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

Swedish mean balls

Oh they’ve done nothing bad. It’s just they are not made of meat so they needed a new name. And they’re served with Japanese greens. That’s still the Nordic and Swedish inspiration for flavors. As you know, I’m a bean maniac, so here is another delicious way to get my daily serving of great plant protein. It’s a vegan menu.

Double bean, onion and negi balls, baked 20 minutes.

I’ve used hanamame giant beans and black soy beans, both are mashed, mixed with minced onion and negi leek white, spice with Chinese miso, a little pasted sesame, thyme, laurel, nutmeg, pepper. For the binding some buckwheat flours. The greens are komatsuna.

A laurel and thyme flavored onion gravy with a little bit of oil and flour to start a small roux, very little, just for the color. I’ve let it simmer while the balls were baked and passed the mixer at the end to smooth it.

The balls and a few beans reheated in the gravy. I’ve added a little veg’ cream.

That’s how they look inside. A nice texture, a bit crunchy around.

The veggies are briefly stir-fried with just a little oil. No seasoning.

I had no cranberries or whatever similar preserve. So I’ve soaked prunes and mikan orange peel in strong hot tea, and after one hour, roughly mashed. That gives a Christmas mood jam, high in citrus flavor but not too sweet.

The veggies, the sauce, the balls, all together… Yummm…

Mousse de saumon et pain polaire

A little Nordic table : smoked salmon mousse, cardamom polar bread and some greens…

A creamy fishy spread.

Freshly made bread (Recipe here).

Fresh and feisty…

Monthly pick, October in a pumpkin

That was a quiet month of October, with a come back of Autumn fruits (nashi pear, ringo apple, kaki persimmon, akebi, green yuzu lime…) and veggies (potato, sweet potato, oya-imo taro, , kuromame black beans, togarashi peppers…)
You can browse photos :

To see most menus last month (click)
To see mostly desserts
To see only vegan meals

Everything pumpkin was a hit, photo kabocha menu

Bread ::: Velouté of kabocha
erissery ::: risotto
okowa in kabocha ::: kabocha kibbeh
kabocha salad ::: kabocha pizza
tofu kabocha cake ::: samosa
tarte au potiron 1 :: tarte au potiron 2 :: tarte au potiron 3

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And I made a few culinary trips :

To Brazil

++ Pão de queijo

To South-East-Asia

To Sweden

To France’s countryside :

I experimented a few pretty desserts :

apple pastis

pon de rin and millefeuilles

Polar bread for shrimp cheese Swedish wraps

Let’s go to have lunch in Ike…ah, I mean Sweden. I’ve never visited either actually, but I’ve eaten polar breads like Tunnbröd , the soft flat wrap type. That’s my version with my pantry’s items.
And I enjoyed those fresh and tasty wraps.

Dough : 1 cups of flour, 1/2 oats, salt, 2 tbs sugar, 1/4 ts yeast, cardamome seeds, 4 tbs yogurt, hot water, 2 tbs oil

I made a soft dough, I had to kneed it with a spoon. Let it 45 minutes at 38 degrees C, till it doubled volume. Then, shaped in crepes and made holes with a fork.