Tag: homemade

Stamped butter cookies

For my birthday, my best friend offered me a very nice present: a customizable cookie stamp. I’ve used it a few time already for tea and we ate the cookies right of the oven so didn’t had a chance to take a pic!!! This time I made some for dessert and I could keep them long enough to take a picture!! These are plain butter cookies, a bit like Britany’s specialty.

The recipe is really simple: 100g of butter,  150g of flour, 40g of sugar, baking powder, salt, vanilla. Of course you can make any variation of your choice!

After baking the cookies until golden at 180 degrees I kept them in a cool dry place before eating them.

Breakfast with twisted orange bread, whole grain bread and smoothie

With Prunellia and Aurore visiting us I’m preparing a few samples of what we like to eat. The rice bowl with salad-acocado-tuna topping (see Prunellia’s post), nabe, cookies, smoothie, breads…

For breakfast I asked them to pick one bread they wanted to eat and they decided for a twisted orange bread. Excellent pick for breakfast!
This bread is a little sweet, with orange peels and orange blossom water. (250g of flour; 155g of water; 12g of dry sourdough; 2g of yeast; 20g of sugar; 5g of salt; 12g of butter; 12g of orange blossom water; 45g sugared orange peels. Mix everything together, until smooth, then prepare like regular bread, only in the end you twist the dough and bake in a buttered pan with a lid for 30min at 220deg.)

I also made a whole grain bread too (see previous post), and a green melon-pineapple-strawberry smoothie.

We ate the breads just out from the oven with homemade marmalade and butter. Deliciously warming on a rainy Sunday morning! 

Steamed whole cabbage

In winter, when it’s cold and dark I really love to eat cabbage based recipes. One of my favorite yet simplest is steamed cabbage. Basically I steam a whole cabbage so that the inside is still a little crunchy while the outside melts in the mouth. I usually accomodate it with only a fruity olive oil, thyme from Aix garden and salt. Today on the plate I’ve added a few slices of crunchy grilled bacon, but it’s optional.

Sweet potato crust tart

Probably the last time I talk about purple sweet poratoes this year! There seems to be no more at the cooperative shop.

The other day I spotted on Instagram a really nice idea: instead of making the dough of the tart with flour, @acvb3 used thin slices of sweet potato.

I wanted to try badly but needed my mandolin that is in the country house. So finally, yesterday I could try.
I sliced finely one large purple sweet potato, olive-oiled them and lined them in a pie dish. I pre-baked them a little and then added a mixture of egg, silky tofu, sliced shiitake, na-no-hana. It’s better for the mixture not to be too liquid because the potato crust might leak here and there so the tofu is really helping a lot here. Then I just baked it normally. It was really delicious!

Coconut meringues

So, what do you do with an egg white once you’ve used the yolk for chocolate truffles?

Meringues of course! Of course? Well it was my first time!!
Making meringues is surprisingly easy but you need to be sure to jave time ahead because the baking takes more than one hour! Unexpectedly I used a bbc recipe again (http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2445/ultimate-meringue) and divided all the quantities by 4, having one egg. I also prefer to make small quantities anyway.
I don’t have an electric whisk at the country house so I just beat manually and it worked perfectly. At the end I just added a bit of grated coconut.

And more than one hour later beautiful meringues ready to eat!

Sunday breakfast

For Sunday morning breakfast I like to eat homemade freshly baked bread, pancakes, crumpets, or anything alike, and fresh fruits in salad or smoothie. It’s a good start before spending the day out.
This weekend I prepared sugar bread, the recipe comes from Erik Kayser’s book, my reference for bread making (in French). 

It’s basically bread base in which a little sugar has been added, and the final shaping is slightly different. After baking it it is also finished with sugar sirup.
Perfect with butter, jam or just nothing.

Quick entrée

The other night we add friends over for dinner, but since I was busy at work I needed things that could be ready quite rapidly. Because my may dish was vegetarian I cooked the entree with egg and bacon. I made a batter of eggs, milk, salt and pepper like an omelette and cooked it in my new metal rings that I start to use pretty much every day!!! I grilled some bacon and prepare a leek fondue in olive oil. I used the circles again to prepare the plates and set a layer of leek under the egg and topped with the bacon. For a colour touch I added some fresh leaves of spinach and other leaves.
Delicious!

Crumpets

It’s been sometimes I wanted something that changes from the usual scones/pancakes/crepes… I often prepare for breakfast and I was longing for English crumpets. I checked on my usual resource for English recipes: the bbc website and thought I could make crumpets right away. Not so simple. You need circles to bake them and you need baking soda, and instant yeast something I not often use. I must admit that I had to do some research too about the differences between instant yeast, active yeast, baking powder and baking soda…

So I finally manage to gather everything and cook them according to the bbc recipe. It was a little more fastidious and time consuming than expected but it was really worth it!!!
Some of the crumpets ready to be eaten!

The growing batter

Chick peas and spinach soup "my way"

After 2 days of cold rain, which is not so common, I needed a sunny and warm dish. Since I just bought Koganei-grown spinach I come up with the idea of chick peas and spinach soup. And the idea went very well for a ready-in-ten-minutes dinner!

I cut roughly the spinach and boiled them in water where I’ve added a few carvi seeds and veggie consommé. In the mean time I’ve cooked some couscous with a few sultanas and pine nuts, and a bit of olive oil. When the spinach were soft I’ve added drained tinned chick peas (yes! Sometimes canned ingredients can be of tremendous help!!). And it’s ready!!! The slightly spicy soup goes very well with the slightly sweet semolina, a perfect match!

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