Tag: technicolor

Shopping spree!

With our new work schedule, we finish work quite late on Friday evening and leaving for the country at 23:00, in the cold evening, empty stomachs and drained from the week is not too tempting, so we prefer to wake early on Saturday morning and leave quickly. In the winter fewer people go surfing and golfing that early so it’s not jammed. It is great to drive by day to enjoy the scenery, and we also can stop on the way at local shops we usually don’t go too often. Saturday we stopped at Wakuwaku in Otaki, a shop selling a lot of local products and fresh veggies and fruits, as well as some fish and local pork. Actually we haven’t been for the whole summer, and since we last went they had a total refurbishment and new branding with more organic products too. And it was just crazy! On top of the regular fresh fruits and vegetables I regularly buy, I also bought different types of miso, dry fish, block ham, sausages and locally made rice pasta. They also had tones of preparations such as small fish or shrimp cooked in soya sauce, with walnuts… pickles, tofu… and they had a lottery where I won an other bag full of dried sweet potatoes, rice crackers…

The thing I was the most tempted to try right away was the rice pasta from Isumi. I decided to cook them in a wok of vegetables, with chrysanthemum and sausages. So I boiled and drained the pasta, and kept in cold water. In a wok slightly greased I added 4 little sausages chopped, one red carrot cut in rectangles, a handful of brocoli, a handful of cherry tomatoes, and the petals of two yellow chrysanthemum flowers. Once the sausage were ready, I added one table spoon of soya sauce, then added the drained pasta and stirred well. Served immediately with an other chrysanthemum flower for decor. Simple and delicious!

Have a great week! 

Colorful plate

I love vegetable sauté and all the possible combinations.

I tried a new one, with sticks instead of slices. I cut the carrots, sweet potatoe with a mandolin, cook them in a bit of olive oil under cover, then added na-no-hana, and served with scrambled eggs.
Perfect brunch plate for a Saturday!

New onion vegetable sauté and seeds



Spring is in the air!!! Sunny days are getting a little warmer, in a week daffodils have sprouted everywhere in the garden and new vegetables start slowly to appear. It starts first with onions. They are so sweet and with a taste that is so much the annunciation of warmer days that I love them!!!
This morning there were plenty of new onions at the coop and I bought several and decided to prepare some vegetables sauté with some seeds.
In a wok I put a little of olive oil, peeled and cut in big chucks one new onion, add one carrot cut in sticks, later I added brocoli, small tomatoes cut in halves, sunflower seeds, salt and pepper. Separately I boiled a mix made of some lentils, barley etc…
Once cooked I mix everything in the wok with a little more olive oil, just before serving.




Simple lunch

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.

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!

u no hana – うの花

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.  

Technicolor dinner

I’m in love with this purple sweet potatoes (murasaki imo). They make every plate instantly look so much different, so much illuminated!!! 
Here for dinner, sliced with just some cabbage and carrots, and cooked simply with a bit of olive oil. You can eat it as a main dish (what I usually do) or as a side.
I also come with the idea that a bit of consomme with it will make a great soup, or with some Carnerolli rice or Arborio rice that’d make an awesome risotto. So I tried the risotto, except that I was running out of cabbage, so replaced it by brocoli and diced the carrots and sweet potatoes instead of slicing them. Taste wise it was delicious, but I admit that pictures of risotto never look too good!!!
(Hint to keep the rice white: cook separately the sweet potatoes and add them in the end, if not the purple color will transfer to the rice)

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