A couple weeks ago we were invited to make Japanese sweets at a friend's house in Kurihama. So, we made our way out of town with friends to try our hands at making sweets!
After a brief, ten minute train ride we met Junko to drive us the rest of the way to Hiromi's house.
First, we learned how to make tiny origami butterflies to use as our chopstick rests! How unbelievably cute!!! Mackenzie was in paradise...she LOVES origami! And, butterflies!!
Next up, we started to make our snacks. Yatsuhashi was on the menu for the day!
First, we measured the ingredients. Then, mixed.
After the mixture was microwaved for a few minutes we stirred and stirred and stirred to get a gummy texture that was firm enough for us to roll out flat and then cut into little squares.
After they were cut, we added a dollop of sweet red bean paste to the middle and then folded it over into a triangle.
The finished product.
The Em and M's...ready to eat! I was a bit nervous about my picky eater not even tasting anything she was offered. But, she gobbled up the yatsuhashi! Yay! and...shew!
On the dish below you can see the two folded treats at the front of my plate. Towards the back is a larger, rounded sweet. It was the mochi dough with a strawberry surrounded by sweet bean in the middle. So so so so yummy!!!
We had a lot of fun learning about the different types of flour. We even managed to learn some katakana and kanji...well, we were shown the kanji. I'm not sure I could still tell you what the kanji is for flour. I took a picture though...so I can find it at the grocery store! We will definitely try this again!
Garytt also ate his two smaller sweets. He didn't bite into the strawberry. I ate all three of ours :)
Yum!
After the sweets...yes, we did it backwards, much to the kids' excitement...we had lunch. Delicious chicken, a yummy salad, also noodles that were dipped in a cold fish/soy sauce. I thought it was going to be kind of weird. But, it was very warm inside the house, so the cold chicken and the cold noodles were very refreshing! And, super tasty! Garytt also had a bowl of curry rice. Love that Boy! Mackenzie had enough edamame to feed a village.
Hiromi has ume trees in her yard. So, she gave us each a bag of ume (kind of like a cross between a plum and an apricot) to take home. I used it to make ume jelly. I didn't add enough sugar, so I'll have to go back and add a bit more sugar in order to put it on our toast.
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