With Easter around and the unsual amount of chocolates at home, I needed a basic simple vegan dish. I opted for oven grilled vegetables, to change for the steamed vegetables I often cook. Grilling takes slightly more time than steaming, but if you plan ahead it is really not complicated and delicious!
Here in the oven dish for two, new carrots, new lotus root, ring onions, asparagus and and one paprika. A leaf of laurel, a bit of thyme, salt, pepper and olive oil. Bake at medium heat as long as you want depending on how you like your vegetables.
Since spring has decided to go away and winter is back, I wanted to eat a warm and thick mushrooms tart. I made the dough with buckwheat flour and olive oil (not an easy one to shape) and for the rest a mix of fresh shiitake, fresh sort of shimeji, a big block of silky tofu, 2 eggs and thyme. I put everything in a deep pie dish to obtain a thick tart, about 3cm high. All in the oven for 30min and ready to eat just out from the oven. Nothing too innovative but always a warming choice.
I love pizza, all kind of dough, and simple toppings. So I’ve decided to make some, with a baker dough, slightly thick. The dough recipe is from my bakery book and was super easy to do, and for the topping I used the same tomato sauce as for the sardines, less spicy, fresh mushrooms and cheese for me, ham and fresh mushrooms for my husband who doesn’t like cheese!! Eaten just warm after the whole morning gardening!!
We don’t celebrate Easter much since we live in Japan, but we always receive treats from France to remind us that Easter has come. Besides the chocolates that are not available in Japan because Easter is not a traditional event, Easter means also “spring”, often sakura blossom, colorful plates and colorful table decorations. But this year it is a very cold and rainy Easter, a lot of the new vegetables are not yet available and I only found a limited choice of greens at the local farmers cooperative. Basically snap peas and asparagus. And of course the delicious ashitaba. So my Easter lunch menu was rather simple. Some sauteed new vegetables and ashitaba gnocchi. I told you I make gnocchi of everything and I will show you some more recipes with ashitaba. Truly ashitaba suits very well dishes with potatoes, so I assumed that it would work well for gnocchi, and it did. It is supper simple, just adding blended ashitaba leaf to the potatoes, and prepare the gnocchi as usual. I served them with a fruity olive oil and a little of ashitaba-tomato sauce. For the legumes sauteed I roughly cut one new onion, added some snap peas and finally some asparagus in a bit of olive oil in a wok. For the chocolate eggs, we received more than enough from France, I decided to do nothing special! What did you cook for your Easter lunch?
A great day starts with a great breakfast. For this morning I prepared chocolate and walnuts little breads, just out from the oven. And a fresh smoothie with pineapple, cantaloupe melon and strawberries. How about you? How do you start your day?
When in a hurry, pasta are quite handy to fix a dinner. But pasta without sauce… So This time I made a rapid topping with one new onion, half paprika and a piece of thick fried tofu (aburage). All cut in small pieces, cooked brieftly in olive oil and seasoned with oregano and laurel, salt and pepper. Delicious with pasta, but also gnocchi and risotto.
Every one knows wasabi, this green paste very hot eaten usually with sushi. Actually wasabi is a plant and the green paste is obtained from the stem, peeled and grated. In spring, the leaves of wasabi can be eaten. It’s a delicate vibrant green leaf that is better slightly steamed or boiled and that accomodates very well rice and Japanese dishes.
I cooked it in a vegan version of a Japanese meal, with miso and sesame eggplants, pickled vegetables, rice with cereals and the wasabi leaves just steamed and served with ponzu.
A few years ago we went to visit Hachijojima, an island down south of Tokyo in the Pacific that belongs to Tokyo actually. Besides being a lovely place, famous for their handwoven beautiful fabric used to make kimonos, their is one typical product from there: angelica, or ashitaba (明日葉).
Ashitaba is a green leaf that doesn’t smell much but once cooked as a very typical taste. Something that once you have tried you want to eat again! In France it is use to make sweets (the green slighly discusting sticks Of candied fruit on gateau des rois for example). While we were in Hachijojima we had ashitaba tempura, ashitaba sherbet and a few other variations. Completly enfatuated with this taste I bought a cooking book of ashitaba there, which presents a great variety of recipes, from rice with ashitaba to green smoothies, so not just typically Japanese recipes. They grow some ashitaba in Chiba prefecture, so when spring comes I easily can buy some in Ohara. In Tokyo, department stores and Yoshiike definitely have some. I tried a few recipes from the book at home to get used to processing ashitaba and came out with a few simple recipes on my own now. My super favorite is ashitaba-mashed potatoes. It makes a perfect combination, and it is really a great match with scrambled eggs, grilled pork…
Ashitaba mashed potatoes and scrambled eggs
An other nice combiniation is to use ashitaba as a substitute for basil. With tomatoes and olive oil, perfect to top with some pasta.
Ashitaba tomato sauce
I’m still trying new recipes while the season of ashitaba goes on, so you may from it again!
Making croissants takes much more time than making bread, because every hour during 5 hours there is a manipulation to do. Not a difficult one, but you need to make yourself available. Last Saturday was the perfect day for it: grey, cold, gloomy, and making you wish that Sunday will be a better day and start with a good breakfast. So, I decided to challenge myself with making croissants. using my usual book, I followed the steps.
And made a few croissants for breakfast. The taste was perfect. Really the right balance of butter, sweetness and beautiful golgen crispy outer shell. But the dough didn’t grow enough (probably because the kitchen is too cold), so they remained tiny and a little compact. The cooking time also was not right. It took almost twice the time.
So, there much room for improvement, even if liked them very much. Sunday was sunny and warm, and the breakfast delicious.
If you have a good croissant recipe or hints I’m happy to learn!!!
