kabocha broccoli fried rice

So I was really excited to get cooking.

I woke up and spent the whole morning trying to decide what to make for lunch, going back and forth between pasta and rice. I planned on cooking the ube pasta I purchased a few days ago, topping it with a kabocha Parmesan sauce recipe I wanted to improvise on the spot. But our kitchen still lacks a lot of the necessary ingredients to make good pasta and good pasta sauce (like pepper, cream, herbs, etc.), so rice won out in the end.

This recipe is easy, quick, light, and healthy, a recovery from all of the greasy food I've had too much of lately.

The kabocha I used had orange skin, rather than the green that I'm used to (so it may just be a pumpkin...but...yeah). The lady selling them told me that orange-skinned kabochas have a sweeter taste and fluffier texture than normal ones do. They're somewhat custard-like, soft and chewy, and is a nice balance to the crisp broccoli florets.

national brownie day: gluten-free kabocha swirl hazelnut brownies

Happy National Brownie Day! I've decided that I will only make food on the national food days written on my Pop Pilates Calendar, just to prevent myself from overeating. So I've made Kabocha Swirl Hazelnut Brownies! I purposely left over some kabocha puree for today, and I thought I'd put into good use the raw hazelnuts from Sprouts that have so far been left untouched.

This recipe is one of the few that I'm really proud of :) I looked for gluten-free brownie recipes but in the end, chose to improvise my own. And they turned out delicious! Smooth and creamy, the kabocha swirls balance out the rich dark chocolate brownie. Pumpkin (or in this case, kabocha) and chocolate is a combination that should be recognized like peanut butter and jelly. Even though fall's nearly over, anything pumpkin flavored just evokes holiday feel and warmth.

The chewiness and decadence of these brownies make you feel pretty guilty after you've consumed one or two (or four) and gushed them down with some almond milk, but these brownies are healthier than your conventional full fat, full sugar, full flour brownies. I replaced butter with olive oil, granulated white sugar with brown sugar, and flour with the ground nut meals.

pumpkin macarons & gluten-free honey kabocha bread

Today a bunch of old high school friends and I gathered at the park for a potluck reunion, so I made macarons :) It was pretty frustrating. I don't know if it's because of the fluctuating weather and all but I had to wait 24 hours--yeah, a WHOLE day, LITERALLY--until my macarons were finally set and ready to bake. I was skeptical about waiting so long since they usually only take 1 to 2 hours to set. But the long, long wait was worth it. My macarons still had the signature ruffled feet and the smooth shell, and pumpkin flavor! Nutty with a hint of spice that pairs all too well with plain almond butter :)

I wanted to make a pumpkin buttercream to sandwich in between the cookies, but I liked how the almond butter tasted better. Plus no need for more powdered sugar or butter in the end product :) I had another batch this morning that wasn't set to bake yet, but I was afraid there wouldn't be enough macarons to go around, so I baked them anyway.

like any normal thursday

Thanksgiving isn't that big in my family. We get past with a small store-bought rotisserie chicken, corn tortillas and a bag of shredded cheese--chicken quesadillas for the past 4 years or so? Even before then we didn't really feast with turkey and mashed potatoes and all. Even today we didn't eat the traditional Thanksgiving meal, but we had more homemade food than usual!

Ratpatootie Ratatouille! My second attempt (my first was two years ago) inspired by Remy after rewatching the movie a few days ago. Lately I've been holding off on cooking and baking a lot since I doubted the process and outcome before I even started. I don't really know why I let my personal issues affect my usual determination and excitement in the kitchen, but it did. So I took the past few days to prepare myself for today. I didn't make what you would call a feast feast but it's more than the annual quesadillas :) Nothing beats cooking for people you love.

I love Smitten Kitchen's recreation of the traditional ratatouille, and you can find the recipe I used here. The dish is bright, lovely, and utters sophistication though it's actually quite easy to make (aside from cutting the parchment paper and slicing the vegetables paper thin, and in my case, WITHOUT a mandoline). I tried plating it all pretty like Remy did in the movie but my vegetables slumped together; nonetheless, the ratpatootie was tasty.

I guess you really don't stray too far from your roots...or something like that. Or in this case if you've almost always had chicken on Thanksgiving you sort of just stick with that. Chicken Piccata! With a lemon caper sauce that turned out a bit too lemony for my taste, but I reduced it by adding more chicken broth. Recipe can be found here.

Kabocha Squash Pie

And of course there was the kabocha squash pie and cheesecake from my midnight prepping. The mini pie stands tall at 1 cm. and the cheesecake, about 2.5 cm. I was dying to test both of the recipes out, and I made mini versions of both because my family could never finish a store-bought pie and they always went bad :( The pie is custard-like while the cheesecake is creamy smooth, both delicious in their own ways! I replaced white sugar with brown in both of the recipes, and though I didn't have pumpkin pie spice, using only nutmeg and cinnamon still brings out the rich, warm aroma. 

Kabocha Squash Cheesecake

 The recipe for the crustless pie can be found here and the cheesecake here.

Okay so maybe not much of a giant feast, but this Thanksgiving spoke out louder than the rest. This Thanksgiving was the first where I prepared a technically three-course meal for my family. Mixed feelings of stress, anxiety, and confusion built up in the past week, and I could finally, happily, release these pent up emotions in the kitchen. Concentrating on slicing the vegetables paper thin allowed me to think about Thanksgiving. It's difficult to put in exact words let alone express my thankfulness for everyone and everything that has found themselves in and out of my life. My family, my friends, the roof over my head, the cold wind to appreciate bodily warmth, the fact that I am writing this blog, that I've actually kept it running and that it's getting viewers?

Well I hope everyone had a delicious Thanksgiving :) and good night!

Update 12/24/12

I made ratatouille again today, but overstuffed the pan with a ton more vegetables and even double-stacked some of them rather than alternate. It took a little bit longer to bake through but still tasted wonderful.

Also I used herbes de province this time, and I like the taste of the ratatouille with the herbs rather than with just thyme. The thyme was sort of a one note, rather fixed, flavor, while the herbes have a much more subtle, rounder, flavor, which I like better as it doesn't overpower the vegetables or tomato sauce in this dish.

Plus my knife skills are getting better! I sliced the vegetables thinly and evenly 95% of the time (with the other 5% being the very few thick and unevenly cut) without the help of a mandolin! I think I'm getting a hang of this :') and ratatouille might just become a holiday tradition.

kabocha

Scratch my last post (from yesterday). Maybe I will start working with pumpkins more now. We bought half a kabocha from Mitsuwa Marketplace for experimentation purposes, and both improvs were quite successful :)