Category: Vegetarian

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.

Green beans salad

For very hot and humid days like it was today, I like to prepare extremely simple, fresh meals with mainly vegetables. A green beans salad is a classic for me, but instead of preparing it with potatoes like I would usually do I prepared it with hard boiled eggs and fresh ginger and myoga thinely chopped. It gives a very interesting twist to the whole recipe. I guess adding potatoes is still possible.

Fresh quinoa salad

If my weeks are busy with work my weekends are none the less busy with other activities: going swimming in the ocean in the morning and in the evening, working on some of my sewing/embroidery projects, gardening, baking, playing tennis, socializing… and when it’s hot outside I feel like eating nothing else than super fresh simple food: tomatoes, cucumbers, okra, melons… so for a boost of energy, adding red quinoa to a simple tomato/cucumber salad and making a dressing with olive oil, yogurt and  fresh basil is exactly the kind of lunch that I love. It takes 5min to prepare (and just 10min to boil the quinoa, but if you’re smart you can boil it before) and it’s fresh and light, which is perfect before 2h of tennis playing.

What is is your favorite summer food? 

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 salad

Well well summer is really here and it’s just the beginning, temperature are going to rise even further I guess. So preparing simple fresh food is really my main cooking focus, yet each time I want to prepare something different, new, even if most of the basic ingredients are the same: new potatoes, green beans, zucchini, cucumber, okra, tomatoes… 

So for this simple salad I pan fried a few new potatoes, then added some boiled green beans, a cucumber, some beautiful tomatoes and, finished with hard boiled eggs and sesame seeds. Dressed with some olive oil and sesame oil. That’s it!!!

Today I am going to Ngoya for work where it’s going to be even hotter!

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! 

Fresh corn

Yesterday one of my students at the university brang some fresh corn he has received from his family and he gave me one. Corn for me immediately calls for Tex-Mex food, why I don’t know… and when I say Tex-Mex it is a bit of an extrapolation. It just mean tomatoes, spices and sometimes avocado and beans. So back home with my corn I first boiled it, then separated all the grains and in a pan I cooked the corn with fresh tomatoes and pork for A., added chilly pepper, all spice and salt; and for me I cooked the corn with tomatoes, hard tofu drained and cheese and the same spices. Just before serving both I added a bit of olive oil. Served with a few nacho chips just for the fun (I didn’t have corn flour to make some)

Horse beans cold soup

Spring vegetables are getting close to the end of the season and we’re moving towards summer vegetables: zucchini, tomatoes, eggplants, melons… but before it ends, I wanted to eat a little bit more of these greens! I love so much green peas and horse beans. With the horse beans I prepared a cold soup with some croutons. It is a very simple recipe, but really delicious. Of course peeling the horse beans can be a bit of time consuming but personally I love this kind of tasks. Once it is peeled simply blend with a bit of water, add salt and pepper, if you like a spoon of yogurt, and top with freshly made fried croutons (recipe is available here). Isn’t that simple?

Have a beautiful week! 

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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