Tofu lasagna and farm fruits

Not the Italian lasagne. 豆腐ラザニア tofu rasaniya It’s a Japanese comfort dish. Not an homonym, it’s really inspired by the pasta dish but without the pasta. You are left with very soft tofu in Italian style sauces. Warm and tender. It’s usually served with rice.

Fruits like those you pick in the backyard. I went to the countryside. I have some from a farm, others from farmer’s market. They are the fruits you can see in local woods right now, kaki persimmons, mikan oranges, yuzu citrus. You can see two types of kaki, some rounds and some ogive ones. The latter may be shibui (tart) and the farm lady said we should guess… A bit of branch is left and if they are tart, we can do that.

That’s a quickly thrown casual meal. I had tomato sauce, silky tofu and these blanched veggies : bell peppers and ninniku no me (garlic stalks).

For the cheezy sauce as usual sake kasu, miso and this time the oil was sesame oil. I have added grated ukon (turmeric).

Alternate and bake. I topped with toasted bread crumbs.

Genmai, brown rice. I was given good farm rice too.

Serve very hot. Mmmm…

Gourmande November round up

Sweet potato (satsuma imo), potato and persimmon (kaki) season is back.

That’s the album about most of my November meals : November eats. And for vegan menus here.

These are the main topics and visitors’ current obsessions :

Tian casserole with potatoes
Satsuma imo soufflées
Kakicannelle persimmon

Classic revival :
kneppes (Lorraine’s pasta)
roasted chicken
French fries
tarte orangette
simple tarte au chocolat (silky chocolate pie)

Nordic wave :

Mousse de saumon et pain polaire

Swedish bean balls

Plus :
polar bread shrimp wrap
crispbread
mini buckwheat blinis salmon bites

American mood :

Natural yummy banana pudding

raw pumpkin pie

creamy pumpkin pie
Obama pizza
Chicago pizza

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On the road to Christmas :
nutty truffles

Saint-Nicolas, Kurisumasu, Christmas, Noël on Pinterest

sesame Japanese Xmas

Christmas desserts

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Kabocha forever

Steamed rice pudding and burnt kabocha.

Kabocha pumpkin on pinterest

kabocha and hijiki

kabocha mousse

Creamy bean gratin

Many veggies around a hot gratin. Another easy lunch.

2 servings of (frozen) white beans as a base. Plus tomato paste, garlic, sage, silky tofu. On top, parmesan cheese and olive oil.

Simple one ingredient recipe : small Japanese turnips. And that’s all.

They get dried and slightly “burnt” first. The juice caramelised and gave them a sweet taste.

I should get more leafy greens no ? Oh, an idea :

Express kale soup (powder for smoothies) with South-Asian spices : galangal, lemon grass, leafs of citrus.

Tofu-lasagna ranchero

A very quick and easy Winter dinner.

The tofu is too soft and full of water. It has to be “dried” and made firmer. One way, which I used, is to place the block of tofu it between to plates, and top the second plate with a sauce pan. Wait 30 minutes, get rid of water. Quicker way, but not so good in this case is to put it on a plate, nuke (slow strength) 2 minutes, get read of water, repeat twice. Then you can slice it.

Tomato, shishito peppers, rosemary, garlic, olive oil…

Alternate 2 layers of tofu and 3 of sauce, keeping the bits for inside. Top with sweet corn and cheese. Bake 20 minutes.
Top with raw shishito, ground black pepper and olive oil. Pass 3~5 minutes under the broiler.

Enjoy very hot ! With hot chili Louisiana sauce or Tabasco if you like.

Blanc-manger de poulet, when dessert becomes a meal

Hard to tell which come first, the savory or the sweet version… The origine of the word blanc-manger date back to Middle-Age, and that was not one dish, but a whole concept. There were blanc-manger in meals like there are blanks in conversation.
This savory chicken version has survived in the unwritten theasaurus of French family recipes.