I grew up on a farm in the boonies of the Big Island, and one of the dishes my mom used to make was sato shoyu corned beef and onions, served on hot rice.
Whether you’ve heard of the local Hawaiian dish loco moco or not, you don’t need to go out and find some Hawaiian restaurant to eat one.
Funnily enough, loco mocos were invented in my hometown of Hilo, Hawaii. If you read up on it, there are some beefs about who actually invented it, Cafe 100 or Lincoln Grill. Since I’m a huge Cafe 100 fan, I side with them, especially since they have the gravy cheeseburger.
Although I will be 34 this year, this New Year’s is the first time I’ve made my own ozoni. Ozoni is a Japanese New Year’s soup that I can remember eating from small kid time, but I usually just eat soup other people prepare. From eating it through the years, I knew what the basics were, but I wasn’t sure about a recipe, so I asked around Twitter and Facebook. The responses I got and the articles I found online all seemed extremely basic. So although I got some helpful tips, I ended up deciding it was simple enough for me to just wing it.
The other day, I headed to the market to buy our New Year’s eve food with my list in hand. I got everything for ozoni (Japanese New Year’s soup) except for the mochi because although Foodland usually sells komochi, they didn’t have anything but chi chi dango. Unacceptable! I made plans to go to Nijiya Market to look for mochi later.
I’ve been home with a tummy ache all Halloween, but while lying around bored, I came up with an idea for dessert tonight, candy corn mochi!! I’d made tri-color mochi before and it’s typically made during Christmas with pink, green, and white colors. This time, all I did was color the mochi orange and yellow instead of green and pink.
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