nimono

My Sunday lunch. After shopping in my local farmer's market I spent the whole morning in the kitchen which is luxury I'd hardly had in London. I made a few kinds of traditional Japanese ragout (nimono) also to have in the coming week. 
These are my soul food. I guess, it's quite different from what you expect from 'Japanese food': sushi, sashimi, tempura and such. 
Nimono ('niru' as a verb) is a very common cooking method I don't know how to describe in English. We simmer ingredients until the soup disappears. Somebody told me that's 'stew' but for me it's more overcooked than stew (or we cook with less liquid). 
It's quite interesting that when we can't express a thing in our language we borrow a word from another language. And this time 'ragout' is somewhere I can settle for to describe it as you know this French word and French has so many words to describe cooking methods. But I'm hoping the word 'nimono' gets as common as chicken teriyaki!

昨日は午前中、家の事をしながら煮物数種を作りました。以前に発見した'Hokkaido pumpkin'と同じものを家の近所の野菜屋さんで見つけ、かぼちゃの煮物も簡単にできるようになりました。でも、一番外の皮がフィルムみたいにぺらーっと剥けるのが、ちょっと変な感じなので、普通の緑のかぼちゃが恋しくなりますが、、、。（ちなみに、あの後、pumpkin-squash問題を気にしながら観察していたら、こちらでは日本のかぼちゃはしっかりsquashの部類に入っていました。）
ともあれ、なすを塩麹に漬け、切り干し大根は最後の一袋を煮付け、日本の味を満喫したら、元気復活。今週もがんばります。