Tag: cucumber

My lovely neighbors

The fun part of living in the countryside and having a great garden that produces plenty of things independently is to exchange crops with neighbors, friends and colleagues and these past few days we’ve been exchanging a lot! It all started with plums… like last year I harvested about 20kg of plums and left the rest on the trees. I pickled 2kg, made syrup with an other 3 and gave away the rest, to our pottery teacher, to friends, to my secretary and other colleagues at the university. I also harvested fuki, Japanese plums or sumomo (スモモ) and strawberry tree fruits today and gave away plenty around too. When you give away crops, usually you receive other crops or the result of what you have given after a preparation. It’s a kind of barter. So we received plenty of fruits and vegetables. Plenty of potatoes… and my favorite neighbor knows how much I love them tiny, so she kept me the smallest ones just like my grandfather would do. She also gave me cucumbers, parsley and flowers to plant that were growing rogue in her garden.

From some other neighbors we received jam and fresh fruits, which I used to make a version of the almond sable with jam in large version (picture) and in tiny bites. A real treat!!!

We also received big potatoes from another neighbor… I’m thinking of making gnocchi with these ones or just mash them, you’ll see soon enough. And finally we received pickled plums and pickled ginger from my colleagues. Super delicious with rice!!!

I really love this! It makes the effort to harvest more, give away around very fun and entertaining, without any expectations… but then sometimes you receive something unexpected, sometimes nothing but that’s fine also since it’s giving away… it just makes people happy!

Persimmons harvest

Together with the gingko nuts, the season for persimmons has also started, and our two trees in the garden are literally covered with fruits this year. Since this is way to much to eat them all, that pretty much everyone has a persimmon tree in their garden, contrarily to gingko nuts, they are difficult to give away. I tried jam but it was not a huge success, and I run out of ideas on how to preserve them. These are not really persimmons you would dry, like shibui kaki… So I harvest a few, give a few to friends who don’t have a garden, and usually offer the rest to the birds, bees and butterflies who seems to be loving their sweetness and juiciness. 

One of my favorite recipe with persimmons is in salad with cucumber, turnip, sesame and tofu. This time I had no turnip so it was just persimmon and cucumber. 

Persimmon, cucumber and tofu salad: 

– 1 persimmon still a bit hard

– 1 Japanese cucumber  

– 1 small block of drained hard tofu

– 1tbs of sesame seeds, or sesame powder

– a bit of salt

Peel and dice the persimmon, sluce the cucumber. Grind the sesame seeds, mix with the tofu and the salt. Add the persimmon and the cucumber. Stir well and it is ready to serve.

persimmons on the tree, with giant bee and tiny frog!
persimmons on the tree, with giant bee and tiny frog!

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? 

Japanese summer noodles

In the summer, it is very common to eat chilled or cold noodles in Japan. Cold soba, cold udon… but one of the most popular is probably cold somen. These are thin wheat noodles that are very quick to boil, and very quick to cool down. They are served with a lot of different items and dressed with some soya sauce based tsuyu. Now that it is hot in Tokyo, making somen is a really perfect idea for a rapid dinner preparation. I didn’t use the classic soya sauce base dressing, rather olive oil and a few drops of soya sauce. And I served them with simply grilled fresh bonito and okra, cucumber and lettuce. Light, fresh and well-balanced for a hot summer evening.

Mini vegan burgers

Oops! I did it again!  with some leftover boiled lentils I had, I made some vegan burgers!!! Well or some sort of burgers because I use my seed preparation as the base of my burgers and then just add a spread of avocado to glue them together. This time I was running out of time so I couldn’t blend the lentil to puree, so I used the whole boiled lentils, flax seeds, and a handfull of vegan burger mix to have some texture to work with. I assume that some flour of any kind would work as good. Added some warm water and worked it into a sticky paste. Then I added a tea spoon of paprika, a bit of chili pepper, and a bit of all spice. I finally formed small patties (4-5cm of diameter) that I cooked in a frypan greased with olive oil at low-medium heat until crispy and brownish. For the spread I used one avocado ripe and soft that I roughly pureed with a knife, the added chopped fresh coriander, salt, pepper and curcuma (tumeric)  powder. Once the patties are well-done I topped them with the spread and pile two of them in a plate. Add some blanched fresh green peas and a 1/2 Japanese cucumber diced. Enjoy the soon coming weekend!!! 

Back to the kitchen!

After a week away from home and the last three days eating out, we were missing some simple homemade food, with no dressing but just a few drops of olive oil, and some Japanese rice. I was also missing to cook, so the first thing I did once home was to go shopping for fresh vegetables and fruits and prepare a very simple one-plate dinner with all we love: avocado, cucumber, radished, baby leaves salad, Japanese rice, konbu, and a sunny side egg. A mix of simple fresh tastes and Japanese tastes. I wish you a very good week, mine is busy with the beginning of the new teaching term and many courses to prepare!

Green salad

Winter and spring continue their little twists. My cooking is thus following the same pace. And for a warm spring day I prepared a nice little green salad with fresh lettuce, cucumber, okara and plenty of fresh coriander. Very simple and fresh. For the dressing I simply used a tbs of soya sauce. This salad is perfect to eat with rice, grilled fish or just on its own. Have a beautiful week!

Soumen primavera

I can’t believe that yesterday I was preparing soumen with spring vegetables and that today I dream of a hor rich soup. Yesterday was spring today is winter! Anyway, spring is just to arrive for sure soon, so a little spring recipe is always good, in particular when it’s that simple and tasty. I have received soumen-素麺, thin wheat noodles from a colleague and I prepared them in my primavera style: tons of greens, fried tofu, a little bit of soya sauce. That’s it! 

I used fava beans (blanched), asparagus (blanched), cucumber and fresh chopped coriander. Thick fried tofu heated in a pan and a few mm of water to remove some of the oil. And the simply boiled soumen. For the dressing soya sauce cut with dashi or water. Have a nice weekend!

New desktop favorite

I try to play tennis at least twice a week during lunch break, which means then that I need a quick, energetic and easy-to-eat-while-working lunch. So I have developed new sandwiches slightly faster to make than my usual desktop lunches (here and there). Instead of the big slice of bread I now use the bread I was using this summer more often: whole wheat small slices that when cut in two make a perfect size to handle and 3-4 bite. I have moved away from cream cheese for cottage cheese more often even in winter for a good dose of proteins, and in the middle I add whatever I find: mushrooms are still a good choice that goes well with the rest, tomatoes too but it’s not really the top season for that. I just tried cucumber and rucolla, plus a few pumpkin seeds and it was really delicious. And I’m sure I will find other things to try that takes only 3min to prepare. What’s your favorite lunch when short on time?

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