I am still trying to learn how to garden. I have recently found that if I just let my kabocha vines grow, they are happy. I have a bunch of kabocha to eat. We like kabocha roasted with Parmesan, stewed with pinakbet, added to Thai red curry, steamed into a Japanese kabocha salad, and mashed into korokke.

On this day, I had a bunch of fundraiser steaks in my freezer and thought I’d cook some cubed kabocha with one of the steaks. I found a recipe from NYT Cooking called Japanese-Style Beef Stew and like the flavors in the ingredients it called for. I just sliced up a steak into small bite-size pieces and seared it in a pot. I added some dashi, shoyu, mirin, and sugar to the pot with a few chunks of ginger and simmered the meat for a little while. I then added some cubed kabocha to the pot and let it simmer for about another 20 minutes. That was it. I would make this again! Living Hilo Style.