Tag: healthy

Last day of GW

Here it is… the golden week is going to end soon… it’s going to be hard to leave our stray cat, the garden and the big kitchen. I have baked a dozen of breads, tarts, quiches, I have made ravioli and all sort of things. DIYed with A. and gardened quite a lot. We’ve had 10 friends visiting, went for walks in the woods, meet snakes we didn’t know about… In short, country life.

So to conclude this golden week, I would like to introduce a new recipe, inspired loosely from Pierre in Osaka: a cold new onion soup.  My recipe is probably much simpler than that at Pierre, but the result was amazing. New onions are in season and I can only recommend you try!

Cold new onion soup, for 4 people as a starter

– 3 large new onion

– 15cl of fresh cream

– salt and pepper  

Peel off the first skin of the onion, cut them in four, set in a pan and cover with water, add a bit of salt. Boil them until soft. Blend them with the remaining water (if not too much), add the cream. Keep at room temperature or refrigerate before serving. When serving add black pepper.

 

Our stray cat Holly and sleepy I enjoying some early morning quiet time
Our stray cat Holly and sleepy I enjoying some early morning quiet time

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!!! 

Parisian walks

So, here am I in Paris just for one day before heading to Aix-en-Provence for work. Spring is turning heads here as much as sakura and hanami were in Tokyo and the beautiful warm weather and the jetlag invite for random walks and terraces farniente. With the Paris marathon raging on the right bank we decided to stay on the left bank and enjoy the fresh green of spring with a walk in the hospital La Salpetriere that has a beautiful park nearby the central church, before heading to the classic chic jardins du Luxembourg and finish on the Seine bank after browsing the art galleries in the 6eme. Paris is definitely a city to visit on foot, selecting random streets and seating here and there randomly to have a drink and a break. I personally love to seat at the jardin du Luxembourg drink stands at les Editeurs, place Saint Sulpice or place de l’Odeon. My favorite drinks when jetlagged and in France are some childhood drinks: diabolo menthe (mint syrup and sparkling soda) or straight freshly squeezed lemon juice. Have a beautiful week ahead!

the gardens of hospital la Salpetriere
the gardens of hospital la Salpetriere
Fontaine Medicis in the jardins du Luxembourg
Fontaine Medicis in the jardins du Luxembourg
Seine river from the left bank
Seine river from the left bank

Sakura rice v2

Now that I understand a bit better how to use the salted sakura, I decided to prepare a new version of sakura rice (the fridge being almost empty before our departure to Europe today). I decided to prepare it not with greens as I did last time but with sweet potatoes. So I basically prepared a sweet potato rice in which I added salted sakura flowers from the beginning of cooking. I didn’t washed them this time because I wanted to keep the salty flavor. What happened and was amazingly surprising is that the flavor of the sakura transferred a lot to the sweet potatoes and gave them a very flowery taste very close to rose. It was really delicious. A combination that has given me new ideas of recipes! Coming soon probably! In the meantime enjoy spring and blossoms every where!

Vegetarian quiche

We love quiches and I think I don’t cook some too often! There are so many variations that I can’t do twice the same one! Recently I’ve been using a lot of wheat bran in my breads, cakes, pancakes and quiche or tart doughs. It gives a fibery texture that I really love on top of being rich in nutrients. I simply add two large table spoon of wheat bran to the dough when kneading. For this very simple quiche with lotus root and shiitake I used also tried using okara in the egg base instead of tofu, which is also rich in fibers and protein and it gives a drier texture, a bit that of a fish cake that I really loved. So simple and delicious!

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 potatoes omelette

For the first time in a week my head didn’t spin and seeing the world so still is quite strange now! I kind of got use to living in a spinning boat and adjusted to it. My appetite is coming back too! But I still prefer to eat simple food. So I made a new potatoes omelette. Some kind of comfort food. I just used two new potatoes washed and brushed that I cut in small cubes and cooked in olive oil until golden, then added 4 eggs beaten with black pepper and salt and cooked under cover. I flipped the omelette when the top is almost dry and cooked a little longer before cutting and serving. Really nothing amazing about that recipe bit honestly delicious.

Spring in the plate!

It’s getting warmer, out the winter coats! And the spring vegetables are everywhere on the market shelves!  I couldn’t resist to preparing the first spring vegetables sautéed of the year. A classic in our house that can accompany fish, meat, tofu, eggs, or just be eaten like that. Choose the spring vegetables of your choice: new potatoes, asparagus, green peas, snap peas, new carrot today for me, but you can add new onion, green beans… a bit of olive oil in a pan and start to cook the potatoes, then the carrots, the green peas, finish the asparagus hardest part and later the heads and the snap peas. Add kosher salt and pepper and serve!

Recovery food

As I was telling you on Monday, I was pretty down with pollen allergy and vertigos. I am very rarely feeling bad so I am not used to it and it annoys me a lot to be reduced in any of my activities.  Because of the vertigos I could only eat industrial butter rolls, the one sold in all the combinis, and drink coca-cola. What a diet for me!!! So as soon as thing got better I prepared a very simple recovery recipe with fresh vegetables and little star pasta. I prepared two versions of it, a dry one and a soup one. In the dry version I use 1 new carrot and a bundle of mizuna, a bit of olive oil, that’s it. I cooked it until all the water was gone. In the soup version I added 2 little sweet potatoes, a few snap peas and curcuma. Very easy to prepare, very easy to eat! A perfect dish to recover!

Dry version of the recipe
Dry version of the recipe

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