Tag: tomato

Quinoa soup

What if suddenly the temperature drops again and it feels like winter again?
Nothing as simple as a making a quinoa soup! I’ve spotted the recipe the very first time I was browsing my vegetarian cookbook received for Xmas, and didn’t had a chance to make it before: no quinoa, not the proper veggies, to warm… But last night was perfect. The recipe is extremely simple, and it takes very little time to prepare because quinoa cooks really quick, so that makes a perfect option for days at work. Of course I slightly changed the original recipe because I didn’t have potatoes and i found anyway that potatoes+quinoa was a little to much, so I replaced the potatoes by lotus root. 
For this quinoa soup for a full dinner for 2 you need: 90g of quinoa; 1 tomato; 1 little leek or half onion; a handful of fresh spinach; 2 potatoes or the equivalent of lotus root; salt, pepper.
In a pan heat a bit of oil, chop the onion or the leek and throw them in the pan, add the tomato diced, then the spinach washed and roughly cut and finally the potato or lotus root, cut in big chunks. Finish with the quinoa. add water to cover the whole ingredients and add an other 2cm. Add a bit of salt and pepper, and cook for 20min under cover.
Serve while hot. I thought about adding an egg at the end of the cooking, but then realized that it was already well enough energetic, so finally didn’t.

My cooking process

It’s always the same. There are weeks when we are just busy and then there are weeks when we are busy and we have friends visiting in Tokyo, colleagues from abroad, party and outing with work all at the same time. This means a lot of dining out and much less sleep than usual and less workout, it also means a more or less empty fridge. And then my body gets crazy and crave for even more simple food. So today I decided to prepare a simple Japanese meal. I started by preparing rice of course and some ichiban dashi (konbu and katsuobushi). Then I use the dashi to cook daikon and to serve it with some yuzu miso, as I did before. I just love it. But then I was wondering what to prepare with. I found tomatoes in the fridge and remember about these delicious dashi-tomatoes I may have seen somewhere so I prepare some: easy just wash tomatoes and boil them 2 min in dashi, then peel them. and serve with some hot dashi. And finally I found wakame that I got from the country and haven’t used yet, so I added some again in the dashi, added an egg to poach and served all in one plate. All came while I was cooking and that’s my normal cooking process, I create the meal in real time as I am cooking. That’s why I never cook twice quite the same thing and why Tokyo Paris Sister is so important to me, because it is a trace, a diary of the inspiration of the moment and it helps me keep track of all these ideas I had.

One-plate salad

This morning the farmers market showed me once again that it is not clear which season we’re in!!! The transition seems to take an unusually long time and daikon and cabbages were lined together with strawberries and new wasabi leaves. It gave me the idea to prepare us a warm/cold salad with warm green lentils from France and thick fried tofu, fresh tomatoes and wasabi leaves, with an olive oil and soya sauce dressing and finished with a few sesame seeds!

Pasta plate with smoked ham from Karuizawa

As I was mentioning, Karuizawa is a nice place to by cured meat and ham. We bought to types of smoked ham and both are really delicious. Since these are blocks it is not easy to make slices of it, and I found it a good opportunity to use dices, which in my opinion considerably changes the texture and taste, and suits very well to be mixed with other ingredients such as vegetables and pasta. So for this recipe I just boil big pasta, qanything you like is ok. And in a pan with a little of olive oil I heated eringi mushrooms cut in small pieces, then celery, diced ham and just one minute before serving dices tomatoes. I drained the pasta and add them to the pan so that they sunk in the veggies juice, and served immediately.

Setting priorities

Recently I found this urgent need to prioritize both at work and at home to get the best of my time. I don’t know if it’s specific to my job, or to being in Japan where working long hours is common yet with poor productivity, but I feel inefficient. At work it’s quite difficult to prioritize because for me the most important is research and teaching, but I spend most of the time doing paperwork, administration, budget plan and research proposals, though what I really want to do is spend more time with my students and read and write more. In the lab I’m on my own, without any assistance and a growing number of problems to solve, all being more pressing and paying often for others poor organization. At home it’s much more simple and rather the contrary, I have a lot of help, good organization and sharing tasks allow to always have time for urgent matters, and for cooking. Which is absolutely important for me because the kitchen is the place I can make the transition from work to home, set my brain to a quieter pace after the bustling day by keeping it busy with thinking and inventing but on a diffferent topic, by keeping my hands busy with a knife requiring velocity and precision. The more veggies to cut, the more relaxed. And only after that can I sit and relax. That’s why for me going to the restaurant after work is hard because I lack the transition.

So here is a little pasta dish, nothing too exciting but still delicious with trofie, plenty of leek cut in small pieces and diced tomatoes, olive oil of course too!  Something that just require the perfect amount of time to move on and of knife manipulation to stay focused. Happy Wednesday!

Mexican inspiration

It’s cold in the evening and I am glad the week is almost finished, I can only look forward the days to come in the country with some discussions for the reform of the bathroom! So to cheer us up for the last draw I prepared a colorful plate with plenty of yummy fresh veggies. It started as being vegan, but in the end I added some scrambled eggs with coriander.

From left in counter clockwise order: fresh heirloom tomatoes, chopped red cabbage, tofu and avocado spicy mix topped with fresh coriander, coriander scrambled eggs, corn flour galettes.  For the tofu avocado I drain a firm (momen) tofu and mix it with one avocado, add some spices of your choice, and some fresh coriander. For the corn galette I mix corn flour and water and fry them in a pan, you can also add one egg for better and quicker cooking. The scrambled eggs are simple scrambled eggs into which I added chopped coriander. The rest is just raw tomatoes and cabbage. No dressing.

Colorful winter plate

It’s incredible the sudden change in temperature and weather, one day is winter, one day spring. Some of the plum trees in the garden ate already starting to bloom which is incredibly early. So for the food it’s one meal winter one meal spring and a colorful is always welcome and with a beautiful red cabbage a plate is always a feast, with tomatoes, baby leaf salad, avocado, whole rice and scramble eggs with sesame.

Just the perfect boost before a new week! 

Brandade

This recipe is one of our mother recipe and is a traditional Provencal recipe using the leftovers of salted cod . After the cod has been unsalted and washed, just boiled it, then add milk and stir until the milk has been all absorbed by the fish. Add pepper and olive oil, stir again.  This mixture, called “brandade” is delicious on toasted bread, with boiled potatoes, as a spread or to stuff veggies. It’s good eaten either warm or cold. Here is a preparation of stuffed cherry tomatoes, perfect for a buffet or finger food.

The TPS in Menfi, Sicily

On Saturday the Tokyo-Paris sisters flew to Roma and then straight to Palermo where they are spending some time with their families in a big villa in the south of Sicily, in Menfi. The weather is amazing, the landscape is just as expected, and so are the people. The Mediterranean sea is beautiful and swimming in December is really nice without going to a tropical destination! A lot of time spent outside, walking and visiting. The food is also amazing:  cauliflowers, artichokes, fennels, oranges, tangerines, olives… So far it’s perfect.

So let’s start with a perfect “Sicilian” salad with fresh fennels, tomatoes, lettuce, artichokes in vinegar and oil, and a bit of olive oil, served with Italian sesame bread, and eventually speck, and topped with fresh parmegiano.

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