04 September, 2012

Today's groceries

As I hauled some groceries home today on my bike, it occurred to me that I had some things in my baskets that you may find interesting.

Bread usually comes in small loaf sizes, with thick slices. However, at this particular store you can buy these massive white loaves (that's a 15cm ruler sitting there) that are uncut. We slice them ourselves (well, actually David does, my left handed cutting usually ends up with some very uneven slices). This loaf usually costs 249 yen or AU$3.10. Today I bought it for 299 yen. We use them mostly for toast. We also make our own wholemeal bread (which doesn't toast so nicely) for sandwiches.
 You may have seen these plastic, jelly-filled cups (US=jello). We've bought them in Australia in Asian shops. Their fun for a cheap dessert for kids.
 Eggs come in plastic and only 10 per carton.
 The biggest plain yoghurt usually comes is in small tubs of 400ml. Some come with sugar in a little packet that you stir in. But with this budget yoghurt you have to supply your own sugar. Stirring stewed fruit or jam into it is a good ploy too.
Flavoured yoghurt comes in tiny tubs (70-80ml). We're blown away by the massive 1kg tubs in Australian shops.

 You may have seen these in Australia. These are nashi or Japanese pears. (What Australians call 'pears', Japanese call 'western pears'. The boys love nashi. The fruit isn't around for too long a season, so they are highly valued in our house. They are crunchy like apples, but have a more pear-like texture. The best thing is that they don't go brown after being cut, so they are perfect for lunch boxes.
And finally udon. Wheat-flour noodles that I love! See here for more info. My favourite version of these is tempura udon. When Japanese lightly fried vegetables and sea food is placed on top of the udon and its soup. You've got to eat the tempura quickly or it goes soggy. Yum! I really miss udon when we're in Australia. Thankfully Japanese takeaway are appearing everywhere over there and udon is a bit of a staple.

Additionally to all these, I bought tins of corn, frozen veggies, bananas, lettuce, jam, etc. Not too different to Australian shopping (except the size of the shop and the portions).

3 comments:

Judie said...

10 eggs? Monk would be pleased!
The big 1kg tub of yoghurt is just a symptom of Aussies & our huge meals (ie appetites.) Even our single serve ones are 200g. I can eat a 1kg tub in 3/4 sittings, I'd be much better off with the tiny ones. We learned about eating slowly at our last 'Diabetes Education' session today.

KarenKTeachCamb said...

We get 10 eggs in plastic packages too, and lots of those jelly like dessert things. Haven't tried them, as they don't really grab me (and it's probably better I don't or the battle of the bulge might be even harder). Almost never get large tubs of yoghurt here.

Caroline said...

If I'd had to guess what was in the large yoghurt tub, I would have said washing powder! I think it's the colour of the lid - I don't think it's a colour that we associate much with food packaging here in Australia. And yoghurt often has colouring added to make it look creamier rather than gleaming white, which is the impression that the white and blue packaging gives.