Category: Vegan

A long week ahead…

After this nice weekend in the country, cooking and baking simple yet delicious food, we’re now back in Tokyo, but A. is leaving for a business trip for the whole week and I’m staying in Tokyo, with quite a work agenda, starting lectures for the new term and having some important deadline tomorrow. This means that this week cooking is going to be slightly different than usual. I don’t mind cooking for myself but most vegetables when combined together are too big for one person and I don’t really like eating twice the same things. I will have to find some new ideas of recipes to accomodate. Donburi are a real good option and I love them. I may eat donburi for the whole week! Or soup since it has become much chillier than it was last week and now it feels like autumn.

This donburi on the picture is one I cooked this weekend and I love it’s simplicity: new rice from Isumi topped with grilled lotus roots and shiitake. Finished with a little of soy sauce. The perfect dish as a side or a whole for an easy quick meal, tasty and full of different textures.

Home cooking again at last!

I made it through! I was organizing with some colleagues and friends a conference in Tokyo and it was quite an intense week to be sure that everything would work right and attendees will be pleased. Of course this kind of work is not my main work and it’s just on the side of regular work, so my days have been pretty busy and on top of that I’ve had plenty of lunch/dinners out and some official events to attend on the side. So when it was over yesterday afternoon I passed out in the train back home and it took me a good hour to be able to do something again! But most of all I was impatient of eating some homemade food. Not that eating out in Tokyo is bad, it is usually easy to find healthy food, but I always find that it lacks vegetables or fruits. But of course I was facing an empty fridge and had no strength to go out too far for shopping, so my only option was the small supermarket down the house. They have very little choice of decent quality products (couldn’t find any domestic tofu, it had to be American or Canadian…) so I passed on that one, and so the only things that were good enough were some mushrooms and some leeks. Good enough to make a meal for two with enough options. Then tart? pasta? or risotto? It ended being a risotto. And I was the happiest in my kitchen cooking for A.. Now one more day at work before we can head to the country with our friend D. visiting. Expecting a lot of good work done, good chat and good cooking!!!!
Have a nice end of the week! 

Autumn colors spicy soup

The autumn vegetables are all over the place: matsutake, all the mushrooms, sweet potato and kabocha! These little pumpkins are so versatile, it’s really easy to cook them. They are good fried, steamed, boiled, simmered, in tempura, puréed… And in soup with carrots, they are perfect! I’m still largely inspired by that American cooking magazine I bought in Chicago and decided to try to make a spicy-tasty soup for our guests for dinner.  For 4, I used 3 carrots, 1/3 kabocha, nutmeg, cinnamon, cardamom, black pepper and salt. I boiled the veggies and blended them with the spices (to your taste) and served. Surper simple, delicious and vegan!

Home sweet home

I’m so happy to be back home!!! This week in Germany has been really intense and productive for work, but being away from A., a kitchen and some oudoor activity for so long is really hard for me. As you can guess from my last post, the first thing I wanted to eat was some simple Japanese rice, and since I add some sweet potato remaining in my empty fridge I pan grilled it in a little of oil and added it to the rice (rather than cooking together. And topped with some salty konbu. Eaten together with a little cucumber (that was also remaining in the fridge) , I was the happiest girl!!!

The curse of intensive meetings

I work in a field where people loves to gather for a few days, sit and discuss all day what is the future of our field. Usually these meetings take place in close environment and from morning to night we are presence is mandatory. It gives very little opportunity for physical activity (choices are quite limited this time since I’m in a remote village in Germany) or only at the cost of sleep deprivation, and food options are also limited. Though they make efforts to have fresh local food, after 3 days there my body is now fighting for going back to normal. And by normal I mean sleeping more, being ourdoor more and eating homemade prepared food. 

I anticipated that, so our very last dinner in Tokyo I cooked some simple Japanese food with all my favorite ingredients: plain rice, salty konbu with fresh tomatoes and uneboshi salad, and okara, shiitake and carrot croquettes. Now I am craving for something like this!!!! 

Vegan curry pasta

While curry rice is an institution it in Japan, I decided to try an other combination, of course with a slightly different recipe, and was very much surprised with the way it ended. As the title saus, it’s curry pasta. For two not too big servings I used 3 tomatoes, 4 okras and 1 carrots, a bit of olive oil, 1 tsp of curry powder and salt and pepper. It’s really simple. Boil some big pasta: penne or whatever you like. In a heated and greased pan I put the tomato cut in pieces, cook at high heat for 2min than at low heat. I add the carrot sliced, the salt pepper and curry and cook under cover until the carrots are almost done. Add the okras, remove the cover, cook until the moisture is almost gone. Serve with the pasta. The taste of curry must be subtle and should not hide the sweetnes of the tomatoes and carrots.

Cooking and recipe contests

No, I haven’t quit writing for TPS, it’s just that sometimes work is taking really all my time, even the one in the train, one of the moments I prefer to write. so this week, no workout (but with the muscle pain I had from the surfing and paddle boating Saturday, and the stairs climbing at Kai, stretching and abs were more than enough), very little cooking and more disappointing I missed the deadline for several recipe and cooking contests. Because Yes! I really enjoyed it and I want more!!! So after some search I found a few with submission deadline September 15th, but September 15th was also the deadline for too many things at work and I didn’t have time to do my homework and prepare and adequate recipe for each contest (I’ve learn my lessons). Too bad… But I’m sure there’s gonna be new ones soon! 

Below is one of my new recipe for a simple healthy dinner with quinoa, myoga, cucumber, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and soya sauce. I wish you a good weekend! 

Trying new ideas

As I was telling last week, recently I’m trying new cooking combination and new tastes. In particular I’m trying using spices and fennel seeds. The first attempt was some vegan stew with corn, potatoes, tomatoes, green beans and okra, with some paprika, red pepper, fennel seeds. All cooked together until the potatoes are just done. An utmost simple recipe but very tasty and a nice mixture of texture with the crunchy and sweet fresh corn.

The perfect light lunch

I love this ring pasta from Sicily: anelli siciliani that I bought in Sicily last time we traveled there. There are so many different pasta in Italy that it is amazing the different reciepe one can imagine with pasta. And it is also so simple to cook. It’s a pity that except from Italy is not that easy to find so much variety and in Japan most Italian restaurants that serve pasta would serve spaghetti, and most of the pasta that one can find in supermarkets in Japan are spaghetti indeed, penne, fusilli and some macaroni. Tagliatelle, lasagne and trofie in more high scale supermarket where they have European imported food. So yes, when I go to Italy i pack on regional dry pasta!!!.
This ring pasta are really perfect when eaten with vegetables and simplyaccommodated with olive oil. For this plate I have opted for fresh tomatoes, fresh shiitake and parsley from the garden. I boiled the pasta al-dente, in the mean time in a pan heated with olive oil I added 2 large ripe tomatoes diced and 5 large shiitake sliced thinly. I reduced until almost dry. I drained the pasta and add them to the sauce, then add a splash of olive oil, salt and pepper and served. Topped with freshly cut parsley. Bon apetite!

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