so, three days ago i was given じゅんさい (an edible lake-plant) by one student, then two days ago i got a "souvenir" hand towel + bath salt set from another student (since they didn't say where it was from i think they got this set from someone else and didn't want it, but they said it's good to have a lot of hand-towels around because you'll be sweating buckets during the japanese summer).



so yesterday i tried making a sort of pumpkin bread with dates in it to give them as a return present.

recipe:
1. rice flour, oat flour, rye flour; mix with water until a really dry dough and let sit.
2. cooked pumpkin, cinamon, tumeric (i used the pressure cooker for 15 minutes). use the water as a drink, save the pumpkin "meat" for the recipe. i think i used "mexican pumpkin".
3. combine the above stuff and stir with chopsticks until the batter becomes super-smooth. add 2 eggs, some baking powder, some salt. it should now be fairly runny batter. make a thin pancake (a bit thicker than a crepe) with it. after the pancake's cooked a little but still isn't completely cooked, press some chopped dates into the top.

i thought it was pretty bland - the pumpkin taste was almost nonexistant, i'd accidentally bought the wrong kind of dates so they weren't very sweet (btw japanese people know the japanese word "jujube" but not "dates") etc. but the 2 students i gave it to liked it and then as thanks they took us to the grocery store and bought soup ingredients for us! 2,000 yen worth of food to make soup!



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