats. We are really looking forward to Christmas dinner this year. : )

All the dinner rolls, placed in freezer bags. One bag will be used for Christmas dinner. The rest for obento's or just plain munching. Putting them in the microwave toasting a bit in the toaster oven, rubbing some butter on top and yumm.

Someone donated to our yochien a huge Christmas house, like a gingerbread house but not made out of gingerbread. ; ) All the kids got to eat some Friday and also bring some of it home. That's what's picture on the left here. The parts of the house Noah took off. He shared with Branden. And that on the right is a Santa bell Noah made.

It's got the date on it and everything and after Christmas is over I'm going to hide it away in Noah's yochien keepsake box.

Our most recent movies we ordered/rented. A Christmas Carol. The new one with Jim Carey. And Extraordinary Measures. We haven't seen them yet. A Christmas carol, the kids and I'll see tonight. And Extraordinary Measures Noboru and I'll see tomorrow.

These are our Christmas movies. We watch them every year with the boys. Usually 1 or 2 movies each night tops. Polar Express is my least favorite movie in the bunch. The kids favorite is Elf. Noboru's favorite is Christmas Vacation and my favorite is A Charlie Brown Christmas or A Christmas Story. Tonight Noboru has his year end party. Noboru doesn't really go out very often. Actually unless it's fishing with his fishing buddy's. He's more a homebody type guy. He does however go out with his coworkers once a year for this end of year party. It's going to be just the guys....a bunch of married men. And even 1 child. ; ) One of the guys wife is a flight attendant and he needs to watch his son (1 year younger then Branden), so he's bringing him along tonight since she's working. Their plan? Go to the public bath. And then to a karaoke dinner place. And then home. None of the guys smoke except 1. LOL. Noboru quit 2 years ago. As did the rest of the guys. So, one very family oriented end of year party for them. ; ) Also, Noboru doesn't drink. So, anyways, while Noboru's at the end of year party tonight (which I'm glad he's going and I hope he has a lot of fun : ). Branden and Noah and myself will be throwing our own little party here at the house, just us 3. We'll throw the pizza in the oven. Warming it up. Having some grape soda with ice. Some tiramisu for dessert and after I send the boys to the showers and into jammies they go. I'll jump in afterwards and take a fast shower and we'll start movie night. A big bowl of popcorn and also chips and salsa. The boys chose Elf already. So we'll be watching...a Christmas Carol tonight and Elf afterwards. Noboru said he'll be home before 11pm. Because half the guys need to make sure they can catch the last train. ; )

Anyway the oven just beeped you guys...time to throw the pizza in the oven and get the boys fed and ready for our little movie night we have going here. Just wanted to wish everyone a wonderful weekend.