Organic SOBA with Cucumber and pickles

Japanese Cold Soba is tasty and easy to make.  You can top with all kinds of Japanese pickles and shredded seaweed.   You can eat it dipped in sauce or drizzle the sauce over the noodle. 

Ingredients:

1 pkg Organic SOBA

1 large cucumber

Varieties of pickles 

Sheet of seaweeds shredded with scissors into approx 1-1/2 in. strips

Sauce:

1/2 C Soy Sauce

1/2 C MIRIN

3 TBsp sugar

5 pieces of dry SHIITAKE

Cook all in a pot.  Simmer for at least 30 minutes.   Remove everything, except mushrooms/SHIITAKE. 

Boil noodles and strain.  Set aside.

Peel cucumber, shred it or use spiral cutter.   Hold cut cucumber between the palms of hands and squeeze water out as much as you can.  

Serve with SOBA and top with you favorite pickles and sauce.

Dragon Fruits

Dragon fruits are so good for health in many ways.  They are quite expensive in the States.  If you can get hold of it, eat it as often as you can.  These two cisted me $16.50.  

In Viet-Nam it is also known as sesame seed fruits. 

Just cut, slice and peel.  And enjoy.  

KAKI doughnuts (Fuyu KAKI)

What are some ways that bring out the taste of the persimmons - FUYU KAKI.  Eating them fresh is the best.   There are over 100 recipes for persimmons .   This one is my concoction of  Persimmon doughnuts I made  with yeast dough - 1/2 tsp yeast, 1-1/2 C flour, 2 Tbsp sugar mixed with 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1 egg, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/3 C water, put more water as needed to form medium soft dough .   Knead 8 min.  After proofing, divide dough into 6 pieces.  1 C chopped KAKI.  Divide into 6 portion. Enclose chopped KAKI invthe rolled out dough.  Deep fry till done.   Sprinkle with powder sugar.   Serve warm. 

Eggplant Shwarma with Persimmons

It's a persimmon season, and they are starting to ripe.  I came across this 100 Persimmon recipe book at one of bazaar and I bought just for this season to arrive.    I got eggplants from my garden snd persimmons from my mom's garden.  Can't beat the freshness than this.   I already have cooked extra long Basmati rice and cooked Bell Peppers with Chinese preserved Szechwan Radischinos and chiken to go with it.  At the end of browsing  the recipe book, I decided to create my  own, so here is my recipe. 

INGREDIENTS:

3 homegrown eggplants cut and basted with EVOO approx. 1/3 cup and grilled till soft in George Foreman's grill.  Set aside.  

1 Giant Fuyu KAKI  cut into cubes 7.5 oz

1 cup sour cream mixed with 1TBsp Shwarma mix

2 cloves of garlic minced

2 tsp Sirachi Chili sauce

1 tsp Kosher salt

1 tsp Chili flakes

Small handful of Italian parsely chopped

Heat large wok with small amount of olive oil.  Add grilled eggplants and persimmon chunks.  Stir fry to heat through.   

Add all othe ingredients in, except shwarma mix and garlic.   

Stir  fry for 2 min.  Add shwarma mix and garlic.  Stir fry for one minute.  

Add chopped Italian parsely, most of them.   Save some for garnishing. 

I stacked them up to serve with spiralcut cucumbers and pickled daikon and fukujin zuke. 

It turned out pretty tasty. 

I wonder if the chiffon cake would turn out all right with persimmons?  I just had to try....fully soft ones or crunchy ones?   That will be interesting to find out.   I thimk it will taste good as persimmon Chinese glutinous rice pancake. 

Polly's Rhubarb Pie and Crumbles

It's time to harvest the rhubarb.  There aren't that many dishes you can make that I know of but these pie and crumbles turned out really good.  I remembered from last year's experience not to cut them too small, bit in large chunks.   They cook fast and 'melt' quickly when exposed to heat.   

I will post the ingredients as soon as I can, but for now it's a photo journal. 

Puff pastry is placed on top for crumbles and baked.  Once it is piffed and browned, remove from oven and flip it over right away to serve.

 Normally puff pastry is used for fillings that are more 'solid' with body, but I wanted to try differently.   And having crumbled some left over trimmings of pie dough and prepared crumble mixtures on top worked as planned to release it out of the mold when flipped over to a different brownie pan of equal size. 

Pie in the front and rhubarb crumbles over puff pastry in the background.  

Kabocha Chiffon Cake (Japanese Pumpkin Chiffon Cake)

Everybody by now know how to make their special chiffon cake.  Tonight, I tried KABOCHA - Japanese pumpkin, Chiffon Cake.   I hope it will turn out okay.  The cake mold is turned upside down waiting for it to cool.

Prep:   Cut 1 KABOCHA into halves.  Scoop out seeds, etc.  Place a metal rack in the bottom of the roaster, if you have one.  So the pumpkin can be roasted on it. Put the bottom half of the KABOCHA in the roaster.  Add 4 Tbsp cut butter.  Place the pumpkin top back on the bottom half. Add 1 cup of water into the roaster.   Cover with the lid and roast for 40 min.   Test for doneness.   Remove from the oven. 

Let cool.  Scoop the flesh away from the skin and save 9 ounce and set aside.   Store the rest for other use.  

I roasted several squashes together.  And watch out.  If you roast them longer than they need to, the pumpkin would collapse.  

Ingredients:  

7 eggs, separated.   Place egg yolks in a large mixing bowl as you will be mixing whipped egg whites/meringue into it.

60 g sugar for egg yolk mixtures

110 g sugar for egg whites 

9 oz KABOCHA, mashed

125 ml EVOO (Light) or pure vegetable oil
80 ml Coconut milk

Shift flour and measure out 160 g Flour, then, add 1/4 tsp salt + 1/4 tsp Ceylon Cinnamon + pinch of ground cloves and Shift them together 3 times or use Whisk to whisk them together well.

Methods:

Whisk egg yolks with 60 g of sugar.  Add EVOO, mashed KABOCHA, coconut milk.  Fold shifted flour in with a spatula.   Set aside to rest. 

In a large bowl whip egg whites at speed #2 for 1 minute, then speed #4 for 2 min, and When it starts to foam/form bubbles during the 2 min. start adding 110 g of sugar in a steady slow shower over 2 min period.  Increase speed to #6 and whip for 2 min.   All sugar should be mixed in before now.  Increase speed to #8 and whip for 2 min or visually you can see stiff peak forming.  

Add some to egg mixture and fold them in.

Fold and cut, fold and cut with spatula.  Preheat oven to 325'F

Add 1/3 of meringue and fold and cut, repeat, add 1/3 more, then1/3 more.  Make sure all meringues are smoothed in.   

Pour into cake mold.   I used bundt cake mold.  Run the spatula thru to release trapped air.  

Bake for 45 minutes.  Check for doneness at 40 min (depending on your gas oven). 

Remove from oven and place it upside down on a baking sheet to cool completely.   Make your favorite cream cheese frosting.   Decorate and serve.

Make sure the egg whites are all mixed in and end with smooth batter.

Prop the pan up to allow moisture to escape to prevent soggy cake. 

When you can handle the pan after cooling a bit, place on cooling rack to cool down completely.

Can't wait to see how it turned out, but at least the blog is up.  Will update with picture later.  .....

Friday, 10/3/2014 - And here it is - KABOCHA Chiffon Cake.   It is heavenly light.   Pumpkin taste is gentle and spices are just right to compliment each other.   It turned out great!

Gently loosen the cake using plastic ware all around and don't forget  the center post part.   Flip it over on a serving plate.  

Serve. 

Oh, I didn't make the frosting, but it is so moist and tasty without it.   I'd hate to cover it.   Try it!  You will enjoy it just the way it is.

I can think of few other chiffon cake variation now.   Until next time, hope you will enjoy making this with my recipe. 

Eating Fresh Vegetables and Fruits in a Glass

This is so easy to make.   If you have Organic Kales, Spinach, and some fruits, then you are in the business.  Wash and rinse veges of your choices and chop them up or tear them apart.  Place them in a blender.  Add crushed ice as much as you like--1cup may be, add squeezed orange juice 1/4 Cup or lemon or lime juice; add sliced avocado if you like it smooth.  Top it off with cut fruits - apple, pear, 1 Tbsp of honey.  Blend until the desired consistency is achieved.  Serve.  

Alternative:  Freeze extras in the ice tray.   30 - 40 minutes before serving, place frozen cubes in the glass with a cover and allow to defrost.  Stir with a spoon. Serve snd enjoy your vege and fruit fir the day. 

My New Gadget - Spiral Vegetable Cutter

I never thought frying French Fries can be this easy.   I actually kind of have given up on frying veges, but with this new gadget, cutting is simple, interesting, and fun to eat.  This spiral vegetable cutter is constructed with fairly light plastic.  But I carefully let the blade do the slicing without much force.   It did a great job.  You can make all kinds of fresh vege spaghetti salad to eat.  Thus far my potato chips tossed in kosher salt, paprika, and cayenne pepper is a hit.

Fry for 3 to 4 minutes and take it out.  Fry the next small batch for 3 to 4 minutes, then take it out.  Put the 1st batch back to fry until crisp.  Place on rack to allow excess oil to drip back to frying NABE (pot). Then transfer to a large bowl with kosher salt, paprika, and pinch of cayenne pepper.  Toss.  Serve.  Enjoy!

Other wonderful dish it turned out are beautiful cucumber noodles, etc.  It adds the 'fun' to the cooking.

 After slicing, you could place the cucumbers between your palms to squeeze out the excess water.   Then, add them to your favorite salad, etc.

 Frying Apple slices.

Polly's Homemade Honey Mead

Finally found a way to make time spent blog posting easier - Mobile phone posting to this blog.   The service has been available for a while, but I never got around doing it.  So much to do, with so little time.  And since I hate sitting down again after work to spend time blogging, this is a helpful alternative. Tonight I finally transferred my homemade Honey Mead to a bottle that it will ripe for a couple of months.   If you have made honey mead before at home, please share your experience.
By-the-way, my honey mead does not have yeast.  It's all natural - raw honey, water, and sunshine.

After a month of fermentation, it stopped fizzling as much when stirred, it's time to bottle it.  I hope it will be fantastic .   Need to get right kind of bottle and cap soon though.

Finally got the right bottle with flip cap.   Had to drink a couple of Grolsch lager but that was okay.   

The bottle didn't fit all in.  That was too bad, but honey mead on the rock tasted really good.  In fact I think it is ready as the way it is without waiting for 2 months.      I also started the two more quarts of new honey mead.  They are fizzing just fine.  Can't wait to enjoy it.