Making Ohagi

For this week's Sunday Surprise, we made ohagi. Ohagi is a Japanese sweet made with sweet sticky rice (the kind used to make mochi) and sweet azuki (red bean) paste.

We start out by cooking the sticky rice, then pounding it.

Then you take small handfuls of the pounded rice and roll them into balls.

From there, you can make two different styles of ohagi. The first way is to flatten a ball of rice and put a spoonful of the sweet azuki paste on top.

Then roll the rice around the bean paste so that the azuki ends up inside the ball of rice.

After that, the ball of rice with the azuki paste inside is then rolled on a plate of kinako, a roasted whole soy flour.

The finished product has the kinako powder on the outside covering the sticky rice, and hidden inside is the sweet bean paste.

The other style of ohagi is prepared by spreading the sweet bean paste and then putting the ball of sticky rice on top.

Then you roll the paste around the rice ball.

The final product is a ball of sweet bean paste with sticky rice inside.

Both styles are a sweet treat, and the three of us liked it both ways. We also took some over to my dad and he enjoyed it as well.

Happy New Year (Belatedly)! and Dogs

Better late than never?

We had nine dogs at our peak during the recent holidays. A lot of people ask if Kai likes the dogs. Well, he gets a little jealous that they take up a lot of Mom's time, and there are some he likes more than others, but he does like some of them, and several of them really like him.

The above dog is Mancha, a three-legged dog who was rescued by her owners from a shelter in Mexico.

And above is another of Kai's (and our) favorites, Bruno, a really playful, high-energy cutie. Though here at the end of full day of playing, he's found a comfortable resting spot.

Kai also helped out walking the dogs, taking the smaller ones while my wife handled the bigger ones (and I helped when I was not at work). Here Kai is with Hubert.