xmas breakfast: baked egg cups

So easy... chop up yummy ingredients of your choice, place in ramekin, crack an egg on top, add a dash of cream, 11 minutes in a 350 degree oven (ramekins must be on a baking sheet)... and bingo, egg cups! These have leftovers from other meals (roasted asparagus, kielbasa, gruyere). Enjoy!

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Xmas eve dinner

S's eggplant parm. The best.

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Monster CSA Post I

Farfalle with turnip greens and prosciutto

Sausage and lentil stuffed acorn squash

Lemon boy choy, tofu, snow pea stir fry

Beet and goat cheese ravioli

Carrot soufflé

Acorn squash pie

We mostly tried to keep things simple, because of the amount of prep that fresh farm vegetables need.  Not that it is so onerous, especially because we aren't in classes now, but we like to keep cooking a joy and not a chore.  Make agains: farfalle (love the hint of bitterness in the tender turnip greens), carrot souffle (CSA carrots are heavenly), and acorn squash pie (so sweet, it barely needed sugar).  Tweaks: wonton wrappers are not an acceptable wrapper for ravioli, it is decided, but the simple filling of pureed roasted beets with goat cheese is divine.  Bok choy was fine but unexciting.  Stuffed acorn squash - fail.  Maybe this was a not sweet or just huge acorn squash, but despite an hour in the oven it was undercooked and tasteless.  The acorn squash we used for the pie was so amazing it really barely needed sugar to be dessert.  We are squash novices so we'll have to keep testing cooking methods for it.  This isn't even half of what we've been cooking up, so many more monster CSA posts will follow....

Obsessed with Microwave mochi

Hello, lover

Mochi has been a favorite treat since childhood.  But I had never even considered as make-able at home, as I assumed you needed an (expensive) mochi machine, not really available in the US, to make the dough.  However, whist wandering around on the interwebs as per usual, I discovered that people have been making mochi with, wait for it, their MICROWAVES.  I had to try it.

It's amazing.  Really.  Now I am obsessed.  Above you see my matcha green tea mochi filled with adzuki red bean paste. 

Here's my version of the recipe/protocol, with slightly different proportions and more tacit knowledge made explicit from this blogger's original:

1 Cup of Mochiko sweet rice flour
2 tsp Matcha powder
2 TBSP sugar
3/4 Cup of water
1 Can of adzuki bean paste
Cornstarch for dusting

Before starting anything, put the adzuki bean paste into a tupperware container and refrigerate.  When ready to make mochi, put some cornstarch onto a plate, which you will use to prep the mochi.  Have two spoons and a measuring cup with a flat bottom handy.  Put Mochiko, Matcha, sugar, and water into a microwaveable bowl and mix to form a paste.  Microwave the paste for 2 minutes, take out, stir a little, and then microwave for 2 minutes more.  Remove the hot bowl from the microwave, and let the mochi dough sit until you can touch it (it is wicked hot, but I am impatient and have a high tolerance for touching hot things so I start right away).  Dust your fingers with cornstarch to deal with the mochi dough.  Use a spoon (dipped in cornstarch) to take a heaping spoon of the dough, plop it on the cornstarch covered plate, dip the bottom of the measuring cup with mochi flour, and pound the dough into a flat circle.  Spoon the bean paste into the circle and then pinch it closed, shaping it into an oval.  Brush all sides with a light dusting of the cornstarch.  Repeat until you have used up all the dough.  You will have lots of paste left so feel free to make more dough.  Each cup of Mochiko makes about 6-8 mochis.  Happy cooking, but please do not hold me responsible if you burn your fingers with hot sticky sweet rice flour paste.

Bad blogger, good finder...

Sorry, blog.  I have been ignoring you.  But I have been eating well due to myself & Mr. O's membership in a CSA.  Mr. O in particular has been cooking up a storm.  A monster blog post about our CSA treats is coming, but in the meantime, I am happy to report that I have FINALLY found what looks to be a credible recipe for the The Counter's veggie burger, the best veggie burger I have ever had!  Unfortunately the "roasted vegetable mix" is not spelled out specifically, and the recipe makes 181 servings.  Other searching suggests that the mix is red bell peppers, carrots, and zucchini.  Must try, and will report back!

Two secrets (not my own) that I don't want to forget

1. You can speed up the maillard reaction when caramelizing onions by adding a pinch of baking soda.

2. When you want to "puree" garlic while you are chopping on your cutting board, add some salt so that the grains help to mash the garlic.

Nitakiya Kinsai, omakase heaven

S & I were lucky enough to experience one of the best meals of our LIVES in Tokyo, in a neighborhoody yet elegant izakaya named Nitakiya Kinsai, in Naka-Meguro.  We were accompanied by (and really could not have done without) our now-fluent Japanese speaking friend, T, under the recommendation of another good friend, L, who unfortunately could not join us in Japan this time.

But onto the food.  Friends, everything was as delicious as it looked.  Because I don't speak Japanese (though I definitely want to learn), I can't tell you as much as I'd like to about the food, but I will tell you how much I enjoyed it!

We put ourselves in the Kinsai chefs' hands, and requested an omakase dinner.  This meant that each lovely course would be a surprise, and would no doubt consist of fresh, seasonal, and creative dishes.

So delicious.

Course one started off with a light, lemony broth, garnished with roasted sesame seeds and finely sliced chive-like herbs.

I would eat this everyday.

Course two was a kind of tofu unlike any other I have ever had.  It was soft and smooth, and had a sesame flavor reminiscent of tahini.  It sat beautifully on a shiso leaf, and was accompanied with freshly grated wasabi and delicious rock salt.  Perfect.

Almost too beautiful to eat

Course three - my first sushi (well, to be specific, sashimi) in Japan experience.  And it didn't disappoint.  There might not be an English word for the fish on the left, but delicious will have to suffice.  In the middle was a sustainable skipjack tuna, and on the right, two silvery shiny slices of delectable mackerel.  I am a surprisingly conservative raw fish eater, and normally avoid mackerel because I find it, well, too fishy!  This was amazing, because it was so fresh.  Fresh fish is just a different animal. 

You know you want to dip your spoon in...

Course four, and I could cross one thing off of my must-try list.  Sea urchin.  I've always avoided it because of my conservative fish tastes, and rightly so.  To quote T, un-fresh sea urchin tastes like toilet water.  Not so with fresh sea urchin, which is smooth and mild and salty and lovely.  It sat upon a silky egg custard, which complemented the smooth texture of the urchin quite nicely.

Nicer than a Christmas present

This wonderfully fragrant package was filled with grill-steamed mushrooms, including shitake, matsutake, and enoki mushrooms.  The matsutakes were especially out of this world, and perfectly garnished with lime juice and sea salt.  Five courses, and still more to go!

MMMMMMM.

This dish was a wonderful contrast in flavors and textures.  The ball looking thing was made from chopped shrimp and coated in finer-than-angel-hair fried pasta.  It was accompanied by a pepper, eggplant, and smooth pile of shaved daikon, and sat in a lovely mild salty dashi broth garnished with some type of mild yet fresh herb.  I could eat this one everyday too.  By course six, I was getting really full.

No more words.

And what do you eat when you are starting get full?  Meat, of course.  Though I had eaten very little meat all summer, it wasn't hard to get right back into it with all of the delicious pork in practically every dish in Japan.  However, this was amongst the best, again accompanied by sea salt, some type of sweet miso, and a very hot pepper paste in addition to juicy grilled vegetables.  Course seven, even more full.

See the pumpkin hiding in the back?

Course eight was probably my least favorite, but it was still really delicious.  Another ball in broth, this time a chicken meatball with taro, Japanese pumpkin, and summer squash.  I really enjoyed the pumpkin though, and I wish that I could buy this in Ithaca.  We'll have to try to find it on our next pilgrimage to Mitsuwa Marketplace in Edgewater, NJ.

Like a painting, isn't it?

Somehow I managed to make room for the last meal course, two beautiful pieces of sushi.  Not sure what the one on the right was, but the one on the left was a delicate, delicious piece of anago (sea eel). 

There's always room for dessert!

Though you are full, there is always, always room for dessert, isn't there?  By what magic does your stomach mysteriously make room?  A lovely bean gelatin with matcha ice cream and a dark syrupy soy based glaze, with nutty soy powder to top it.  A beautiful light finish to a robust yet delicate meal.  I will remember it forever.