Chick peas and spinach soup "my way"

After 2 days of cold rain, which is not so common, I needed a sunny and warm dish. Since I just bought Koganei-grown spinach I come up with the idea of chick peas and spinach soup. And the idea went very well for a ready-in-ten-minutes dinner!

I cut roughly the spinach and boiled them in water where I've added a few carvi seeds and veggie consommé. In the mean time I've cooked some couscous with a few sultanas and pine nuts, and a bit of olive oil. When the spinach were soft I've added drained tinned chick peas (yes! Sometimes canned ingredients can be of tremendous help!!). And it's ready!!! The slightly spicy soup goes very well with the slightly sweet semolina, a perfect match!

Tiropita

Greek diner today with a fresh tiropita. Mix feta cheese with 3 eggs and 100g of grated cheese, plus salt, pepper and a few basilic leaves. For a softy tiropita, I add 3 spoons of ricotta (I know, it's not geek at all).

In a mould, superimpose filo sheets with butter, then the mixture and few filo sheets with butter again. 

In the oven bake for 20 minutes.

Curry-rice

One of the easiest Japanese dish to cook is curry-rice (pronunce "karey-rayiss"). I like because it is quick to prepare, and it's a warm dish you can make with whatever you have in the fridge: perfect for a Sunday lunch after spending hours in the cold treaming trees in the garden. You can use only vegetables, meat, fish or mix vegetables with meat or fish. The variety of ingredients has only the limit of your imagination! So once decided what to put inside it is super easy. I always start with an onion or a leek that I cook with a bit of oil (olive or not) or butter. Once almost brown I add carrots, sweet potatoes, potatoes, meat if any... And half cook them. Then I add a spoon of curry spice, the quantity depends on how strong you like your curry, I like mine tasty but not hot.

Then add some grinded black pepper, a bit of Japanese 7 spices (shichimi). Now it's time to prepare the roux. For that add flour and stir well the vegetables. Finally add water. In Japan there are all kinds of curry-rice, some very liquid, some quite compact. This just depends how you like it and how long you cook the roux, anyway, you can add water anytime if you find yours too thick.

In the last few minutes of cooking I sometimes add a few other veggetables tgat need short cooking time: brocoli, cauliflower, green peas... 

Ready to serve with some white Japanese rice (for some reason I find it much better than with briwn rice). Japanese eat that dish with a spoon!

Ratatouille on pancake seeds

Toady I used my famous pancakes seeds (see recipe on a previous post), and I spread a small layer of cashew nut paste (found in biocorner), then 2 spoons of french ratatouille (tomato, onion, eggplant with thyme and olive oil). But it's delicious too with fresh ceps, or pumpkin puree.

Seeds pancake

An easy recipe to make seed pancakes (to eat with vegetables or mash).
I used to make these simple seed pancakes mixing seeds of linen and sunflower (50g of each), add a big onion gilded with 2 spoons of olive oil, and add 2 spoons of soya sauce.
Then make the pancakes (10cm round and 0,5cm thickness), bake for 5-10 minutes. And now you can keep then for few days.

The seeds

The onions

Seeds, onion and soya sauce ready to be bake.

Tada!

Classic ravioli

I love ravioli and in Japan it is not easy to find good ones. So the best option I've found is to make my own.

Using my pasta machine things have become much easier.

For the filling, since my husband doesn't eat cheese I use a traditional filling with porc meat. And for the accompanying sauce a fresh tomato, olive oil and oregano. 

The result was very nice, though I think I still can improve it a little.

My version of vegetable soup

In winter soup is the best diner. My version of vegetable soup is quite similar as Gentiane's one. But I used the juice of a chicken to brown the leeks, then I add some vegetable of the market: carrot, zucchini, mushroom, Chinese cabbage and some crumbled chicken. And this time bulgur too.
You can sprinkle with a bit of parmigiano cheese.
You'll never be cold.

Fruits from the garden in various forms

We're lucky to have a garden full of trees and flowers that grow without too many difficulties. Every year at every season there is something to pick in the garden. Last week I just picked the last tangerine, now we have plenty of a sort of grapefruit (a little more sour). This year they are particularly soft and sweet so they are delicious in juices and hot lemonade.
This morning I just picked one for some fresh squeezed juice.

Yet, there are so many of them that marmalade is always a good way to enjoy them all year long.

For the recipe I use a British one of course (from the Guardian) a little modified since the fruits from the garden are not oranges, 1kg of brown sugar, 700g of fruits, 1.25L of water. Depending on how it sets I usually add some apple pips, this time it was not necessary. It made 7 jars. Can't wait to try it with some good home-made bread!

Whole-wheat baguette viennoise

Still running out of regular white flour, I prepared a whole-wheat baguette viennoise for breakfast (regular recipe from Kayser's book). Despite the granulous texture due to the whole-wheat it was perfectly soft and tender. I replaced the yolk egg batter with a whole egg batter and the color and crisp of the shell was much better too.

Spelt baguette

I wanted to make some baguette but realized I was running out of white flour, so I replaced it by spelt flour. The result was really tasty and I managed, despite the cold temperature in the house in that season, to obtain a very soft crumb in a relatively short time. 

The seven herbs rice

JOn January 7th, there is a tradition in Japan to eat a seven spring herbs rice porridge (七草がゆ). The seven herbs consist in fact in 5 sorts of greens an 2 sorts of little radishes. You don't even have to worry garhering the proper seven products they are sold as a set pretty much everywhere.

I particularly love these seven spring herbs, and because it's a one-year chance I usually cook the traditional rice porridge or a variation.

This year I went for a very simple rice-omelette with seven spring herbs.

I just steamed for 1min the seven herbs on top of a juicy omelette and served with Japanese rice. Instead of the sauce for the rice-omelette, I've just added a bit of salt. Et voila!

Navettes

We spent part of the holiday season in Aix-en-Provence, France, my home town and we went visiting some places I like and used to often when I was a kid. One of these places is the cathedral Saint Sauveur. Not that I visited this place as part of my religious up-bringing, but I spent a lot of time in the beautiful Roman cloister (freely accessible at that time) with my mother, every Wednesday morning after my dance classes until my sister would finish school and we would go home. Since at that time I couldn't eat a single thing for breakfast, we would often stop by a baker that made some navettes (not the dry one from Marseille). Visiting that place again I wanted some navettes and tried to bake some since no-one seems to make any anymore.

I found some recipes on the net and adjusted them to fit my distant memory. The shape, the color and the smell were perfect, but honestly the taste I couldn't say. It was good, but not to my expectations... I need some more adjustments before releasing any receipe...

Et voila!

I didn't took me long to open the box and try my pasta machine.

It was my very first time using a machine to make pasta so I decided to read carefully the notice and to follow my usual ravioli dough receipe (100g of flour, 1egg, a bit of milk which can be replaced by water, a bit of olive oil).

To really manage to work it out I had to had some flour, and the kitchen was a real mess, but the tagliatelle were delicious, even if there is room for improvements!!! I prepared a simple tomato sauce on the side and served them only with olive oil to enjoy fully their taste and texture.

Pasta machine!

Oh my god! For my birthday my parents offered me a pasta machine: a Marcato Atlas 150. No more irregular ravioli dough and now so many options open up!!!

I can't wait to try it!!! Probably tonight!

First bread of the year

About a year ago I've started to bake my own bread on week-ends. Not for being snobbish but because in Ohara there is no good bread, and there is nothing better than a homemade breakfast!

Using a lot Eric Kayser's book on bread making in the past 12 months I really learned a lot and manage to make some good breads, brioches, etc...

In 2015 I'm well decided to continue and learn more.

So here are my first two breads in 2015:

Rye bread and Orange bread.