Carotene lunch

Baked paprika, carotene powered.
I am not sure the body tells what it needs, but I wanted to eat this yellow orange color. I like thinking these food bring a lot of antioxidant β-carotene that I need now. Even if I’m wrong, I’ve eaten something good.

A yellow paprika and carrot *okara*. I made carrot juice, they are the grounds.

The filling is azuki beans, new onion, the carrot *okara*, turmeric, garlic, chili pepper, salt.

Baked. I’ve put a drizzle of olive oil on top. That favors vitamin absorption.

Today’s salad : chrysanthemum, young onion (salted, let 20 minutes, rinsed), parsley and ninniku no me (garlic stalks).

Dessert : citrus flavored torta di riso (see here).

A nice little three course meal, ready in few minute. The dessert was made a few days ago.

Creamy garden pasta

Pasta can be very healthy… at the condition you don’t use it to replace your greens. Have both together.
This dish is particularly easy to digest. It’s creamy but not in the Alfredo way.

The Spring produce : green peas and new onion are today’s guests.

That’s a one-pot dish : I add the veggies in the pot with the pasta, just not from the start so they don’t overcook.

For the sauce, I mixed home-made soy yogurt, lots of minced parsley, salt, black pepper and secret touch : coriander seed + nutmeg.

The sauce added on the hot plate will tenderly coat the pasta.

Le nouveau gâteau truffe au chocolat , with soy yogurt

Not your grandma’s usual yogurt, not her salon de thé ‘s truffe au chocolat. I had no intention to remake them. The cake ended up similar just like that as I was improvising. Lucky !

Freshly made soy yogurt

It’s the greatest soy yogurt for me. Commercial soy yogurt are always on the runny side of creamy, or on the jello side. And the Japanese soy yogurt, oh my, I’d never eat that, it’s over-sweetened and flavored with with stevia that I loath.
This one has a texture of… yogurt. And a taste of soy. It’s perfect.
Don’t skip the sugar, it helps maturation and the result is not sweet at all.

Easy recipe :
-make one liter of thick tonyu soy milk (tutorial)
-in a small cup mix 1 tbs of potato starch, 1/4 of agar, 1/2 cup of soy milk. Cook a few seconds in the micro-wave till its thickens. You get a mess.
-in the blender, mix the warmed soy milk, the cup of starch, 1 tbs of sugar, 2 tbs of store bough soy yogurt
-let overnight in a yogurt maker

Tip : you can take a thermos/thick pot with a lid, place glass bin in the middle, very hot water around…and you have a yogurt maker. I do that for smaller batches.

Freshly made soy ‘Greek’ yogurt.
Drained in a cheese cloth (from the pharmacy), let overnight in the fridge. Drink the whey or use it for cooking, it’s full of healthy probiotics.

Other dairy-like ideas : my diary-free diary.

Now, let’s make the cake : I whip all that to make a chocolate mousse.

A nutty biscuit base (just blend all together).

Composition : the base, a layer of mousse, slices of kumquat, more mousse, cocoa.
The result is really bluffing. That’s not exactly looking like those from the pâtissier‘s, but that’s as close as you dream of getting for some sweet you make like that in 10 minutes. Taste is divine…

These kinkan (kumquats) are still in season and visible in the streets.

Crème de sakura (sakura an)

桜餡sakura an is the girlie version of anko, the classic sweet bean paste used to make Japanese sweets.

It is traditionally flavored with pickled sakura.

Dried daifuku mame. They are big white beans, very convenient to make Japanese sweets.

After soaking and cooking.

1. Paste the beans.
2. Add color (beni koji for red) and syrup or sugar. I also add a little brandy.
3. Pass the paste through a sieve.
4. Add pickled minced sakura leaves (for strong taste) and/or flowers (for lighter taste and pink bits in the mass).
5. Let a few hours, so the paste takes the full flavor.

The pickled sakura must be rinsed and soaked, otherwise they are really too salty.

That’s the finished paste. It can be used in sweets and breads.

With the rest of paste that didn’t pass the filtering, and some leftover of anko bean paste, I made a toast.

Wagashi Saga : Japanese sweet posts and tutorials.

Recipes using sakura-an :
sakura mochi
double sakura waffles
sakura anpan

Lotus and edamame eggs in a soba nest

As Spring arrives, I have to cook my quota of Easter eggs.
What comes first ? The egg or the nest ?

Let’s say it’s the egg. Some eggs, like those of quail are irregular in colors, just like that.

The eggs are made of pasted edamame beans and broken renkon lotus root. There is also onion, garlic, white miso and for a cheezy touch some bits of sake kasu. I have cooked the paste then shaped.

The nest.

I had seen some “cookies” made from soba noodles, so I knew they were tasted after being dried.
I have simply baked fresh soba buckwheat noodles under the grill of the oven toaster. The noodles are boiled, but cold. I have not added any flavoring, they are delicious that way.

It’s crispy around and soft inside.

Tsubomina and lotus root stir-fry as a side.

Sakura okowa as a second side (details here).

That’s a Spring lunch for me.