April and the puff pastry

It is spring here in Japan and I have decided to do more cooking at home. Recently, I have been into baking this last week and I have discovered a new product at the supermarkets here in Japan. Japan has started to sell Pie Sheets (In the USA, it is known as puff pastry).


As you all might know, I have love to bake quiches and pies and so on...

But, sometimes I get very busy and I do not have the time to bake from scratch. This is where the pie sheets come into play.

You can buy a pack of these pie sheets from the supermarket for about 400 yen. You get two sheets of pie crust. The brand I use most is Meiji.



This last week, I actually injured myself and I couldn't walk. These pie sheets were very easy for me to use and I was able to cook without spending a lot of time standing.

I made apple pies, pigs in the blanket and even homemade hot pockets with them.

Theres pie sheets are a lifesaver

Stuffed squid

After returning home from the department store I decided to cook dinner. I decided to look online to see what I could make with my newly bought ingredients and to my surprise I found a list of things I could make with squid.


I decided to try making stuffed squid.


The recipe was quite simple all it required was a cup of old rice, chorizo sausage, red peppers, the tail and tentacles of the squid, garlic, white wine vinegar , salt and pepper.

All I did was cut up the squid and fry the the rice and other ingredients in a fry pan. And then stuffed the body of the squid with these ingredients and then fried the body of he squid. After frying the body on both sides for about 2 minutes each I placed it in the oven safe dish and covered the squid with about a half cup of wine vinegar and baked for about 45 minutes on 170C. If you want to make the presentation look nice, I would add some tomatoes or other vegetables around the squid when you bake it.

The stuffing can be replaced with anything you have in the fridge.

The recipe is quite easy to make

You can find the original recipe at this link

http://pasto.wordpress.com/2011/08/22/chorizo-stuffed-squidlulas-recheadas/

The original asked for bread instead of rice, but since I live in Asia I decided to use rice instead of the bread and egg mixture.