Window Side Picnic

It was raining last Friday morning. I picked up my older daughter at her preschool at noon and we went home. I didn’t have any plans for the afternoon. I usually have some activities for my girls either a play date or play group and I tend to rush my girls to eat lunch quickly for the next activity. It felt nice to have no schedule once in a while. I had all afternoon with my girls.

I started to fix lunch for them. They always love to have rice balls (onigiri) and tamagoyaki (Japanese egg omelet), so I decided to make some for them and have them eat lunch by the window since we can’t go outside due to the rain. My older one helped me prepare lunch. I love it when she tries to help although it is actually more work for me than anything and it takes longer. I don’t want her to be discouraged to cook, so we make it into our activity together.

My girls like furikake (left picture above), dry rice seasoning. When I make onigiri (rice balls) I pour furikake and use this onigiri maker (right picture above). I bought this onigiri maker at a 100 yen shop (equivalent to a dollar store in Japan). I use this all the time and it is the best $1 I’ve ever spent. It makes the onigiri making process so much easier and mess free.
Voila. Here’s the onigiri.

I added some Trader Joe’s “Breaded Chickenless Nuggets” and Korean seaweed.

I am very happy with the table and kids stools I purchased at IKEA recently. I was excited to see the white chairs since they used to only have colored ones before!! I love them. They are not the most stable and safest chair for toddlers, but what chairs are really safe for them anyways? Plastic chairs are not so environmental, yes, I’m aware of that, but since those stools are light, it works perfectly for us for our move with a weight limit.

Both of my girls LOVE the Korean seaweed. It is a roasted laver seasoned with oil and salt. They probably like the Korean ones better than Japanese ones. My girls can keep eating rice as long as they have the seaweed or would just eat seaweed by itself.

Gochisosama…
Japanese people say this after they finish a meal. It means “thank you for the meal”.

Easy Tamagoyaki (Egg Omelet)

Ingredients
eggs……….4
water………..3 tbs
soy sauce………..1 tbs
dashinomoto……1/4 tsp
(If you don’t have dashi no moto, you can either skip this or use consomme powder or bouillon if you like.)

salad oil……….1 tbs

1. Mix eggs, water, soy sauce, and dashi no moto in a bowl and beat eggs.
2. Heat the frying pan on medium heat. Spread the oil. Wait till the pan is hot.
3. Pour in eggs in the frying pan and stir with chopsticks or fork until it’s half set.
4. Fold one side of the egg and do the same on the other to make a roll. Flip the omelet if inside looked undone. Press gently.