I remember savoring the smell and hearing the crackling sounds of the chicken in the oven as it sat and cooked when I lived with my mother, aka Grannie to our kids.  Make sure you have a self cleaning oven because this is not the neatest of recipes.

Wash and pat dry a whole chicken.  Throw garlic salt, pepper, rock salt, whatever into cleaned out cavity.  Apply garlic salt, pepper, and rock salt to outside of chicken also.

Preheat oven to 450º.  Put seasoned chicken breast side up in glass roasting pan and bake for 45 minutes at 450º.  After the initial 45 minutes, turn oven off, and do not open the oven door until 45 more minutes have passed.

Remove from oven, chicken will be sizzling hot.  Allow to cool for a few minutes before slicing to serve.  I sometimes use the drippings to make gravy after, but usually not.  I just dig in and grind.  Moist inside, crispy outside, delicious through and through!

Another great recipe for the measuring challenged cooks.  Coach Hae, one of the winningest AYSO coaches is also a great cook always willing to share.  Here’s another winner from her.

Marinate boneless skinless chicken thighs in a sauce of 1 cup miso, 1 cup shoyu, 1 cup sugar, and 1 cup beer.

Grill over charcoal fire and enjoy the subtle delicious taste.  So good, Uncle doesn’t mind giving up some of his beer for this dish.

1 medium head cabbage
1 medium head mustard cabbage
1/4 cup Hawaiian salt
2 T roasted sesame seed
Ajinomoto (or not)

Sauce:      1/3 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1/4 cup brown sugar
chili pepper to taste

Chop vegetables to 1/2” size.  Put in large container, sprinkle salt and mix well.  Leave for 30 minutes.  Squeeze out excess water, add roasted (in pan) sesame seeds and ajinomoto (or not).

Boil sauce.  Pour hot sauce over vegetables, mix well.  Let sit for 3-4 hours, then refrigerate.  Enjoy with rice.  My favorite meal is ochazuke rice, fried Portuguese sausage dipped in soy sauce and catsup, and yatsume zuke…

From Senen Pousa of ProphetMax* – a green smoothie that sounds wonderful:

1 fresh ripe avocado
1 tsp vegetable oil, cold pressed
12 oz. water and 2-3 ice cubes
1 banana
1 cup carrot juice
1.5 cups pineapple
2 inches cucumber
1/2 stalk celery
1/2 small bunch mint
2 cups spinach (substitute kale, collards, chard)
1 TB raw cacao nibs or tsp chlorella

Blend for 1/2 minute to smoothie consistency and drink to your good health!

More green smoothie recipes can be found on Victoria Boutenko’s website (requiring an easy log in):  http://greensmoothiesblog.com/recipes

*[update note:  Senen Pousa of ProphetMax is currently under investigation for his involvement in the loss of millions of investor funds, so Aunty is not recommending him in any way.  However, this smoothie does sound delicious… ]

Quarter lengthwise a head of won bok (Chinese cabbage), or regular head cabbage.  Remove the bulky part of the head if possible.

Salt sparsely- preferably with Hawaiian sea salt, but common table salt will do.  Massage salt into cabbage chunks.  Cabbage should be limp. Rinse and drain if desired (optional).

Put cabbage (should be soft from being salted) into bowl, add some (a tablespoon or more) cooked rice to the bowl.  We used to use the burnt rice at the bottom of the pot that no one wanted to eat.  Adding rice adds a nice folksy flavor to the tsukemono, and is also optional (but deliciously advised).

If using those plastic contraptions with the screw down lid, you will limit the amount of cabbage you can pickle at a time because they are rather small.  Put the slightly salted cabbage with rice in, screw down as much as you can, and cover.  Check and screw down often.

Or, use a large glass or pyrex bowl and arrange the cabbage so it is an even layer.  Turn a glass or ceramic plate upside down to press down on the entire layer of cabbage, and put a weight on the plate.  You can also use a juice bottle filled with water to act as the weight.

After a few days, you will see liquid in the bowl with the cabbage.  This is the fermenting process happening.  Keep screwing the lid tighter to keep compressing the cabbage.  After a few days you can remove the cabbage, rinse off the rice, squeeze out excess water, chop, and then enjoy with your rice!

Experiment with other vegetables such as eggplant, mustard cabbage, daikon, etc.  Some vegetables need to be cut thin in order to ferment evenly.  Remember to salt prior to putting in bowl in order to make the vegetable soft and wilty.

Just thinking about it makes my mouth pucker.  It is getting harder to find common mangoes.  Common mangoes make the best pickled mango – better than Hayden or any other variety.  We also used to eat green or half ripe mango with shoyu, rice vinegar and black pepper.  It was so ono!  Ono enough to be worth the sore stomach after.

From Hawaiian Electric – they always share really good recipes on their monthly bills.

8 cups green mango slices
2 cups sugar
1 cup rice vinegar
1/4 cup Hawaiian salt
10 li hing mui

Put mango slices into a jar.  Combine remaining ingredients in a pot.  Bring to a boil; cool to lukewarm.

Pour over mangos.  Let stand for 24 hours, then store in refrigerator.

Recipe makes 4 quarts.

2 cup flour                                          1 block butter
1/2 cup oatmeal
6 T sugar                                            3/4 cup buttermilk  (or substitute with 3/4 cup
3/4 T baking powder                                                             milk + 2 T white vinegar)
3/4 T baking soda
1/4 T salt

Mix dry ingredients together in bowl.  Cut in 1 block of butter.  Mix in buttermilk and add raisins, cranberries, nuts, or whatever.

Mix on a flour board, roll out into a circle, cut into eigths (pie shaped wedges).
Bake at 375º for 20 minutes until light golden brown.

This one is for the measuring challenged people since it is so easy.  Kind of like Okinawan shoyu pork but SO much easier.  Put a chunk or chunks of pork butt in a slow cooker, add one can of tomato sauce.  Use the can as your measuring tool.  Add one can worth of sugar, then shoyu, then sake (wow!).  Toss in a couple pieces of crushed fresh ginger root.  Cook until soft and serve hot or warm with rice, yum…

Mrs. Tanaka used to make the best after school snack for her granddaughter, and my daughters would come home raving about the tuna and potato dish.  I have recreated it here:

Skin and cut raw potatoes into little logs.  Soak in slightly salted water, drain well, pat dry.

Open a can or 2 of tuna – I like the Coral brand in oil – but any brand will do.

Put a tablespoon of vegetable oil (or use the oil from the can of tuna) in a pan and stir fry the potato logs until almost cooked.  At this point you can add ginger, garlic, or whatever you want.  I usually keep it simple and don’t add anything.

Drain and add the tuna meat from the can.  Add mirin or brown sugar (about 1 TBS or more) and soy sauce (about 2 TBS or more).  Optional:  add a tsp of hon dashi or saimin base powdered seasoning.

Using a wooden spatula, mix from the bottom gently, let simmer for a few minutes.

Serve with hot rice and enjoy!

Cut a papaya in half and remove seeds.

Score inside with a fork.

Squeeze the juice from a lemon (half or whole – up to you) into papaya.

Add dollops of Lemon Yoplait Yogurt.

Top with thin slices of apple banana and enjoy!

optional:  sprinkle granola of your choice on top of the yogurt.

Mahalo to Pat Reilly of East Oahu Realty for this quick, healthy, ono recipe!

another papaya recipe from Jan Tsukazaki (creator of Zippy’s apple naples) :

Halve papaya and remove seeds.  Squeeze fresh lilikoi juice with a few seeds into cavity.  The sweet tartness of lilikoi and the mellowness of papaya rejoice together.