Spam Musubi

When I think of home, I think of my family, my friends, sunshine, breezy dresses, rubber slippas and Spam.

Spam musubi is a Hawaii staple. It's literally sold at the gas station in place of sandwiches and hot dogs. It's a beach must-have with the meaty, salty, rice combination. When Spam came to Hawaii during war time, the locals adopted the cheap meat-like substance and combined it with local flavors.

A musubi is a Japanese rice ball. There are many forms and shapes. The spam musubi typically come in rectangle form.They even sell Spam musubi molds, the like one we used today.

Spam Musubi

1 can Spam, sliced (we used Spam Lite)

1/4 cup soy sauce

1/8 cup brown sugar

3 cups rice, cooked

5 sheets of nori (or dried seaweed), cut in half

In a medium saute pan over low heat, combine soy sauce and brown sugar. Place Spam slices into pan and fry for 1-2 minutes on each side. When thoroughly coated and fried, remove from pan onto a plate.

Lay nori sheet onto a flat surface and place the Spam musubi mold onto nori. Scoop about 1/4 cup of rice into the mold and press to evenly distribute the rice into mold. Place the fried Spam into mold and remove the mold, using the press and removing the mold.

Wrap the rectangle musubi with the nori and seal with rice or dab of water. One can of Spam makes 10-12 slices, depending on how thick you cut them.

Exploring different variations o how to layer rice and Spam

Not only is Spam musubi a Hawaii favorite, it's a personal favorite of Boyfriend and myself. I know that on those long plane rides, all I want for a snack is a few of these little buggers. Boyfriend can even knock back 4 or more if his appetite is big enough.

To store, just wrap in cellophane  and store at room temperature or in a warm place. Do not refrigerate  it will make the rice hard. Enjoy!

-Akemi-chan

Our Early Christmas

After some last minute Christmas shopping, Boyfriend, his sister and I celebrated our early Christmas. Since we're all so busy and I'm leaving for Vegas on Monday morning, we decided to have our gift exchange a few days early. Another excuse to dress up. BTW: It's Winter, there's snow on the ground and it's sunny. Gorgeous.

First snow in a few years

Sweater and Jeans: Forever 21

Hat: Coach

Boots: Naturalizer

Earrings: Gap

Gross ice drool

Oh hai!

Another one of my family Christmas traditions was for my Grandparents to come over on Christmas Eve to eat dinner and open presents. We always opened our household gifts on the night of the Eve, due to all the family holiday parties on actual Christmas day. Therefore, it never feels like Christmas to me, unless we open presents at night.

Before our gift exchange, Boyfriend and I stopped by a local cheese shop called Cheese and Crackers. We heard about it a while ago, but since it's on the other side of town, we never thought about visiting, until now. In addition to cheeses, pastas, and meats they have a beautiful truffle collection.

I normally don't eat very many sweets, I think it was because I was a chocoholic as a kid and my taste for sugar died out, but recently, I've been eating dessert like my life depended on it. 'Tis the season I guess. Anyway, the truffles were so beautiful, I was in a trance and we decided to get them.

Clockwise from the top-left corner: Habanero, Cheesecake, Espresso, Baileys, Strawberry Balsamic and Michigan Blueberry chocolates.

Onto the goodies! Just like Thanksgiving, sometimes it's better with limited words.

All the Christmas movies!

Hand strap for my DSLR

Amy and Puppy

Magic titanium spork

Wifi SD card, whaaaaattt?

Don't nom the present

What the heck is a porto sipper?

MYSTERY DRANK!

Horray!

My new tripod is taller than me

Setting up for family picture

Boyfriend's new ten year port and port sippers

Sippers, straw included

Kitty Cat

Chillin' watching Scrooged

My new Newfie keychain

Using my new remote for my camera, Puppy is not impressed

Outside with snow

Snow on our rainbow shrub

Lights with random viking

Caught the escaped Kitten

GO BEARS!

Next stop: Vegas

Can't wait for actual Christmas in Vegas in a few days. Now it's time to buckle down and work hard. Closing shift on Saturday, open to close on Sunday and then fly out on stand-by Monday morning. Wish me luck!

-Akemi-chan

Itty Bitty Fitty/ Holiday Punch & Cake Pops

This past month, my Ford Focus, affectionately known as BMO, has been having some trouble. After a lot of deliberation, I decided to get another car. But which car to get?

I never knew how complicated car shopping can be. Between the dealerships, the used car lot, craigslist and the newspaper there are just too many options. Don't even get me started on year, make and model.

My family has always bought Japanese cars. I don't know if it's because the relocation price is cheaper because Hawaii is closer to Asia, or the reliability, but it's probably due to loyalty. After all, my Grandfather was a Toyota dealer.

After a lot of online research, talking to salesmen and test driving, we decided on the new Honda Fit Sport. There was only one problem, I didn't like any of the colors our local dealer had, and if I'm gonna pay for a brand new car, I want it to be perfect.

Luckily for me, Boyfriend found a Honda dealer in Bourbonnais, IL with the exact model and color I wanted. Unfortunately, Bourbonnais is about an hour and a half north of Champaign. We had a very small window of opportunity, since I wanted to get the car on one of my days off, I wanted Boyfriend to come with me, we had to coordinate with the dealer's schedule and I leave for my Las Vegas Christmas on Monday.

Yesterday, was the day and in my opinion, it couldn't come soon enough. Driving north, I had butterflies. I was so nervous. It reminded me of when Boyfriend and I drove to Des Moines, IA to pick up Puppy a few years ago. I even painted my nails to match the new car.

Happy Honda-days with Purple sparkle

We get there and the car is gorgeous, I couldn't stop smiling and giggling.

After going through all the paperwork, I got into the new car and Boyfriend and I drove separately back to Champaign. The next thing I know, it's starts raining, not a great thing for a new car that just got waxed. A few minutes later the temperature takes a drastic drop and it starts snowing. Boyfriend and I had to drive home from Chicagoland in a blizzard in two separate cars. To lend some perspective, the high for Thursday was 50 degrees and the low was 20 and the entire day there was 50 mph winds.

Disney Bitty, post blizzard

What a great way to celebrate the holidays, with a new car and a blizzard. BTW: my new baby's name is Bitty, as in Itty Bitty Fitty.

But wait, there's more!



Since Thursday was December 20th, 2012, our friends hosted an End-of-the-World party. Since the internet was flooded with Mayan prophecy and end of the world talk, they threw a party where we played survival-themed board games, watched apocalypse-theme movies and had cocktails and desserts.

Here's what we made for the party:

Holiday Punch

2 cups of fresh cranberries
1 orange, sliced into wheels
1 2 liter bottle of ginger ale
3 cups of light cranberry juice
2 cups of orange sherbet

Pour all ingredients into a punch bowl. You can add liquor if you like, but one of our friends is pregnant so we added the alcohol into our individual cups. This punch works surprisingly well with bourbon, but vodka, gin or wine would work well too.


Cake Pops/ Balls

1 box of cake mix, I used yellow
3 large eggs
1 cup water
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 tub of candy coating, I used white/ vanilla
sprinkles

Make cake according to instructions on box. Pour into cake pop maker and cook for 4-5 minutes for each batch.

Cake Pop maker

Coat in candy coating with whatever design you want. I coated some entirely, some half and drizzled the candy coating on some. Add sprinkles or design with icing. Place on lollipop sticks or leave as balls.

Drizzled icing

Half-dipped with sprinkles

Turns out, we survived the end of the Mayan calendar and the punch and cake pops gave me a sugar hangover.

-Akemi-chan