orange - Welcome to my kitchen!

The autumn vegetables are all over the place: matsutake, all the mushrooms, sweet potato and kabocha! These little pumpkins are so versatile, it’s really easy to cook them. They are good fried, steamed, boiled, simmered, in tempura, puréed… And in soup with carrots, they are perfect! I’m still largely inspired by that American cooking magazine I bought in Chicago and decided to try to make a spicy-tasty soup for our guests for dinner. For 4, I used 3 carrots, 1/3 kabocha, nutmeg, cinnamon, cardamom, black pepper and salt. I boiled the veggies and blended them with the spices (to your taste) and served. Surper simple, delicious and vegan!

When Thursday and Friday arrive, usually the fridge is getting empty of fresh veggies, but this week since we had some guests for dinner I bought more than usual last weekend to have a wide choice of possible menu, and so there’s still a few deliciously fresh veggies wauting to be cooked. In particular it’s rate to find things different from kabocha in the pumpkin-squash family, but last week I found a beautiful butternut squash. And after all the looking delicious pictures found on IG this autumn, I was really excited to cook it. I just roasted it with yellow carrots, and made a fluffy whipped omelette (which almost tasted like a quenelle and made me think that I really should cook some!!). All in orange tones, the whole plate is served warm and with just a bit of salt and pepper on top. Have a nice Friday!

For a rainy morning there is nothing better than a hot sweet bread just out of the oven. It’s been some time since I haven’t baked, but this rainy weekend was just the perfect moment to start again and go with some new originsl recipes. I also bought some new sourdough and natural yeast and I’m really happy with the result.

So for this first bread I wanted something sweet and fruity for breakfast so I used candied orange peels (recipe tomorrow!) and dark chocolate chips. For one bread I used 170g of whole wheat flour, 110g of water, 3g of natural yeast, 8g of dry sordough, 4g of salt, 40g of brown caster sugar, half a cup of candied orange peel and one table spoon of dark chocolate chips. I kneaded well until soft and smooth, then let it prove for 5hours (temperature is not really high in the house now). I then made two long sticks that I rolled together, I wanted to make breeds with it but reslized that 3 sticks wouldn’t be good. Then it prove the rest of the night and I baked it jn the morning, 10min at 230deg, then 20min at 210deg. I like to eat bread right out from the oven, so we had our breakfast right away.

And you know what?! The Parisian sister is back on tracks! Yeah!

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!

Tag: orange

Autumn colors spicy soup

A warming one-plate dinner

Orange and chocolate sweet bread

Breakfast with twisted orange bread, whole grain bread and smoothie