An other rainy day 🌧

The summer is just diluting in rain. What should be the beautiful after season, is this year just a second rainy season. It rains almost everyday and once it’s chilly, once it’s hot and humid. Don’t know what to wear, don’t what to eat. This Sunday was so chilly that it was perfect for gardening and fix a little our trees for the next typhoon and do some additional cleaning and trimming. But with rain all afternoon we were stucked inside and I took this opportunity to prepare a little snack for tea time. The figs season is just now and they are big and rippen. I was thinking anout making a “classical” tart, but the chilly weather pushed me towards something a little sweeter and I devided to try to make a fig crumble. I wanted also to change from the classical almond-fig combination so I decided to add orange flower water to the crumble dough for a fresh taste. That worked very well. I’m thinking also that rose water would have worked too for a more oriental flavor. So it’s really simple. You need 6 or 8 figs depending on their size, 120g of flour, 70g of sugar, 50g of butter, 2tbs of orange flower water. Pre-heat your oven at 200deg. Butter a pie dish, wash or peal and cut the figs in quarters and set them in the pie dish. In a bowl mix the flour, sugar, butter and orange water to obtain the crumble dough. Set small piece by small piece on top of the fruits. Bake for 15min or until golden.

August 29, 2016

Saturday energy lunch

We are back to our little weekend routine: going to the country, gardening, playing tennis, baking bread etc… Which means a lot of outdoor time and a lit of activity. Lunch always to be energetic and well balanced. Pasta, rice or cereals make a good base, and since we have local and fresh vegetables and meat or fish I also use many. Today I opted for grilled vegetables that can cook while outside gardening, together with Sicilian ring pasta and some dried tomatoes and thyme pork balls. The veggies are oven roasted in olive oil for 60min. The pork balls I made them with fresh pork meat, 2 dried tomatoes chopped and a tsp of dried thyme (if you have fresh one it’s even better). I them mix all together, made tiny one bite balls and cook them in a bit of olive oil.

August 27, 2016

Dinner one-plate

Some brown rice left over? The perfect base for a one-plate dinner. I oven grilled some white eggplants marinated in a bit of olive oil and added plenty of fresh coriander; grilled some horse mackerel pieces and added some fried beet on top of the rice. A bit of kosher salt and here is a perfect dinner after a long day at work. Quick, simple, colorful and tasty! What else?

August 26, 2016

What’s up?

Sorry, I’ve been a little down these past days. Nothing bad, just annoyed. After the jetlag which is always pretty bad for me between USA and Japan (at 19:00pm I start to be really badly sleepy without even willing to eat dinner), I started to sleep bad which was mainly due to the terrible weather: several typhoons hit Tokyo in the past 7 days, so I couldn’t do any of my usual workout outdoor and my body was feeling weird being stucked inside with the AC. I hate that. Finally, now it’s getting better and nothing more than a big bowl of brown rice with fresh veggies can help get my body back on tracks! I found some beautiful little beets at Takashimaya Shinjuku, perfect for eating raw, and had some okra from the country, add a bit of katsuobushi, a few sesame seeds and here is the perfect lunch before going out for a walk, enjoying the summer heat!

August 24, 2016

Kaya cookies

Still with this coconut milk! It’s incredible how much you can try with just a can! I’ve had some nice tries and some that just didn’t work as they were supposed: coconut milk salted caramels. That’s how I ended up with a sort of kaya instead of the caramels. Delicious, addictive… My kaya is basically coconut milk and caramel that I cook to obtain something a little creamy and brownish. After that I mix flour, baking powder, I used a beat of wheat bran for the texture, a bit of butter and 2tbs of kaya. Stir well and make little coin size cookies that I bake 13min at 170-180deg. Simple and delicious though again the baking kind of weaken the coconut milk flavor.

July 25, 2016

Coconut milk and spices scones

Once the coconut can is opened, better use it! It’s really rare I use canned food but for coconut milk it is really nice (and for chick peas). The milk is really rich and creamy. So after I used a few for the curry I’ve been cooking with it a little bit. And first thing I dud was to prepare some scones for breakfast. I replaced the milk in the recipe with coconut milk. I added vanilla, cardamom seeds and some fresh gratted ginger. Baked and serve with some kind of homemade kaya: coconut milk cooked with sugar until creamy. It was delicious but it seems that the coconut milk loses a lot of taste when baked., so the spices gave most of the flavor to yhe scones.

July 24, 2016

Vegan coconut milk curry

Yes I know, the picture is not the most pleasant, but really taking pictures of risotto and curry is not an easy task! But both are super delicious! Since yesterday I had this recipe in mind and just tried it: perfect for our palates that don’t like spicy-hot food. It starts with simple brown rice, cooked as you like. Then I used 1 yellow zucchini, a handfull of shelled cooked edamame, fresh coriander plenty, a small bulb of fresh ginger, 4tbs of coconut milk, 1tsp of curry powder, salt, a bit of oil. In a pan I heat the oil and add the zucchini cut in chuncks (suze and shape you like), cook at high heat, when it starts to golden on one size I stir and reduce the heat. Add the coconut milk, the ginger gratted, the salt and the curry powder. Stir well, add the edamame. If the mixture is getting to liquid (water in the zucchini) add a table spoon of flour or starch and cook a little longer while stirring. Remove from heat and add the fresh coriander chopped, serve with the rice. Have a nice weekend!

July 23, 2016

Summer?

The last days have been so chilly and rainy that it looks like the end of summer already, but not in Tokyo in Paris… And it calls for some nice warm dinner. I found some beautiful pieces of Spanish mackerel and I simply grilled them skin side without any additional and finished with 1min clean side for a golden touch. So simple and delicious. I served the fish with an edamame mashed potato. I boiled fresh edamame and one large potato. With a fork I mashed the potato adding a little of olive oil , add some peeled edamame in and stir before serving. Extra decoration with a few more edamame. Where is the summer? I want it back!

July 22, 2016

Zucchini spread

I really love “aperitif” time, this moment before diner when you can have a sit, sip a fresh drink and eat a few things. It is for me part of the dinner, so anytime we have aperitif, diner is much lighter: a salad, a soup… I love to prepare snacks for that moment that are tasty and healthy (no peanuts/potato chips at home) and vegetable spreads are always a good option when I prepare baguette. They are very easy to prepare and variations never make them boring. When in a hurry the avocado spread is the best, when I have more time and I have adequate veggies I can prepare new things. This time I had big zucchinis so I cutted one in big chuncks, put them in a pan and cooked under cover at medium eat without adding water, oil nor anything, I also keep the skin for a vibrant green spread. Once the zucchini is soft, I drained them well and blended them to puree. Add a very little bit of olive oil, and seasonned with plenty of thyme. Served with frshly baked baguette and a bit of fresh ricotta (from a local farm) with salt and pepper. Addictive!

July 20, 2016