Tag: homemade

Improvised dinner

Having always a fridge ready with fresh veggies is just perfect when you want to prepare an improvised dinner for a friend stopping by. I had in mind two menus after checking its contents, a vegan-mexican or a Japanese one-plate dinner. Vote has decided for Japanese and so it was a simple rice with katsuobushi and veggies in soya sauce. For the veggies I used what I had in the fridge: carrots, turnips, potato, purple sweet potato and broccoli (they had this massive-beautiful-just cut broccoli the other yesterday at the local farmers place near the university that I couldn’t resist). I wash and cut them (recently I seem to like sticks over slices). I first cook at high heat in a bit of olive oil, then I add a bit of soya sauce and water and cook under cover until the potato is cooked. The rice is just plain white rice to which I add katsuobushi thin flakes after cooking.

Red cabbage salad

Nothing here too experimental with this recipe, but I’ve been craving for red cabbage salad. And it makes a perfect Monday fix for dinner when I’m in a rush. 

So I just sliced thinly about 1/4 or less of red cabbage, added some fresh baby leaf salad or just a few leaves of salad and fresh spinach also cut, I added some olive oil, some pumpkin seeds, some walnuts and some okara, a bit of salt and a pepper and finished with a little curcuma. Additional some cubes of gruyere cheese, and a slice of bread.

Another version of the kabocha tart

Spending the weekend in Tokyo we often eat out, so at last I wanted a simple dinner at home on Sunday evening. I hesitated between risotto and tart and finally we opted for the tart. As for the veggies to put in it was all decided: leek, tomato and kabocha, I had also some nice bacon that I added to the mix but it is optional. 

So, in a pan with a little of olive oil I grilled the leek cut in slices, the bacon, then added the kabocha and the tomato. I cooked until all the moisture from the tomato was gone. I also added 2 beaten eggs, salt and pepper before putting it in the dough. For the dough I opted for an olive oil base half-half white flour and buckwheat flour. II baked 20min at 180deg. Ready to serve.

Quinoa and autumn veggies

Autumn, winter, autumn, winter… day after day the temperature are one day high one day low, and I have a hard time deciding what to cook. I don’t want to start already to cook tuch winter stuff because I know it’s long before spring and the new veggies, and though I love cabbage, and turnips there’ll be plenty of time to eat some. Yet when it’s cold it is exactly what I am craving for. So today’s recipe is a fall-winter prep with quinoa and veggies. I just boiled the quinoa with water and salt, and finish with a drop of olive oil. The veggies: 1 leek, 1 carrot, 1 purple sweet potato, and 2 turnips are slightly sautéed in olive oil. Et voilà! A perfect one-plate for dinner!

Cauliflower and broccoli

Having all these beautiful cabbages in the fridge, I’m always wondering which one to chose and to cook, so tonight I opted for a duet: cauliflower and broccoli. 

Again this time, the recipe was not decided when I started to cook and I changed my mind ten times in the process. So first I steamed half a cauliflower and a broccoli, because I wasn’t sure of what I was to prepare I kept them separately all the time. Then with the cauliflower I prepared a roux with quite a lot of flour to obtain  a thick dough, seasonned with nutmegs, salt and pepper, and decided to make pancakes with that. For the broccoli I decided to make a soup, so I also prepared a roux but with very little flower, then I blended the steamed broccoli and added enough water for two servings, salt, and a little of sesame seeds.

I baked the pancakes in a greased pan, and served. An other seeving option is with some prosciutto and Parmegiano with the pancakes. 

Veggies sautéed with yuzu

Simple, warm and fruity, the perfect meal for a rainy day, when for the first time of the season it feels cold despite the light coat.

I prepared this recipe on the fly, adding ingredients while cooking. I first started with some potatoes diced that I started to cook in a bit of oil. Then I hesitated between red cabbage and cauliflower and opted for cauliflower, that I added to the pan. Inspired by the pale whitish color, I added half a yuzu squeezed, then some shiitake sliced. Once the potatoes were cooked I serve (the cauliflower and the shiitake can still be crunchy). I added the redt of ghe juice of yuzu and some yuzu zest. 

Kidney beans and cod

Monday is workout day! To start the week in shape and full of energy, on Monday evening, before dinner, I practise 1h of Pilates. Once I am done, it’s way time to think about dinner, and if we want to eat before 22:30, it’d rather be quick to prepare. One plates are usually what I go for, but tonight I was more in the mood for a warming dish. I had this beautiful piece of cod from Hokkaido, so I prepared a very simple kidney beans raggu.

In a heated pan I added olive oil, a big ripe tomato diced, 2 little laurel leaves, salt and pepper, once the tomato was soft enough I added the cod cut in big chucks, pepper again, and cooked under cover for 3-5min at medium heat. I rarely use canned food but I must admit that when in a hurry canned beans are really handy, so I almost always have a can of chick peas, a can of red beans and a can of kidney beans, these cans are also my emergency food in case of natural disaster, i.e. earthquake because in 2011 when the big earthquake stroked we didn’t have any ready-to-eat food (neither anything to eat because I was shopping day to day) in case it would be necessary, so I’ve learned my lessons. So back to our dinner recipe, I drained the kidney beans and rinced them, then in a heated pan with olive oil I cooked them quickly. I added two or three spoons of the water from the tomato. Then I served. On the side I prepared sautéed leek and shiitake.

Cardamom and vanilla madeleines

I am still looking for the perfect madeleine recipe, so I have tried a new one. And because it’s getting cold and I wanted something really sweet I opted for adding vanilla and cardamom to the madeleines and finished with a sugar frost where I added cinnamon. 

Taste-wise the cardamom and vanilla is always amazing, the additional cinnamon in the sugar frost, made the final taste something like sweet chai, which was exactly what I wanted. As for the madeleine, I won’t share with you my recipe because I didn’t find it satisfactory enough. The delicious taste was unfortunately not accompanied by the madeleines typical shape and was disappointing in that respect. A good reason to try again!!!

Macrobiotic Sunday lunch

Beautiful weather this Sunday morning, so we woke early and spend most of the morning in the garden cleaning and grooming shrubs, by the time we were hungry it was cloudy and chilly, so I decided to cook us a warm lunch and got once again inspiration from my macrobiotic recipe book. It’s a simple collection of veggies and koyadofu that are first cooked in water and soya sauce, then lightly fried and serve with rice.

In my version for 2, it is 2 pieces of koyadofu, 1 carrot, 1 purple sweet potato, 1 shiitake, and the rice is brown rice to which I added red rice, black rice and barley. I cut the veggies in four and boiled them for 7min in one cup of water where I added 1 table spoon of soya sauce, I also cook the koyadofu with the veggies. Then I removed them from the water and let them rest on kitchen paper to drain the excess of water. Then I roll them in rice flour and lightly fry them, and serve them directly with the rice.

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