Pesto at home is the best.

Summer is the season of fresh herbs- you can get them at your garden, farmers market, even at supermarkets.

Have you made pesto?

If you had hand blender or food processor, it is super simple to make.

About two cups of basil leaves( no stems)

1/4 cup Parmesan, 1/4 cup pine nuts or other buttery taste nuts( walnuts , cashew), put all them together in the blender and add 1/2 cup olive oil slowly, like steady stream.Until nice coloration (below) and add heavy salt.

Use it not only for pasta- sandwiches, dressing, etc.Add it in mayo will make unique dipping sauce.

Until this coloration 

Potatoes and beans pasta with pesto.

Hummus, handy paste

Hummus is easy and handy, you can use it wide range of food - Don't buy it if you have a blender.You can make it without an effort.Also, once you made it, it will feed you for few days.

Sandwiches, wrap, dips and salad..

Ingredients are very simple, a small can of chick pea, 1clove garlic, 1/4 cup olive oil, 1/2 of a lemon juice, salt and pepper, blend all together with food blender.If you like it to be creamier, add tahini.You can put cayenne on top for the kick.Add oregano for more flavor. 

-Najib pita inspired wrap

Easy najib (like)cauliflower :

Half Cauliflower cut into chunks( the photo is purple cauliflower )

Salt +pepper

Olive oil 3Tbsp

Lemon juice : 1/2 lemon

Combine all together besides lemon juice in a bowl and put on a baking pan, bake it with 350F until they get golden colour.

For the wrap:

Pita 1piece

The easy Najib(cooked cauliflower ) or real najib, fried cauliflower  

Lettuce or green

Tomato 3mm slice : 3

or half cut cherry tomatoes : 4

Pickled beets thin sliced 3-4

Hummus 

Tahini and hot sauce :optional

Open the pita into half pieces, or you don't want to wrap, you can just open it like a pocket.

Put a piece of wrapping paper under the pitas, it will help to wrap.Put one pita on top of 1/4 of the other one.

Paste hummus and tahini on the bottom one, and put greens, tomatoes,pickles and najib, hot sauce.

Wrap it from the bottom,use paper to finish the wrap...(check it out how to wrap pitas on YouTube.)

Wrap it tighter, it will make taste better.

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.

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.