Category: Baking

Some kinds of pizza

I can’t realize that we are moving in 10 days. It’s seems so far away and so close at the same time, there is so much at work at the same time that it is hard to realize. I’m quite excited because I will have a new kitchen to play with and a bigger oven in Tokyo than my mini one. At the same time I will bring my mini oven to work, which means that I could cook more at work!!! Speaking of ovens, recently I’ve been making things that look like pizze but are not trully ones. May be I was inspired by the macrobiotic aburage (fried tofu) pizza I saw on IG by @rikako.salon_de_r. Once I made the base crust was a pie crust with whole wheat flour, topped with tomatoes, eggplants and red bell peppers, rosemary and olive oil (bottom picture). The second time I made a fougasse or focaccia preparation then topped it with blanched spinaches, cherry tomatoes and for those who like, fresh mozzarella from Isumi (top pictures).

These are perfect for still hot sunny days of September, using the last of the summer vegetables, good eaten just out of the oven or cold. 

Baking bread

I haven’t posted any bread recipe recently but that doesn’t mean I haven’t baked any! I have baked a lit of fougasses this summer for our visiting friends. Of course for breakfast I have cooked more pancakes than ever, but bread is still one of my favorite. All warm, just out of the oven, the smells that mixes with A. freshly ground coffee is that of perfect Sunday mornings. After almost 3 years of making bread regularly now I rarely use my recipe book anymore, unless I am doing something fancy, and I just mix my various flours and seeds… in different combinations that all end up being perfectly delicious. Recently I bought a lot of organic whole wheat flour and some local spelt, buckwheat… flours so I’m enjoying making some mixes, to obtain a rich dark bread that suits very well jam, honey, butter, cheese and ham. Adding seeds: flax, sunflower, pumpkin, sesame; nuts or bran: oat or wheat add a lot of texture to the bread and is also very nice. This time I made a very simple 80% whole wheat-20% spelt and it was really delicious. For the rest of the recipe details please check that post, or look for “bread” in the search tool. You can also click on “bread” in the list of tags just below.

Tofu cheese cake

About 10 years ago, my parents came to spend some time with us and my mother absolutely wanted to cook some Japanese dessert. I didn’t have much Japanese cooking books that were not in Japanese, so the best I could offer was this book I already introduced some time ago. 

There are very few recipes of desserts but one that pleased everyone: tofu cheese cake. Of course we didn’t really follow the recipe, and add different flavoring. But the basic recipe was simple and the result never disappointing. Last night I was looking for a dessert recipe, and when I saw some tofu in the fridge, I remembered that recipe and decided to try it again. And this time was not different. A simple tasty and healthy dessert!!! 

Tofu cheese cake (for 4-6 people)

– one block of tofu drained, recipe said momendofu (hard), but I used kinudofu (silky tofu)

– 5tbs of flour or cornstarch

 – 3 eggs

– 6tbs of sugar

– flavoring: vanilla, lemon juice, lemon zest or macha or spices of your choice (I tried with cardamom) 

 Preheat the oven to 180deg. In a bowl, mix the tofu with the flour, the egg yolks, and 3tbs of sugar, the flavoring. In an other bowl beat the whites until stiff and the sugar and continue beating until silky. Add this mix to the previous one delicately.

Line a pie dish or an oven dish with cooking paper, and then pour the preparation in. Cook in the oven about 30min or until golden.

Blueberry tart

This year I have the impression that there are more blueberries than in the past, and I bake more more fruits tart where I make a simple dough with a little of sugar for the pie crust and then just add fruits on top. I bake that for 20min at 190-200. It makes perfect simple desserts, tea-time sweets or breakfast. With blueberries I was worried that not adding sugar to the fruits might be a bit too sour, but the fruits are so ripe that actually sugar is not needed.  Actually I have noticed recently using less and less added sugar and salt to all my recipes and enjoying very much the result.

Summer!

This week P. Got married, and it was the first weekend of real summer feeling. Very hot weather, blue skies, beautiful ocean swims, hydrangeas blooming everywhere and rice growing fast. The farmers market was full with summer fruits: plums, cherries, peaches, blueberries, melons, watermelons…  so I decided to prepare a light a simple fruit tart with a simple crust based (flour, egg, brown sugar and a bit of butter) and to juste add the fruits (one peach, a handfull of cherries and two of blueberries) on top and bake everything for 20-30min. The simplicity of the preparation reveals perfecty the taste and sweetness of the fruits and the crust, rather dry, pumps the sweet juice of the peaches, while the berries and the cherries pop in the mouth!

Have a beautiful week ahead! 

Fougasse bacon-mustard

I make fougasse regularly, and I regularly change the ingredients and try new recipes: fougasse, sesame  fougasse, olive fougasse… This time I tested a new recipe with smoked bacon and mustard. Simply delicious for a quick bite! I used my reguler recipe base with plain white flour. And when shaping the fougasse I added bacon that I cut in small cubes and mustard. Then folded the dough and rolled it to trap the bacon and the mustard mainly inside. And shaped it as usual. Same baking time, same olive oil brushing after baking.

Have a great week! 

Japanese style quiche

Today we were invited at our neighbors places for a group session of Vipassana meditation and a dinner aftewards. I was busy all afternoon harvesting plums and didn’t see time flying, but absolutely wanted to prepare some food to bring rather than simply buying drinks. So in a rush, the thing I am the best at is making quiches. So I prepared a Japanese style quiche. Japanese style meaning that I used buckwheat flour, katsuo bushi flakes and soya sauce. For the topping I used tomatoes and red onions, with a egg base of soya milk and soya sauce, making it taste a bit like chawanmushi, this Japanese egg-base preparation that is steamed. It was simple to prepare and cooked in 30min in the oven, which is hand-free to continue doing what I was busy with.

As for the meditation, it was my first group meditation and I was curious to see what it was, even if I am a total novice and know very little about the different methods except for a bit of Zazen, so trying Vipassana was interesting, but I guess it requires a steady practice to feel any benefit from it and I not sure I am ready for that… we’ll see. Yet discovering it and discussing with some steady practitioners was very interesting. A great experience! 

Stuffed zucchini

Summer = zucchini plenty! Of course there are many ways to prepare them (see the zucchini recipe week from 2 years ago!). One of my favorite is stuffed zucchini. Classic meat stuffing would be my grand mother recipe, cheese stuffing would be my mother recipe. But yesterday night I invented a new recipe with some fresh local ingredients plus a bit of quinoq for texture. So here is my new recipe, and I loved it!!!

Cod and quinoa stuffed zucchini

– 2 large zucchini  

– a piece of cod filet

– a block of tofu (silk or hard, both work) 

– 2/3 of quinoa (I had tricolor one)

– 2-3 eggs

– salt, pepper olive oil

Pre-heat the oven to 200deg.  Drain the tofu. In a pan grill the cod briefly then add the quinoa and cover with water. Add salt and pepper. When the quinoa is cooked and it’s dry stir well to mix the fish with the quinoa. Add the tofu and stir again well to obtain a rather creamy paste. Add the eggs. Wash the zucchini and cut them in 3-4cm trunks. Carve them to remove a bit of the center part to add the filling. Fill them. Set in an oven proof dish add some olive oil and bake until golden (30min or so). That’s it!!!

 

Quiche

Now that work is getting back to normally busy I have more time to cook for dinner. And sometimes things turn out better than expected, may be because I haven’t cooked for a while. A quiche is very easy to make and always delicious but sometimes it turns out even better than that. Yesterday night that’s exactly what happened to me. While I was preparing it I had a good feedback but after tasting it it was so much over the top that I couldn’t understand why. For the pie crust I made a dough with a mix of buckwheat flour, rice flour, regular flour, 2 eggs, a bit of vegetal oil and water. I rolled it thick because I wanted to make a large quiche with plenty of vegetables and tofu. The tofu was amazing. I have tried a new hard tofu and it was crazily delicious with crumbs like goat cheese or feta cheese, but a much softer taste of course. I used also my new favorite organic soya milk that since now available in most supermarkets. And for the vegetables I chose asparagus and zucchini, and twisted the taste with some green shiso (perilla) leaves. I baked the whole thing for 30 minutes. And then it was magic!!!

I am so glad we didn’t eat the whole thing and I have my lunch all set!

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