Daisy is a golfer

Watching intently as Ken gets ready to hit the ball

This weekend, we went up to the mountains in Tochigi to an area called Kinugawa. In the wintertime, there are lots of skiers at the resorts there but from now people enjoy golf, hot springs and nature there.

We stayed at Kinugawa Kogen Country Club which is a very nice golf resort and they allow guests to bring their dogs with them, even on the golf cart. Daisy had a great time! We stayed overnight in one of the log type cabins they had there too.

At first Daisy didn't realize a 'ball' was involved in what we were doing (golfing). But after she figured that out, she watched all the balls fly and wanted them real bad! We gave her one to play with at one point for alittle bit. She was surprisingly well behaved for the 5 hours it took to get thru 18 holes!

We all enjoyed the outdoors at the top of this beautiful mountain range. The snow had just melted recently and everything was starting to get green and blossom. I hope we will go back there again someday. The facilities at the Kinugawa Kogen Country Club (where we stayed and golfed) were excellent. They had a wonderful onsen (hot springs bath) that was absolutely heaven after we finished golfing each day! Also, the staff were all so friendly and the food was good too! Highly recommended! Click here to go to their website (sorry, it's in Japanese only).

As we were packing, Daisy wanted to make sure we didn't forget to bring her too!

Getting ready to start golfing!

Ken and Daisy pose nicely.

Daisy 'begging', hoping to get a ball to play with.

Sitting up worked, she got her own ball.

Daisy waits nicely while Ken tees off on the last hole, it was his best drive of the day!

The cabins we stayed in (photo from the Country Club's website).

View of the mountain range from the golf cart path near the Clubhouse.

Tofu Lettuce and Tomato Egg Drop Soup

TLT Chicken Soup (Tofu, Lettuce and Tomato)

Here is a new soup I've been making that has turned out to be a hit in our home. I call it TLT Soup. It is a chicken broth based soup. In the photos here, I used cherry tomatoes. I usually use just a regular tomato or a Roma tomato which my husband and I decided today are much better in this soup than cherry tomatoes, which turned out to be a bit 'sour'. But it's all up to you which tomatoes you like best!

Also, I used Romaine lettuce but Iceberg or any other kind of lettuce would work fine as well.

Enjoy!

TLT Chicken Soup

1 block of firm or extra firm Tofu (Momen in Japanese)
1 Egg
1 Tomato, sliced into small wedges
4-5 Lettuce leaves, torn into bite size pieces (about 1 1/2 cups)
4 cups of Chicken Broth
1/2 tsp. Salt (or to taste)
2 tsp. cooking Sake
Dash of white pepper (or to taste)

Put chicken broth into large saucepan. Turn heat on medium. Cut tofu block into small/medium pieces and put into the saucepan with broth. Bring to a boil.

When it starts to boil, reduce heat to simmer and add tomato, salt, sake and pepper.

In a small bowl, beat the egg until completely mixed.

Add the lettuce to the saucepan. Stir briefly.

Slowly add the egg to the soup. The best way is by spoonful, drizzling a little bit at a time around in the soup. This will cause the egg to cook in a 'stringy' manner instead of ending up with one lump of egg in the soup (which will happen if you pour the egg too much, too quickly).

Once all the egg has been added and has 'cooked' (it will be cooked less than a minute after it has been added to the soup), it's ready to serve!

I used cherry tomatoes on this day, and squeezed them a bit before adding them to the saucepan to get some of the seeds out (after this photo was taken). However, I don't recommend cherry tomatoes unless you like a little sour taste.

The finished soup in the saucepan ready to serve.