Roasted Cherry Tomatoes

Here is a super easy recipe that is delicious, healthy and time saving!

1. Wash one punnet of cherry tomatoes. Drain.
2. Shape a piece of foil into a shallow dish.
(Or you can use an aluminium tray, baking dish or glass dish.)
3. Put the tomatoes into the dish.
4. Drizzle 1 teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil over the tomatoes.
5. Season with a little black pepper.
6. Sprinkle on some herbs if you have any - thyme, oregano, rosemary.
7. Bake in a toaster oven or in the fish grill for about 5 minutes.
8. Finished!

They will be very sweet. If you want to, you can season them with salt, but I never do.

Alternative ideas:
1. Add a few pieces of Japanese negi leek. Just the green part will give a nice flavor and fragrance.
2. Roast some garlic the same way, and add it to the tomatoes.
3. Don't use the oil, but put chopped bacon on the top.

How to eat them:
1. Simply - just as a side vegetable.
2. As a topping sauce - mash them a little and put them on top of sauteed chicken.
3. As a pasta sauce - put them in a pan, mash them, and toss with pasta.
4. On toast - mash a little and eat on French bread toast. Just tomatoes or with anchovies.
5. As pizza topping.

cherry tomatoes = mini tomatoes
punnet = small container of vegetable or fruit (e.g. strawberries, cherry tomatoes)
drizzle =  垂らす
aluminium = UK English
aluminum = US English

Anyone's guess...

Have you heard the expression "It's anyone's guess!"?

It means that the speaker has no idea of the answer, and any person could make a guess. Here is an example:

A:    What will the weather be like tomorrow?
B:    It's anyone's guess!

And tomorrow this is very true ........ Just take a look at what the weather forecast says! I think the forecasters are hedging their bets.

light rain, sleet, dryish snow, fine, light rain, light rain, cloudy!!!???

Vocabulary - Pre & Post

In English there are many prefixes and suffixes. These are word "parts" that come before or after a word, or inside the word at the front or back. Japanese has many, too. Most of the English ones come from Latin.

For example:
convenient < -- >  inconvenient     便利　　不便

For the Japanese "fu" 不 we have some prefixes in English. Before you continue reading, can you think of them?
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
in, un, im  are 3. Try to think of some words which use them.

inconvenient
unhappy
impatient

Two words that I used a lot last week were "pre-war" and "post-war". I told some students that I was surprised how many buildings in Kyoto are from the post-war period, because I expected most of Kyoto architecture to be pre-war.  戦前・戦後

"pre" comes from Latin and means:
earlier, before, prior to  -  pre-war
in preparation for      -  prepare
in advance                    -  prepay
in front of                      -  precede

"post" is also Latin and means:
after, later                  -  postpone
behind                          -  postern (the back gate (of a castle, etc)

We love vegetables!

Have you ever seen cats who love vegetables? Dusty not only loves persimmon, but also most green leafy things. If you don't believe me, take a look at these photos:

You can clearly see from the photos that Dusty is in a frenzy to start munching. Kuro will eat a little (maybe just because Dusty is) but soon gets bored and walks away.  On the other hand, Dusty loves leaves and will come running when I bring vegetables home from the shop. I still don't know if he can SEE they are green, or he can SMELL them?

The only thing they don't like is pale lettuce such as iceberg lettuce. In the top photos they are eating broccoli shoots, and in the lower ones, the green part from the top of Chinese cabbage. It is impossible to leave the cabbage on the kitchen bench because he will try to eat it all day!

Last summer I did buy a pot of cat grass from the pet shop, but they played with it more than ate it.

frenzy = very excited, very active

New listening blog

The Real English website has a new listening blog which is based on Youtube videos from the BBC, etc.

I really like the BBC and I have been watching their shows since I was a small child. My favorite programs are nature, wildlife, travel, and sometimes British comedy.

Unfortunately, even using cable TV, the only show we can watch in Japan is the BBC news. So sometimes I watch documentaries on Youtube, and then I buy DVD's from England of the series I like. You can buy them from the BBC shop or from Amazon.co.uk.

Back to the topic of the new blog, you can watch parts of shows taken from Youtube and read the English dialog with Japanese translations. All the translations into Japanese have been done by R.E. so are not official.

To find the blog, please go to the top page of Real English, and go down to the bottom right hand corner.

We love persimmons!

Persimmons are a fruit that many Westerners might not have eaten. I was 20 years old before I first saw one, and then that was because my friend's Italian born parents grew a tree in their garden in South Australia. (Actually, immigrants introduced many, many new foods to Australia.)

Anyway, then I came to Japan and found persimmons are a common autumn fruit. Fresh ones are nice, but I LOVE dried ones!

For some very weird reason, Dusty LOVES fresh ones. Now they are out of season, but in autumn when I brought them home and put them on the counter, he would run and jump up on the counter immediately. (Very naughty, but it is impossible to stop him from doing it.) I guess he can smell them? Twice he actually picked one up in his mouth and ran away with it, before I could get it back. It was so funny, a cat with an orange fruit in his mouth, that was as big as his head. I'm not sure if he would actually eat it because both times I took it off of him before he could start to bite into it. And he is not at all interested in dried persimmon.

A really nice news article ...

You should go to the Daily Yomiuri Online newspaper and read the article below. It is really nice :)

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110206003523.htm

article = story

"article" is often used for a short piece of information we can find in the newspaper. "news" is a non-countable noun, so we need to use a counting word such as:

a news article
a news story
a piece of news
an item of news

Cooking brussel sprouts

Do you like brussel sprouts? I really hated them when I was a child, but now I know that was for 2 reasons:
1. They were not fresh, and
2. my mother overcooked them :(

You may call these "baby cabbages" in Japanese but they aren't cabbages. Please do a search for "brussel sprout plant" on Google and see what the plant looks like. It is certainly not a baby cabbage :)  But actually, it is one of the cabbage family, so it is related to things like broccoli and even rapeseed  -  菜の花.

Brussel sprouts grow along a stem so they look a little like a bunch of grapes. Please try to eat recently picked ones because the older they get, the more bitter they become. Fresh ones are quite sweet! And DO NOT overcook them! They will become really bitter and horrible. My mother cooks them in the typical English/Australian way of boiling them for a loooooong time in water. They become bitter and all the vitamins are lost.

So how do I cook them? It is really easy. The easiest way is to wash them, drain them and cover them with damp paper towel (kitchen towel) and cook them for a few minutes in the microwave oven. This is also a good method for cooking broccoli. It keeps all the vitamins and doesn't make them bitter. Another way is below:

1. Wash the sprouts. Don't drain or dry them.
2. Put them in a non-stick pan. ***
3. Put a lid on the pan. This will help them steam.
4. Steam them for about 3 minutes, rolling them around a few times by shaking the pan. Don't open the lid or the heat and steam will escape. Most of the water will be gone.
5. Take off the lid and cook for another minute until all the water is gone.
6. While you are cooking them, chop one clove of garlic.
7. Put about 1 teaspoon of virgin olive oil in the pan with the sprouts.** Shake them around.
8. Add the garlic. Cook for about 1 minute until the garlic is golden.* Garlic will burn easily so be careful.
9. Finished!

*** I'm using my new, non-toxic pan :)
** You can use 1/2 teaspoon of olive oil plus 1/2 teaspoon of butter. This will give a richer taste.
* The total cooking time from start to finish is 5 minutes. Please don't cook them more.

If you think this dish is too "green" or if you want a stronger taste, add chopped bacon to the pan and don't use any oil or butter.