Polenta, single recipe

 I bought a bag of cornmeal to make a chess pie. I needed it only a little amount and there is almost full bag of cornmeal left.

I was thinking how can I use it besides treats or corn bread, and reached to this idea.Polenta!

It will take a little time to stir it, but worth to take time for it.

Polenta with chicken and oyster mushrooms

Polenta

1/2 cp cornmeal 

1 1/2 cp water 

*optional: 1/2cp cheese

Good amount of salt

Topping

Oyster mushroom 2-3 pieces, shredded

Chicken thigh 1 piece, diced in chunk

Olive oil 2 Table spoon

Wine 2Table spoon

Salt good amount

Stir chicken with olive oil on a frying pan with medium high heat, until it's cooked, add oyster mushrooms and keep stirring, add wine and wait until they are all cooked, add salt.

On the same pan, put cornmeal ingredients with medium high heat, and bring it to boil.

Turn the heat low, keep stirring it until the polenta has been thick enough like the cornmeal doesn't settle down to the bottom.

Put a lid on the pan and leave it 5-8 minutes, and stir it again about 10 min until the texture gets nice(photo), add salt.

Add cheese if you like.

Plate it asap, chicken and oyster mushrooms on top.

I put kale with soy vinaigrette with it, tasted good with polenta.

Stir fry oyster mushroom and chicken.

On the same frying pan, put cornmeal and water.

Bring it to boil, keep stirring.

When the polenta reach this level, not soupy and thicker texture,put the heat low and put a lid on the pan.5-8min.

After 5-8min, stir it again until reach to this texture.Rich and fluffy.

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!

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!

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!