Fresh home-made food every day
There is one thing that I really love in the end of summer it’s figs. It is relatively easy to find beautiful purple figs in Japan and I usually cook them in tart. I use a very traditional and simple recipe with a classic dough sable and an almond powder base with very little sugar. It is always delicious with the crispiness of the dough and the sofness of the figs and the almond powder. I top it with a little of brown caster sugar for the perfect balance.
I love to eat fresh fruits for breakfast every day, and when seasonal fruits are not too good (autumn and winter) or I have some fruits that got a little too rippen for a fruit salad I prepare a lot of smoothies. My idea is not to have a “super drink” with a whole week of veggies in it, but rather a tasty and delicious drink for breakfast or snack. My rules for delicious smoothies that keep the taste of each fruit are simple:
– always fresh fruits (I don’t use frozen food). At least one very juicy like pineapple, melon, watermelon… The rest depending on the market: strawberries, blueberries, passion fruit, kiwi, nashi, peach, pear…
– 3 or 4 fruit types at max (usually I stick to 3) for better taste of each of the fruit, after more all the tastes are just blended and it’s hard to say what is in.
– no bananas, they thicken the smoothie too much.
– only add water if needed, no other complement.
It gives super easy to drink smoothies, very tasty and always different. Sometimes I top it with a few chia seeds.
With all the nice cucumber I got from K. I imagine I should try to use as many as possible quickly. We usually eat a lot of cucumbers just raw cut in stick as snack while I cook dinner. This time to use a little more cucumber I prepared a cold soup by just blending 3 cucumbers with a bit of cold water, olive oil, salt and pepper. I finish it with a line a paprika.
OK! I promise this might be the last post about summer salads!!! But this past days I’ve really tried a lot of new things and each was a great match. This spelt and mozarella salad is an other example.
Simply boiled spelt, cucumber, ocra, boiled edamame and fresh mozarella diced, a lot of pepper, and always delicious olive oil.
I’m in a constant quest for new food combinations and freshness, while at the same time I keep things simple and try again and again. That’s what I love about cooking: nothing exactly the same but yet not completly different. Always delicious because I cook what we love. And so many chances to try since we need to eat a little every day, right?
After loving my bulgur donburi, I decided to try a Japanese rice one-plate. I love the combination of the crispy chirimen and the creamy avocado, so I used that base, added some sesame seeds for the taste. Since rice is drier than bulgur and I don’t like to use any dressing with it (it makes it slippery abd impossible to eat with chopsticks) I just added some juicy tomatoes and fresh cucumber. An other delicious and refreshing combination!
I discovered passion fruits while traveling to the Seychelles when I was 6. On Bird island I ate my first one and immediately loved the juicy, sour, sweet, crunchy little fruit.
Back in France I’ve eaten passion fruits but nothing to compare with the one that haven’t travel so long.
Japan islands span over such a long North-South axis that Okinawa offers delicious tropical fruits and it’s only A a 2h-flight away from Tokyo. When we travelled to Ishigaki three years ago we fojnd several farms growing pineapple, passion fruits, mangoes, dragon fruits… That also offer to send to Tokyo anytime you want. It’s a very nice manner to have super fresh fruits from Okinawa in Tokyo. The other way is to go to Ginza Okinawa’s shop. (Each region of a Japan has a sort of antenna shop where you can by local products, most of them are located in Nihonbashi-Ginza area)
The shop sells Okinawaian products of all sort, and the visit was originally motivated by my husband needed some accessories and parts to repair his sanshin (Okinawa’s traditional music instrument). And so it was a good opportunity to get some delicious fruits and in particular perfect passion fruits!! There is nothing as such to start a day than a little salad with pineapple, passion fruits and blueberries!
In my search of the perfect summer salad I’m making a lot of trials, never twice the same. Of course as I was writing in my earlier post all have in common a cereal or carb base: bulgur, rice, pasta, couscous… Tons of fresh vegetables: mainly tomatoes, ocra, cucumbers, a very light or non existing dressing. My salad today ressemble more a donburi for two, with Japanese style accomodation. I boiled some fresh edamame, added some sliced ocra and a perfectly rippen avocado, and a finish with grilled chirimen (very tiny half dried and a bit salty fishes). A perfect combination of softness and crispiness, of sweetness and saltiness. A really delicious mix and a great variation from regular rice donburi.
One evening I was preparing a salad with a base of rice and I suddenly felt very nostalgic for the taste of the rice salad my mother was preparing when we were kids and that was often our picnic lunch. Something I can clearly picture tastewise but can’t remember the exact contents: of course rice, then cubes of ham, gruyere, tomatoes may be, corn, a sauce based on light mayonnaise or mustard may be… Well I reinterpretated it for a summer, cheese-free version, though it was not the raste of my childhood it was really simple and delicious.
Here is my recipe: American rice, tomatoes, cucumbers, ham cut in cubes, hard boiled eggs, olive oil, salt and a lot of pepper.
This fruit is always considered as an awkward thing by foreigners in Japan because the nashi has the shape and size of an apple with the skin of a pear and the flesh of something like a pear but munch more crunchy and juicy, with a mild and fresh taste. So basically nothing to compare really neither to apple nor pear. Nashi is the utmost fruit of summer with watermelon. When eaten cool it is so fresh and juicy that it is the perfect snack for hot summer days. It is also a good match for busy breakfast because it is so easy to peel and prepare. Well, you’ve understood I simply love nashi! And I’m awfully lucky because Isumi is a great region for nashi, with a lot of nashi orchards and tons available at the farmers market and local farmers cooperative.
In the past I did some trials such as nashi tart, nashi compote… It was good, nashi supports well being cooked but the taste which is originally very mild due to the high quantity of water doesn’t reveal much in cooking as apple or pear do. So now my recommendation is to eat it just raw, accomodated with other summer fruits, or just alone. So perfectly simple and so delicious!
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