Fresh home-made food every day
With chillier days we try to play tennis not in the morning anymore but in the afternoon, so before we go we need a good lunch full of energy. Inspired by the book of macrobiotic recipes, I came up with a nice one-bowl recipe using a base of brown rice, some seasonal sautéed veggies: kabocha, purple sweet potato, turnip in sesame oil, and a piece of Koya-dofu diced in the veggies. I topped the whole with fresh purple mizuna.
Simple, light and full of good energy before our game!
With the autumn settling down and the rainy day, It was high time to get the cocotte back on the cooking range! At the market there was a lot of pink and white veggies: sweet potatoes, little pink turnips, lotus roots, red onions… So I just guessed they would make a perfect and beautiful combination for a light vegan meal.
I sliced the red onion to make a thin layer at the bottom with a bit of olive oil. Then added a layer of leek finely sliced, then I just washed and halved the sweet potatoes, washed the little turnips and just removed the leaves, finally peeled the lotus root and cut it in large pieces. I cooked in the cocotte for 30 minutes at low heat and just served with a bit of salt. Super delicious!
As usual, after our two hours tennis game in the morning we’re just starving and we need a good source of carb and proteins. I love the Japanese combo rice and meat balls. This time sweet potato rice, chicken and soua sauce balls, and pickled myoga in plum vinegar. Perfect!
I bake the rice in a regular pot, add the potatoes sliced at mid time; mix the chicken meat with rice flour and a bit of soya sauce and cook in a fry pan with a bit of vegetal oil. Simple. I got the picled myoga from our local farmers market.
I like to use leftovers to cook myself something for lunch. Yesterday evening I cook some veggies ragu (pink radish, sweet potato, leek, na no hana), and one big spoon was left over. So for lunch I added a carrot, linen seeds, pine nuts and an egg on the side, and I got a perfect lunch.
Probably the last time I talk about purple sweet poratoes this year! There seems to be no more at the cooperative shop.
As I was telling you, I’m completely in love with these purple sweet potatoes. They are so nice with other colorful vegetables such as carrots, cabbage, bricoli etc… And they have a powerful coloring effect: remember my u no hana that I stirred a little too well?
Then just before eating I boiled them. And I served them with a piece of thyme-grilled breadt chicken and some olive oil. I believe cream could make a more beautiful effect, but we don’t eat cream.., I leave it to you to show me yours!
I really love okara. It’s basically the pulp of soya beans remaining after the fabrication of tofu and soya milk. It’s full of proteins and it as a very mild taste. It is easily found in supermarket in Japan (together with tofu, nato and yuba) and also very easy to use in several recipes. The most famous okara recipe in Japan is probably u no hana (うの花). A mixture of okara and cooked vegetables.
Since I found nice okara, I wanted to make u no hana, but as always I twist the recipe. Usual u no hana is often very mild in taste and in color, and recently I like colorful plates for dinner (see my recent post). So instead of the classical ingredients I used carrots, purple sweet potato (again!), shiitake and na-no-hana (rapeseed).
I cut in small stick all the vegetables and cook them in the above order in a bit of oil and finally added soya sauce, a little of sugar, a little of sake (the original recipe has mirin in it, but recently I don’t use mirin anymore, for it’s too strong taste that covers the taste of the other ingredients).
Finally I added the okara and stirred (a little too well so that the purple color of the potato transferred to the white okara:( ).
A delicious colorful vegan dish, served with rice and ume-boshi.
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