Sandwich, sounds like ordinary?

Sandwiches are deep.

They can be grummet with nice sauces, even using minimum ingredients.

The key is choosing topings and sauces wisely.

Here's one of my sandwich recipes recently I made.

Mediterranean food inspired spicy prawn sandwich.

Caper iori sauce(will make loughly 1cup)

Capers 1tsp

Garlic 2 cloves

Dijon 1 tbsp

EVO (olive oil )250ml

Salt and pepper

Pan roasted pepper

Yellow or orange or red pepper 1 pc sliced in julian

 EVO

S+P

Spicy prawns

Prowns 4,without head, devained

Caiene powder 1/2 tsp

Cumin seed a pinch

S+P

EVO 

Lemon zest, lemon juice,hint of

Caper iori

Put dijon and caper, peeled garlic in a food processor.

Mixing them and adding the EVO very slowly.Don't add oil at once. It will be split.

Once the mixture reached stable and saucy, add oil more quickly, add salt and pepper to finish.

Pan roasted pepper

Just like you make stair fries, stair the pepper, salt and pepper to finish.

Make them bunch and keep it in air tight container, you can use them for salad, sandwiches, any other toppings.(2days)

Spicy prawns

Clean the prawns and put in a bowl, add spices and S+P and marinate.

Heat the pan high heat(I used same pan after the peppers.), put EVO, fry the prawns.

Once the prawn's edge became curly( if devained) and have nice colour, flip and fry, add hint of lemon zest and lemon juice.

Add white wine will increase flavor.

For the sandwich, I added spinach and tomatoes.

What is your soul food?

Being too tired by work?

Feeling like something is missing?

It is time to touch your soul..I'm not going to write about spirituality, I will write about my soul food, or my soul pot.

When I feel like needing some relieving, I eat my home country's food.

As I  am originally from Japan, rice and noodles are my soul food.

When I make rice,

I don't use a rice cooker.

Instead of it, I use a Japanese cray pot.

I used to work at a local western style restaurant in Canada, making rice was one of my job duties.

When I started the job, I didn't know very well that how to make rice with a pot and other chefs made fun of me (everybody was like a friend).

So, I practiced to make good rice with a pot at home.

I could use a regular pot, but I remember that someone said the cray pot is better than metal one and I tried, it was true.The rice had much better moisture and the texture was perfect.

Since then, I always use a cray pot when I cook rice at home.

Everyone might not have it in western world, of course..But in Japan, this is one of a popular items in our kitchen.
Most people uses it for hot pot and stews.
I've made mejardra (meddle eastern lentil stew) with the pot and it turned to be better than using a metal pot.
So, I think the cray pot works for many type of cooking.

Even though there are few miner cracks on the bortom, I can use it. Starch from rice fixes them.

Recipe

Rice 1 cup

Water 1 cup * basically same amount of rice, you can add slight extra amount, dependent on type of rice, and your stove's heat.Try and see.
*If you like brown rice, soak them in a water over night.White rice : don't need to be soaked.

Put rice and water in a cray pot and put the lid on, bring it to be boiled with high heat.
When the water reached really high like bubble comes up, change the heat to middle, slight slide the lid to get the steam out of the pot.
Leave it for 15 min and when all the water is gone and the rice look like shine and moist,
put the lid on to steam the rice for 10-15 min.This steaming is really important for perfect rice.

Looks like a UFO?

My long time kitchen friend.

The crack on the bottom.Still she does good jobs.

Perfect!

How was your Easter?

To me, Easter = Chocolate. 
You know, in every christian related events, people give people chocolates, that is awesome.

After the holidays,don't you think you have a bit too much chocolate if you live by yourself.
Here's an idea for you, without wasting chocolates, avoiding gain your pounds.
Let's make chocolate spread with ingredients from your fridge.

Recipe: 

Sterilize the bottle(s) for keeping the spread.This is important! 

How to: put the jar without the lid 10 min in 350F oven and remove from the heat.

Boil the lid in a small pot with boiling water, and dry it.

Chocolate, semi sweet or bitter, any kinds but no filling or nuts 200 g 
Peanuts butter or almond butter, hazel nuts butter, ( I recommend organic) 2 Tbsp
Sunflower seed oil or coconuts oil 1/4cup

Soy milk or milk 3Tbsp

Maple syrup or honey 1Tbsp

Cococa powder 1 Tbsp
*Use good chocolate as much as you have -  if you have sensitive taste buds.

Chop the chocolate.As thin as you can is the best.
If you have a larger baking tray than your cutting board, put the baking tray under the cutting board.It works to catch the chocolate chunks out side of the board.

Boil the water in a pot.
 In a heatproof bowl that fits over the pot, put chopped chocolate and everything. Change the heat into medium.

When the chocolate started to melt, change the heat in low, occasionally mix with spatula or wooden spoon, be careful for the temperature goes too high. It will spread the chocolate and oil.

When you felt the temperature went too high, remove the bowl immediately from the heat. 

When it shines, time to put your nut butter. Combine them together and remove it from the heat.

Additional: when you melt the chocolate, add vanilla beans or some liquor will make the spread fancy up.
Put the spread in your favourite airtight jar.

Sorry..bunny...

On the edge of chocolate is slight separate. If you like it to be perfect, you shouldn't bring it like this.
Otherwise if you are laid back and easy going, it works fine.

Love vintage jars.

Use your leftover Jam

I like Jam.

Sometimes I make my own, when summer comes.

 A bottle of jam, it is too much amount if I use it only toasts for myself.

Maybe put it in yogurt?

Here is another two ideas.

You can make a nice soda.

Only two ingredients:

1 or less table spoon of jam 

 a glass of sparkling water

Melt the jam : mixing with a bit of hot water.

Put in the jam, sparkling water and mix them together, put ice in.

Berries or cherry jam are the best. If you want it more fancy, add a hint of lemon zest and juice. Put mint leaves on the top, here you have perfect summer drink!

Adding liqur in it, you can make beautiful cocktail.

Pork tenderloin with fruits sauce sounds difficult? Using jam, super easy.

Just fry the pork with white wine and salt + pepper, once the meat have been done, remove from the pan.

Keep the pan on the stove with super low heat, put 2 table spoon of jam in remaining gravy and let them combine.

If you want serious gravy sauce, put 2 tsp flour and 1/2 tsp mustard, will be a bit tricky when you combine them into the gravy.I will write it about in the future.

..and done! I used cherry Jam. Might be nice with berry jams or orange marmalade too.

Breakfast fiesta 1

I am really bad at getting out of bed quickly. Once I checked it out the clock on my iphone, I often start to check other apps and other social networking sites, emails...It is waste of time.
I thought that I might need some projects to get out of bed faster - is..."breakfast fiesta".
Good breakfast makes me get out of bed easily and able to keep my energy long for the day.
Even just pieces of toast, adding just few crafty toppings will make everyday breakfast interesting.
I have bunch of toast topping ideas, here are few of them.

I will write down more toast ideas when I get more photos.

Cocoa sugar, coconuts flakes, peanut butter under the knees.

For the cocoa sugar recipe, powder sugar : cocoa = 1 : 4, use tea strainer to sprinkle it.

 Clementine slices and almond slices,butter and brown sugar. Toast it until sugar gets melt. 

Walnuts, raisins, maple syrup, butter.

Don't waste your sunny day!

Omelette, too easy for you?

Since this is Easter weekend, I might write about something related with it- and I was thinking...turkeys are too big for one person..may write about eggs.

 Cooking eggs sounds like too easy?

Yes, it is really simple, you don't need very much technique.
You don't need to flip the egg in the air when you fry it.

It is almost all about timings and how do you heat - if you don't know that how do you like it to be done, your egg dish will be boring and not so appreciable.

About cooking eggs, there are few type of process,

I will talk about boiling eggs and fried eggs, poached eggs or Japanese egg recipes next time, today I will write about omelet.

Recipe:

Good eggs, preferably free range 2

Salt + pepper your taste(preferably natural salt)

Olive oil 1 Tbsp

Butter 1/2Tbsp

Crack the eggs, salt + pepper it and whisk very well.If you feel like wild (lazy?) you can use a folk instead of a whisk, but mix it super to add air in.If you feel like extraordinary (?) use hand blender.The mixture will be very smooth.

The point is when you droped the egg liquid from the whisk, the liquid looks like a ribbon was falling, I mean, it quickly fell.Also if you desired, add cream or milk a bit.

Heat up a nonstick frying pan with medium high heat, put olive oil.

Spread the oil evenly on the pan.When the oil started run smoothly, time to add the egg mixture.

Let the egg bottom gets set (about less than 30 sec).

Once reach there, tack the edge of the egg to the centre, to let the liquid egg run into the bottom.

For this process, using non stick spatula is the best, but not necessary.You can use your regular utensils for your nonstick pan(Don't use the metal ones!!).
Wait for a minutes and voila, almost there.. egg will be fluff and looks like pan cake.
If you like the egg to be loose, fold the egg into half.
If you like it to be harder, using spatula(or without it if you are the pro!), flip the egg and fry both sides.
 At last, put the butter on it.Why I put the butter in this timing? Butter can burn easily.

I go wild today.

Made millet salad from the leftover millet and beans. Otherwise vinaigrette for the salad seasoning, a hint of curry powder worked well.

This book - makes me want to eat omelette.I stealed this from my mother's bookshelf.

Oh at last, my food photo is on a paper, the province.

Thank you, gastropost!

The photo is cute peanuts butter cup at exile bistro.

Mangiare cacciatore

From the last post, here I will introduce a dish using the tomato sauce.

Chicken cacciatore inspired meal.

Chicken cacciatore is hunter style chicken, usually with garlic,onion, bell peppers and tomato, wine.

I used one more veggetable, zucchini for the colour(actually it stayed in my fridge for few days that's why).

First,here is a bit out of subject, about buying meats.

I will recommend you to buy meats from butcheries, the meats taste much, much better than at supermarkets. Don't worry about it will cost a bit higher than at super markets -  the taste will make you really happy and you will appreciate about what you are eating.

Second, the recipe..

Checken thights with born and skin about 100-120g

Salt+Pepper

Flour about 3 Tbsp

Olive oil about 2Tbsp

Garlic 1clove

Onion 1/4 diced small

Yellow or red pepper 1/3 diced small

Zucchini (optional) 1 inch, diced small

Tomato sauce(see the last post) half of the recipe

White wine about 30ml

Bay leave 1

Salt+Pepper the chicken and dust with flour.

Pan fry the chicken with oil until both surface gets golden, remove the meat from the pan, keep the oil.

Put onion in the pan and stair it until it become transparent.

Put other vegetables, stir it few minutes and put Tomato sauce and white wine, bay leave and move them into a small pot.

Put the chicken in the pot, braise for 30 min, finish with salt and pepper.

Third, the photos..

Dust,salt and pepper the chicken.

 Chopping with drinking.Don't drink too much..

Nice colouration.

 This wine.Too smooth to drink..I didn't get drunk, though.

Mangiare!

I served with millet with beans this time, I felt the cacciatore is too rich for the millet ,it is better fitting with pasta.

First post

I launched this blog to show off how  I enjoy bachelorette living..Kidding.
I just found out cooking is one of events to enjoy staying at home by myself.
When I was looking at recipes, I often felt that those recipes are too big amount or take too much time to cook for one person.
So that I decided to share easy and fun recipes for single living folks.(If you have family, just times the number please! )Easy but everything from scratch.

First post is..Tomato sauce.
When I feel like lazy to make dinner or lunch, as most of people do, I go pasta.
You want to buy a bottle of tomato sauce?You should start to make time for your own sauce instead of buying it.
Once you had good sauces, your food life will be more awesome.
Tomato sauce is the simplest sauce in the world, it reminds me Japanese dashi sauce.Only few ingredients can make difference for the meal.
You can keep it in a fridge for few days, or you can keep it in a freezer for a week.

Recipe:
For two meals
Small can whole tomato, crush with folk or blender
Olive oil     3 table spoon
Garlic         1 clove crushed
Chilli(dry)   1 piece
Salt as your taste
Sugar 1/2 teaspoon
Black pepper as your taste
Bay leaves 1
Basil(dry) 1 teaspoon

Put olive oil in a pot and heat it up.
Put crushed garlic and chilli, infuse the taste and fragrant.
Put Can tomato, bay leaves and stew them about 20 min.
Make the taste with sugar, salt and pepper, basil.Put salt as good amount is the key to success - Good luck!