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.
Today I was trying to test out a recipe with sweet potato and andagi batter, but when that failed miserably, I figured I could use the rest of the batter to make some mini andagi.
Andagi, which are also known as Okinawan donuts, are deep fried balls of deliciousness that are frequently sold at carnivals and obon festivals here in Hawaii. I found a recipe on the Star Advertiser site, but because of my last experience making malasadas (I found out after I made the dough that it was for 7 dozen malasadas) I decided to cut it down by a lot.
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.
Earlier this year, our lilikoi (pronounced lih-lee-koh-ee) vine gave us a handful of lilikois and I thought that was it because all the other flowers fell off and I thought there would be no more fruit. Months later, the vine is going crazy with fruit, so much that I have at least 60 from the last week! My mother-in-law had been asking about lilikoi butter, so Mr. Pikko asked me to make some for her. I’d never made it before or even tasted it, having mostly just drank passion orange juice or eaten the fruit
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