Feel Good Inc.

It's coming up on hibernation time here in Japan. As the days and nights get colder it gets more and more difficult to leave warm covers in the morning. Returning from work means a beeline to the kotatsu, and kotatsu's seem to be specifically designed to entrap you and keep you from leaving their delicious warmth. Basically, being at all active is about ten times more difficult than normal. Add in the seasonal movement to delicious nabe, or Japanese stew, and you'll never leave your house.

Now, I've been taking a bit of a vacation from being healthy. I entered a marathon in June, went home, started treating my anxiety, and decided to just relax. Well, I'm done with that now. Back to the gym, back to cooking, and back to discovering new, healthy, easy to cook Japanese recipes! You see, I make my own lunches instead of eating kyuushoku. Since I work at a mix of elementary schools and junior high schools I spent my first year and a half here being forced to eat much more than I wanted to since I was eating lunch with the kids and most of my schools didn't let anyone leave any leftovers. I've gotten some bento (lunch box) specific cookbooks, but there's one major problem with them; I'm pretty sure they're aimed at the stay-at-home mom that is still so prevalent in Japan. I made a couple of the recipes in there and each took about two hours to make. Now, that's all fine and dandy if you're a stay at home parent, but I have work, I have eikaiwa, I go to the gym, basically I've got other stuff to do. So I've been focusing on a publication called Orange Page. I love Orange Page. For a long time I thought that it was only a cookbook, but it turns out it's actually a monthly magazine! Score! So I will share with all of you lovely people the Soybean Chili Con Carne from the November issue of Orange Page, translated into English. I made it this morning and it only took 30 minutes!

Soybean Chili Con Carne from Orange Page's November Issue

Serves 2    471 Calories

Ingredients

Minced beef 50g　(合いびき肉)
small onion 1/2
soybeans 1/2 cup　（大豆の水煮）
garlic 1 clove
penne pasta 150 g
olive oil 1/2 Tbsp
parsley for garnish

Sauce
tomato ketchup 2 1/2 tbsp
Worcestershire Sauce 1 tbsp　（ウスターソース）
miso 1/2 tsp
spicy dried red pepper 1/3 tsp　（唐辛子）

1) Finely chop the onion and garlic.  Boil the penne according to the directions on the bag it came in.
2) Heat the olive oil and garlic in a frying pan over low heat until the garlic becomes fragrant.  Increase heat and add the minced meat, onion, and soybeans.  Once the meat is cooked through add the sauce and continue cooking, stirring often.
3) Add a little of the water the penne was boiled in, and add the rest of the drained penne to the frying pan.  Stir until the penne is well and evenly coated.  Serve with parsley garnish.

I highly recommend it. It's very filling and easy to make. I'm going to try adding carrots and mushrooms next time to flesh out the flavors, but yes, definitely a quick and easy delicious recipe. I love Orange Page!