Brown rice

When we are in Isumi I like to go to Rice Terrace restaurant for a macrobiotic lunch outdoor, but I don’t like to go when it rains because the whole place is designed to enjoy being outside and there are usually too many families and it can become very noisy. Luckily we found an other macrobiotic cafe, opened not far away, by a young guy that use to work at Rice Terrace. His cafe is a small simple and usually quiet place and he makes a wonderful colorful soup curry that I love when it rains. What I love with Japanese macrobiotic cooking is the brown rice, the herbs and spices on top of the fresh seasonal ingredients (that I cook all the time). I try sometimes to cook macrobiotic at home: ie. replace the white rice or pasta… by brown rice, and add a few more spices and herbs. This time I made a leftover preparation with the vegetables that were left on the fridge: spinach, ripe tomato, sweet potato. I just added some anis seeds and cooked everything in a pan with a very little bit of oil. Added to the cooked brown rice, that’s it… my version of macrobiotic super simple meal!!!

September 12, 2017

Veggies and grain

This week A. is very busy with work, with visitors from his headquarters, meaning dining out for him and dinner alone for me, and also taking care of the house chores. When it’s the case I usually come back late from work too and cook some rather simple meals that while it cooks give me free hands for the laundry… With the fridge full of fresh summer vegetables, it was even easier: grains and vegetables every day!!!! Brown rice, barley… with bell pepper, eggplant, zucchini, green beans… and topped with some gratted cheese, or some fresh mozzarella, or nothing…

It is always the same base: first in a pan I heat some olive oil, add the vegetables that need a bit of roasting or are longer to cook (eggplant, carrot…), then the main grain, the herbs (mainly rosemary from the garden this week)… then I cover with water, cook under cover, add the vegetables that need less cooking (green beans, zucchini…) and remove the cover for the last minutes of cooking. That’s it! And the weekend is almost there, with a hot Sunday apparently! Take care

brown rice, zucchini, eggplant and rosemary

June 30, 2017

Brown rice risotto

Summer is here right? We’re past June 21st already! But in Japan June is not summer as westerners could imagine it, rather I could say that the rainy season has finally started, with pouring rain one day, and humidity level increasing noticeably. Summer will start later in July for us! In the meantime the summer vegetables are getting better every day, more ripe, more tasty. And I love to make summer risotto that can be eaten hot or lukewarm with all the summer vegetables, in particular zucchini!

A. doesn’t like brown rice as much as I do, or rather I would say he loves as much brown rice than white rice so I have to cook both evenly! What is nice with Japanese brown rice is that it is easy to cook in many ways, much more than white rice I find. In particular pilaf and risotto suit it very well. With fresh summer yellow zucchini, red onions, and sage from the garden, the dinner was all set. Simply chop the onion and cook until soft in olive oil. I’ve added some thin slice of pork because I had them, but it’s optional. Add the brown rice, stir. Add water, sage chopped, salt and pepper. Finally when most of the water is gone add the yellow zucchini diced. Cook and stir for 3min. Serve, add more sage, gratted cheese… as you like.

The weekend is arriving soon, but before TV shooting this afternoon about my research work and the exhibition at the museum. I have a huge stage fright for TV shootings as I find it deforms us so much and spaking in Japanese to TV is going to be even worse… 🙁

June 23, 2017

Leek quiche with brown rice piecrust

What to do with a handful of cooked brown rice? Not enough to serve it alone, but too much to throw it away. What to do with a bunch of leeks? Well, it’s very simple, just make a quiche with brown rice in the piecrust, and leek as topping. The brown rice in the piecrust brings in some very crusty texture which goes very well with softness of the leeks. From the nutritive point of view, the brown rice also brings in a lot of fibers and proteins. The perfect tasty-healthy-yummy dinner for another evening without A..

Brown rice piecrust quiche:

– 1/2 cup of cooked brown rice, optimally leftovers

– 2/3 cup of flour of your choice

– 2tbs of olive oil

– salt, pepper

– a bit of water

In a bowl, mix the flour, the olive oil, the salt and pepper and a bit of water . Start kneading and then add brown rice. Continue to knead an add if necessary a bit of water or a bit of flour in order to obtain the right texture for the dough, which is neither too dry neither too wet. Set the dough with your hands in a greased pie dish. No you’re ready and you can put anything you want in the quiche. In my case, I used simply leeks that I steamed before hand, with 2 beaten eggs, salt and pepper. And then in a preheated oven at 180° I baked a quiche for 20 minutes or until golden.

Even when A. is away on business trip, I continue to cook just for myself. I can’t help continue cooking new stuff. I actually take it as a good opportunity to try new recipes because the only person I can disappoint myself.

February 8, 2017

My Japanese style vegan soup

Largely inspired by the quinoa soups (winter and autumn) I made, I wanted something more Japanese. So I cooked in a pan: one sweet potato, one large sato imo, a piece of kabocha and a leek in a bit of olive oil, and in an other pan I cooked a mix of seeds and beans together with brown rice, I cooked them as you would cook regular Japanese rice. I didn’t cook the veggies and the rice together to avoid over cooking the veggies, to keep their beautiful colors (black rice has a tendency to color a lot) and limit the stickiness of the rice and seeds. Just before serving I added a bit of boiling water to the rice mix to make it soupy, and I deglazed the veggies with a large table spoon of soy sauce. I served the rice mix, the vegetables and topped with golden sesame seeds. A rich and tasty soup for a winter evening.

January 11, 2017

Some more Japanese bowls

Rice, rice more rice, white, brown, red, black, wild, arborio, carnaroli, koshihikari, camargues. Whatever, we love rice!!! This time it’s a mix of koshihikari white and brown rice, served with enoki, these long, thin and white mushrooms so easy to find st that the time of the year, and lotus roots, cooked in a bit of oil until golden then glazed in soya sauce, and the all thing is topped by a poached egg for the creaminess. So simply delicious!

December 1, 2016

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?

August 26, 2016

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!

August 24, 2016

Vegan coconut milk curry

Yes I know, the picture is not the most pleasant, but really taking pictures of risotto and curry is not an easy task! But both are super delicious! Since yesterday I had this recipe in mind and just tried it: perfect for our palates that don’t like spicy-hot food. It starts with simple brown rice, cooked as you like. Then I used 1 yellow zucchini, a handfull of shelled cooked edamame, fresh coriander plenty, a small bulb of fresh ginger, 4tbs of coconut milk, 1tsp of curry powder, salt, a bit of oil. In a pan I heat the oil and add the zucchini cut in chuncks (suze and shape you like), cook at high heat, when it starts to golden on one size I stir and reduce the heat. Add the coconut milk, the ginger gratted, the salt and the curry powder. Stir well, add the edamame. If the mixture is getting to liquid (water in the zucchini) add a table spoon of flour or starch and cook a little longer while stirring. Remove from heat and add the fresh coriander chopped, serve with the rice. Have a nice weekend!

July 23, 2016