Pesto and pop Eden salad

That’s a pretty crunchy lunch. That’s all lightness but that was very filling. I don’t think these pink flowers are edible. They decorate South-Asian dish. Their presence gives a paradise dream touch to any dish. I picked a box on sale, and I’ve build my jungle around them.

Starting with a bunch of fresh basil.

Let’s pound a pesto in the mortar : basil, sesame, garlic, salt. Plus : olive oil, lemon juice.

Rosy spring cauliflower.

Other raw veggies : new onion, yellow bell pepper, cucumber, favas (broad beans).

The raw vegetables marinated one hour in the pesto.

Place the veggies on a bed of baby leaf salad and more basil leaves.

Add freshly roasted pop corn on top. Add flowers to decorate.

na-no-hana

My green fix, with nanohana (rape blossoms.

With some râpées (grated potatoes, with cut of nanohana and parsley).

The soup is made of the stalks and bigger leaves of the nanohana, juiced. And some fresh sakekasu (sake lees). The soup is cooked a few minutes till it thickens.

That’s a new one. It’s less sweet than the Autumn one, but still sweet and mellow. That balances the bitterness of the vegetable.

Steamed blossoms to complete. That’s a a very green lunch.

Flower power pasta

Two flowers and a dish of spaghetti. Happy !

My beloved nanohana are back on the market. They are the unopened blossoms of rape (the plant to make rapeseed/canola oil) and the greens around.

Lots of leaves… They sell some like that, with lots of stalk, cheaply. It’s possible to buy only the blossom part and the first leaves, and it’s more expensive.
The pasta dish is very simple. I blanched the nanohana in the pasta water (1 minute before the end). Then added on the pasta, with parsley, salt, olive oil.

There are still some edible miniature chrysanthemum. I think it’s good to eat flowers to fight pollen allergy. So I just placed them as toppings.

A side dish : natto, kimchi, and cut shungiku (chrysanthemum leaves).

wrapping fresh veggies

A quick lunch. It’s cold but I was craving for raw freshness, vegetables, not fruits. So let’s go…

Home-made tortillas, just flour and olive oil, a little salt and lots of black pepper this time.

Kabu, Japanese turnips are delicious raw or in pickles. Here, just cut.

Shungiku, chrysanthemum leaves, the long type.

More green.

Yep, commercial sweet chili sauce. I’m lazy.

Just wrap. Oh, I made hot green tea. I felt good eating a pair of these.

The ozone layer of the New Year…

This is a bowl of O-zoni.
First soupe du jour, well soupe de l’an of the year. First lame pun of the year. Yes, Miss 49th, you were right to expect it.

Ozoni is a New-Year soup that is eaten…. half of the year in Kansai. Clearly, when you empty your fridge in a pot of broth, you get one. No, no, I don’t want to break the romantic image. Today’s zoni is the first of 2012. This year’s first time. The maiden soup.

The recipe of ozoni is totally defined by the name. BTW, this year. you are all reading nihongo.
So お雑煮 means literally “da n’importe quoi stew“. And n’importe quoi can be anything. Like here :

Japan having 30 millions of families, I have in my data base 30 millions version the true and unique zoni recipe. Plus one per year, for myself.

The soup is either water or broth (usually fish, many variations) :
-salt
-shoyu soy sauce (many types)
-miso (many types)
-azuki beans
-natto (fermented beans)

Gourmande’s 2012 zoni : duck broth and standard beige miso. I’m not the only crazy ozonist. You can read about curry soup ones on the big internet…

Then, you can put meat, seafood, fish, kamaboko fish cakes, meat bowls… I had tofu.

And veggies. These blue things are kuwai (arrow-heads, read more here), I peeled them. Flower yaki fu (gluten croutons). A ring of negi leeks. Bits of rind of a yuzu for the citrus fragrance.
Carrot.
Also threw in chrysanthemums, wasabi leaves, small green asparagus.

And MOCHI. Unless, you are really poor and no rice is produced in your mountain village, so you use a taro instead. That’s unlikely in 2012.