Sweet Red-Bean Soup and "夫婦善哉, meoto-zenzai'；

Zenzai, 善哉;

Sweet Red-Bean 'azuki 小豆' Soup, which we call ‘zenzai,善哉’ is one of my favorite winter sweets.   I made the one in the first picture a couple days ago; and the one in the second was the lunch post from 2,012 here.

"夫婦善哉, meoto-zenzai'    (meoto means married couple)

          This Japanese phrase came to describe "happy married couple".

The old Zenzai restaurant (opened 1,883) in Osaka serves two bowls of them for one person. This menu became SO popular and because of the menu is called 'meoto-zenzai', this phrase started to express the couple who are cooperating their marriage life each other through ups and downs. 

picture from restaurant's home page

Noble and movie were made with this menu title. And even the Enka song whose lyric I love was sung by one of the singer. It was released in 1,987; I was married 1,977 :-)  At that time I was helped by my husband's mental support after the infertility treatment for me didn't work.   Let me paste the video from You-tube introducing both the place and the song from last year.  Haha, I was happy to find this one.

(Sorry it's in Japanese and bit long, I'm happy if you could feel what Japanese Enka sounds like.  But this video is kind of for myself.  She is the original singer of this song.)

I couldn't find the lyrics in English, my poor translation only for the first passage;
          living like duckweeds,  you laugh 　
          around our shoulders, alley autumn shower dancing
          even if we have nothing, my heart can be called a brocade
          I'll follow your foot steps, meoto-zennzai
          your back is my guidepost

Thank you very much for for stopping by,

Zenzai (one of Japanese sweets) and Green-Pea-Rice

*Funny Lunch with Zenzai

Yesterday morning, I had a request from hubby to make "zenzai" Japanese Sweet Red Bean Soup (sometimes with small rice-cake). I grilled rice-cake and put it in there. I finished making it before noon. Haha, it is one of the hot sweets favored during the winter, and I think it should be treated as a snack. But he said he wished to have it soon for lunch.

I had ready-made "raviolis a la vapeur (shumai in Japanese)  or one of the Chinese Dumplings" in the fridge and flied them.
What a funny mixture for lunch, p;)

This picture is from this page of pc, and recipe is here you may be able to try.  I made it from scratch, p;)

*Green-Pea-Rie for Dinner

For dinner, I made Green-Pea-Rice, Cooked Sqid with soy-sauce, Grated Yam with Vinegar Taste (yam or kind of potato for especially good for grating)

I have kind of nostalgic feeling for green-pea-rice. My late mother used to make this my favorite kind of tasted-rice often for me. Even if I had a small appetite when young, for this one I had second service sometimes. Haha, she worried my slow growth a lot.

I fiddled with the free-soft called PhotoScape and tried to put frames for the pictures, hehe. And I realized that I could fix the size of the picture in the blog even from HTML early this year. What a slow learner!