Tag: fresh food

Stuffed zucchini

Summer = zucchini plenty! Of course there are many ways to prepare them (see the zucchini recipe week from 2 years ago!). One of my favorite is stuffed zucchini. Classic meat stuffing would be my grand mother recipe, cheese stuffing would be my mother recipe. But yesterday night I invented a new recipe with some fresh local ingredients plus a bit of quinoq for texture. So here is my new recipe, and I loved it!!!

Cod and quinoa stuffed zucchini

– 2 large zucchini  

– a piece of cod filet

– a block of tofu (silk or hard, both work) 

– 2/3 of quinoa (I had tricolor one)

– 2-3 eggs

– salt, pepper olive oil

Pre-heat the oven to 200deg.  Drain the tofu. In a pan grill the cod briefly then add the quinoa and cover with water. Add salt and pepper. When the quinoa is cooked and it’s dry stir well to mix the fish with the quinoa. Add the tofu and stir again well to obtain a rather creamy paste. Add the eggs. Wash the zucchini and cut them in 3-4cm trunks. Carve them to remove a bit of the center part to add the filling. Fill them. Set in an oven proof dish add some olive oil and bake until golden (30min or so). That’s it!!!

 

Minestrone inspiration

A plate of pasta with vegetables is always good and easy to prepare. But rather than pasta with sauce or vegetables I wanted vegetables with pasta. I took the inspiration from the minestrone recipe but at the time of adding the tomatoes I found that the all green dish was a perfect match with the green outside in the garden now that most of the azaleas flowers have fallen and left only the green leaves. So it gave a beautiful plate with Sicilian ring pasta, celery, zucchini, green beans and basil, olive oil and that’s it. I boiled the pasta. And in a wok I simply cooked (briefly) the vegetables in olive oil, added the pasta, stirred well and served. So simple so delicious!

Two way meal

Or two recipes with the same ingredients. One the original version and the second a leftover version. Both delicious and easy to prepare.  The original recipe is a Japanese one: rice with green peas and red miso grilled cod. This recipe is made with simple and easy to find fresh ingredients. You need fresh cod filet, red miso (work with other miso if you can’t find red one), Japanese rice, a handful of green peas. Additionally I served also horse beans and green beans just blanched, but optional. Cook the rice in a rice cooker or in a regular pan. Add the green peas about 7min before the end of cooking. With a flexible knife spread 1tbsp of miso evenly on the fish (opposite to skin side). In a heated pan or in the oven grill the miso side of the fish. Serve when cooked to your liking. I served the fish on top of the horse beans and the green beans on the side.

With the leftovers of rice and fish I decided to make some rice croquettes, something between arancini and accras. I mixed the rice with green peas with the fish, added one egg, a little of flour and pan fry them until golden. Served with a fresh lettuce and tomatoes salad.

Have a great weekend! 

Quick pizza

Finding some fresh rucolla at the farmers market suddenly triggered my craving for a vegan fresh pizza. Nothing more simple, with the delicious little new onions and the small very ripe tomatoes I had already. Making pizza dough for the crust is really simple, and with the warm weather the rising time and proving time are really short. This time I almost didn’t let if proof and the crust was thin and crusty, delicious.

Pizza dough

 – 170g of flour

– 6g of fresh yeast  

– 80g of water

– 15g of olive oil

– 5g of salt

– 1tbs of sugar

As for any regular dough, mix all the ingredients and knead until smooth. Let rise for 1h in a warm place. Work the dough on a flat surface and roll it to the size and shape you want.  

Now you can top it with whatever you want and preheat the oven at 200deg. For the topping I used small tomatoes halves and small new onion first, with a few drops of olive oil. I baked for 15min. Then rose the temperature to 230deg and baked an other 5-8min. Stopped the oven, add the washed rucolla and keep 2min in the hot oven before serving.

Have a beautiful weekend  

Golden week

So, here we are, right in the middle of the golden week. All our friends have left and we’re planning to spend a few days doing some DIY and gardening. Having friends at home I spent a lot of time in the kitchen to prepare them my classics: breakfast with freshly baked bread, creamy scrambled eggs, local products: ham, fresh fruits… For lunch, it is more about vegetables and salads, and for dinner, since evenings are still chilly, cocotte cooked Isumi pork filet with new potatoes and angelica. And the little bonus for dessert: fruits tarts with coconut custard. All my recipes are meant to take the best of the local ingredients with simple preparations.

So here are my recipes:

Cocotte pork filet

– 1 pork filet, the size depends on the number of persons you are cooking for

– 2 large new potatoes/person

– a bouquet of fresh angelica (ashitaba)

– olive oil

– salt and pepper

Cover the bottom of your cocotte with 1mm of olive oil. Set the pork filet and start cooking at low heat. Brush the new potatoes undr water to remove soil and dust and the thickest skin. Cut them in 4, add them in the cocotte. Cook under cover for 25min, stir regularly. Wash the ashitaba, cut the hardest part. Add to the cocotte with salt and pepper, and continue cooking until the bottom is all golden, and stir a few times while cooking at high heat. Finish with a bit of olive oil to melt all the extracts. At the moment of serving cut roughly the ashitaba with scissors.

Coconut custard fruits tart 

The recipe is basically the same as here except that I  added some fresh coconut in the custard, and added mangoes to the strawberries. The result was 12 superb little tarts! I now often do individual fruits tarts to avoid having to cut them and damaging there beautiful balance and aspect. I also find it easier to keep them that way.

Lentil vegan one-plate

With a fridge almost empty because I long to go shopping at the countryside farmers market, I’m using up my stock of seeds, beans, lentils… and just add some fresh blanched vegetables and raw sprouts.  It perfectly suits the super warm weather toeat some light and fresh meals, just seasoned with salt, curcuma and olive oil. For this one plate meal I used French green lentils cooked al-dente, blanched baby spinachs and peeled and blanched horse beans. I topped the lentils with fresh sprouts and added some sunflower seeds to add some some crispy texture. So very simple and delicious!

Mum’s artichokes barigoule

Every time I go back to my parents’ place in Aix-en-Provence and the season allows for it, my mother would cook one of my favorite artichokes recipe (I love artichokes!! ), and that I cannot eat in Japan because finding the proper ingredients is very difficult or impossible. This recipe of artichokes barigoule is a classic recipe from Provence. Except that preparing the artichokes themselves is a bit time consuming, the recipe is extremely simple and can be a full meal. It is originally not a vegetarian or vegan dish but it can be made so by symply not using the bacon in the recipe.

Artichokes barigoule:

– 1kg of fresh tiny artichokes

 – 1 large ripe tomato or two smaller

– 1 onion or 1 leek

– 3 medium size potatoes

– a piece of bacon, thick is better

– 1 bouquet garni: thyme, laurel… 

– 1/2 lemon to prevent artichokes to oxyde. 

Prepare the raw artichokes by removing the hardest parts, please check there for more detail.

Dice the onion or the leek, the tomato and the bacon.

In a heated pan greased with olive oil,  start with the onion/leek, the bacon then the tomato at medium heat. It has to get soft but not golden. Stir often. Then adf the artichokes, cover with water and add the bouquet gatni, salt and pepper. Then add the potatoes. Cook under cover for 30minutes at low heat. And it’s ready to eat!!!

Soya milk curry rice

Curry-rice is always good to eat whether it is warm or cold, I love the creamy sauce with the veggies and the rice. All the textures, the colors and the flavors… yet I often find curry is too spicy for me. One way to soften it is to use soya milk instead of water to prepare the sauce. The soya milk add a good balance in the mouth without damaging the spice taste, but simply by softening the hot part of the spices. It also gives a beautiful pale shade to the sauce.

I used potatoes, sweet potatoes, lotus roots and carrots for the vegetables. 2tsp of curry powder, 3 cloves, 1tsp of cardamom, a pinch of cinnamon and a pinch of nutmeg. A 20cl pack of soya milk. In a greased heated pan I first roast the vegetables before adding the spices, salt and pepper and 1/3 glass of water and 2tbs of flour. Stir well. Then I add the soya milk and cook under cover for 5-10min, then remove the cover and continue until it has exactly the creamy texture I want. I serve immediately with rice.

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!

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