Zuke-noodles with masala sauce

An easy to eat plant based noddle dish, for a lunch in *hell*. Oh, besides the humid heat, the weather is superb. So let’s invite Indian spices to the table.

These are the beasts, zucchini. I grated them into noodles.

That’s the yield for one zucchini. I didn’t use the second.

I don’t like them raw, so I steamed them a little. I ate them half-raw. Sprinkled turmeric, added a few peanuts.

The sauce is made of kintoki red beans, their broth, ground sesame, tomato paste, fish sauce and lots of garam masala Indian spice mix.

The side is tofu, kimchi, aonori seaweeds.

So not much sweat require to prepare this. It was served at room temperature. Mmmm… I feel courage to face the heat now. Let’s do a siesta.

Baked beans for a hot day

Classic baked beans are great to start the day, but not what you’d want when temperature is soaring.

Well, I’ve taken cooked Kintoki red beans, added lots of tomato paste, garlic, cumin, salt, pepper. And “baked” in the micro-wave oven, briefly.
Then I’ve mixed in the flesh os 1/4 of lemon, let cooled at room temperature. Decorated with negi leeks and a slice of lemon.

The sourness of the sauce is refreshing. Room temperature food is ideal. Too hot, that warms you even more. Cold then ? That makes you feel the contrast.

A side of grits-polenta.

Rings of chili are hidden in the grits.

Miso mix

A delicious and easy vegetable dish.

Daikon radish, green beans.

Corn and Kintoki red beans.

L.O. carrot, spinach and bell pepper.

Miso as flavoring.

That’s ready.

Served. Oh what’s missing ?

A few leaves of shiso maybe.

A Spring minestrone with nira

Some dishes follow you around the years :

a Winter minestrone with mizuna and pancetta

But as the seasons turn, ingredients vary.

Spring ingredients, quickly simmered : kintoki beans and their broth, new potatoes boiled with their skin, celery, green beans, bell pepper, pasted garlic, black pepper.

Taisho Kintoki beans