Hunkerin' Down

Wicked wind storm going on tonight. This morning it was a bit too warm for a coat (hence regretting mine) but the temperature dropped significantly over the day and was pretty darn chilly by evening. I was glad I had my coat in the end. There were a couple times I was simply unable to take a step due to the strong winds coming off the mountains. Getting home was quite the chore.

To celebrate the new low on the thermometer I decided to try making nabe. Nabe, as you may remember from last year, is like a vegetable hotpot. I recently acquired a multi-use hotplate (I'll explain in a post to come) and I wanted to try the giant nabe bowl.

The nice thing about the hotplate is we can put it in the middle of our living room table and cook from there. We turned on the TV (a rarity), huddled up around the table and nabe-fied our ingredients. I don't know that what we cooked would be recognizable to others as nabe, but the result was quite edible and certainly healthy. We put mackerel, fish meatballs, carrot, shitake, bell pepper, udon noodles and a variety of other greens in the pot. Once it was all hot, we dug in. The only seasoning was from the fish and veggies and a bit of mirin (sweet vinegar) added at the end. It was a nice dinner on such a blustery night.