Sweet potato and aburage rice

I know, this not a recipe for laye August usually but this year, it definitely is!!! And this recipe of 炊き込み御飯 (takikomi gohan) is so simple and delicious that it could be eaten anytime actually! Prepare 1cup of rice (wash and add cooking water) , cut one sweet potato in pieces, slice finely half a sheet of aburage (thin fried tofu), finish with a table spoon of soya sauce and cook. Serve while hot and enjoy the melting potato with the rice and the subtle taste and consistency of aburage! All vegan! Perfect with a clear soup with fresh vegetables such as okra.

An other rainy day 🌧

The summer is just diluting in rain. What should be the beautiful after season, is this year just a second rainy season. It rains almost everyday and once it’s chilly, once it’s hot and humid. Don’t know what to wear, don’t what to eat. This Sunday was so chilly that it was perfect for gardening and fix a little our trees for the next typhoon and do some additional cleaning and trimming. But with rain all afternoon we were stucked inside and I took this opportunity to prepare a little snack for tea time. The figs season is just now and they are big and rippen. I was thinking anout making a “classical” tart, but the chilly weather pushed me towards something a little sweeter and I devided to try to make a fig crumble. I wanted also to change from the classical almond-fig combination so I decided to add orange flower water to the crumble dough for a fresh taste. That worked very well. I’m thinking also that rose water would have worked too for a more oriental flavor. So it’s really simple. You need 6 or 8 figs depending on their size, 120g of flour, 70g of sugar, 50g of butter, 2tbs of orange flower water. Pre-heat your oven at 200deg. Butter a pie dish, wash or peal and cut the figs in quarters and set them in the pie dish. In a bowl mix the flour, sugar, butter and orange water to obtain the crumble dough. Set small piece by small piece on top of the fruits. Bake for 15min or until golden.

Saturday energy lunch

We are back to our little weekend routine: going to the country, gardening, playing tennis, baking bread etc… Which means a lot of outdoor time and a lit of activity. Lunch always to be energetic and well balanced. Pasta, rice or cereals make a good base, and since we have local and fresh vegetables and meat or fish I also use many. Today I opted for grilled vegetables that can cook while outside gardening, together with Sicilian ring pasta and some dried tomatoes and thyme pork balls. The veggies are oven roasted in olive oil for 60min. The pork balls I made them with fresh pork meat, 2 dried tomatoes chopped and a tsp of dried thyme (if you have fresh one it’s even better). I them mix all together, made tiny one bite balls and cook them in a bit of olive oil.

Desktop lunch

I’ll never quit this habit of eating freshly prepared food in my office. No matter what the prepared food in shops don’t appeal me to much nor the cafeteria. I’ve been doing for ever and actually love it. I just get rid of some usual combination so try new ones once in a while. In summer I prefer cottage cheese rather than cream cheese, less fatty and heavy. And I replace the thick large slice of bread by slightly drier and smaller ones. Avocado and tomatoes are my always winning combination and I stick to it while tomatoes are still sweet and juicy!  I prepare this in my office and I enjoy the super fresh and mix of texture very much. What is your best lunch option at work?

Dinner one-plate

Some brown rice left over? The perfect base for a one-plate dinner. I oven grilled some white eggplants marinated in a bit of olive oil and added plenty of fresh coriander; grilled some horse mackerel pieces and added some fried beet on top of the rice. A bit of kosher salt and here is a perfect dinner after a long day at work. Quick, simple, colorful and tasty! What else? 

What’s up?

Sorry, I’ve been a little down these past days. Nothing bad, just annoyed. After the jetlag which is always pretty bad for me between USA and Japan (at 19:00pm I start to be really badly sleepy without even willing to eat dinner), I started to sleep bad which was mainly due to the terrible weather: several typhoons hit Tokyo in the past 7 days, so I couldn’t do any of my usual workout outdoor and my body was feeling weird being stucked inside with the AC. I hate that. Finally, now it’s getting better and nothing more than a big bowl of brown rice with fresh veggies can help get my body back on tracks! I found some beautiful little beets at Takashimaya Shinjuku, perfect for eating raw, and had some okra from the country, add a bit of katsuobushi, a few sesame seeds and here is the perfect lunch before going out for a walk, enjoying the summer heat!

Cooking contest!

 My cooking space
My cooking space
 Shooting before plating
Shooting before plating
 And the jury + α: soya sauce association top members, Dr. Hattori, cooking specialists and chef from a big hotel restaurant, itimidating
And the jury + α: soya sauce association top members, Dr. Hattori, cooking specialists and chef from a big hotel restaurant, itimidating

The D-day finally arrived and I left home Saturday morning under a raging thunder storm to join the cooking contest finale at the Hattori nutrition college. I felt totally unprepared and a bit stressed. On the same day they were having entrance exam for the college and college tours so it was a bit crowded and confusing. We were 10 finalists from 75 applications. Some were people working in the cooking business, most just cooking fan like me all from different country so looking at their recipes was really interesting. The relaxed and nice atmosphere helped me a bit to cool down but seeing there recipes actually made me nervous, and seeing at how most were prepared I kind of freaked! Cooking in a pro-kitchen under cameras and photographers and a jury was really intimidating and the worst part was having to deal with ingredients I didn’t choose. I tried to do my best but I was not quite satisfied with the result. The dough was perfect I found but the filling it was not quite right… The plating was hell! I am so bad at plating. And the photoshoot of the dish afterwards was really though. I am probably not going to win that contest (I realized afterwards that my cooking habit of doing everything from the scratch with only seasonal and lical products may not suit everyone) but I really enjoyed the opportunity, the very friendly atmosphere and the very helpful staff from the college. Thanks also for the jury: Mr. Yukio HATTORI (President of Hattori Nutrition College), Ms. Remi HIRANO (Cooking expert and Chanson singer), Ms. Akiko WATANABE (Cooking expert), Mr. Isao IIMURA (Executive chef of Royal Park Hotel). It was fun to chitchat with them while cooking!! . Thanks Japanese Soya Sauce Association and I will for sure challenge myself with a new recipe next year!!!

Rehabilitation cooking

Since we came back from Canada I’ve this impression that I have forgotten how to cook and that I am in a transitional phase of rehabilitation. After such a long time not really cooking much and seeing so many ingredients that I can’t find easily in Japan and that gave me so msny ideas it’s tough for me. Though I’m very happy with the Japanese cooking I wish I had a little more time to prepare our dinner. I’ve came back exhausted and starved from work every evening because of the effects of the jetlag. Maybe also it’s the pressure of the approaching cooking contest… Yes, it’s tomorrow… I wonder if I will still be able to cook that quiche!!! So everything I have cooked this week was pure simplicity and it’s so simple I ask myself if that is actually cooking!!!!

 Tofu and ginger, shishito, rice
Tofu and ginger, shishito, rice

Chocolate cheesecake

For once I tried a new recipe of chocolate cheesecake but I turn it into something mine. 

For the base, you need 100g of speculos and 40-50g of salted butter. You crush the biscuit and mix with the melted butter, then put in your mold.  

For the chocolate cream, you need:

– one pack of cream cheese   

– 3 big spoons of white cheese or yogurt

 – 3 big spoons of brown sugar  

– 1 big spoon of flour  

– 180g of dark chocolate  

– 25-30cl of liquid cream

– 1 egg

Put the cream and the chocolate in a pan to melt them. At the same time mix all the other ingredients together. Add the chocolate. Stir well.

Put this mix in the mold on top of the biscuits and then into a hot oven (130) for 30-40 minutes.

Finally keep refrigerated for 4 hours. And add some cocoa on the top before serving.  

Proudly powered by WordPress | Theme: Baskerville 2 by Anders Noren.

Up ↑

Verified by MonsterInsights