Zesty & Spicy

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Soy milk

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A great bonus from making your own soy milk is the okara (aka: soy bean pulp) left after draining.  It’s a resource most factories will either discard or feed to farm animals but, this protein packed ingredient can be added to baked goods, use to make vegetarian/vegan sausages (yup… that’s going to be for a future recipe) or dried up and reduced in powder to add to almost everything.  It is versatile, delicious and using the okara is leaving you with no kitchen waste.  Something to think about…

As you will see, the process for making soy milk is very simple.  If you wanted to make soy cream, bring back the drained milk on the stove top and let it simmer down to half of it’s original quantity.  As the water will evaporate, the mixture will thicken and become a nice and silky cream.  A thickening agent can be used to make the process faster, I would recommend tapioca starch for it’s light taste.

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My first Ramen noodles

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After spending a decent part of my day learning about these alkaline noodles and why the use of kansui and/or sodium carbonate is so important in the process, I was eager to apply my new findings to make my own ramen noodles.  This is my first attempt, after being inspired by other online at making these delicious noodles.  As you’ll be able to tell, it’s very simple to make them and so much more rewarding than buying them at the store… although it’s a little more labor intensive.

Ready for a quick kitchen work out?

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Basic Mayonnaise

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When I became nomad, almost a year ago, I knew my kitchen habits had to chance.  Done with the luxury of being able to buy a big pot of mayonnaise without worrying if it would be done in time.  Since we have been renting fully furnished apartments and we’ve been living in our suitcases, being able to store items in the fridge for weeks/months on end isn’t an option anymore.

You obviously don’t need to be nomad to make your own mayo.  You should have the desire to do so already because of the simple fact that you’ll feel extremely accomplished making this basic commodity that we’re so used to buy and you’ll be able to customize it exactly the way you want.  What I’m giving you today is a base, feel free to jazz it up by adding your favourite spices to make it your own.

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Sausage & Shrimp Puff Pastry Rolls

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For days where you want a blast of flavor and don’t care about your diet…  For either a game day, a friendly gathering or really just because your heart wants it.  No need to start a guilt trip here, we all need a few days like this every months 😉

Serve these delicious puff pastry sausage and shrimps with Dijon mustard, regular mustard or ketchup depending on what you prefer!

Sausage & Shrimp Puff Pastry Rolls
 
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Ingredients
  • Puff pastry dough
  • For the Filling:
  • 9 raw shrimps, skin, vein and everything else removed
  • 8 roasted garlic cloves
  • ½ tightly packed cup of freshly chopped basil leaves
  • ¼ teaspoon of fish sauce
  • ½ teaspoon of cane sugar
  • 1 teaspoon of low sodium soy sauce
  • 6 tablespoon of VERY FINELY chopped carrots
  • 3 tablespoon of VERY FINELY chopped celery
  • ¼ teaspoon of ginger powder
  • Inside membrane of 2 small Mergez sausages**
  • For the Egg Wash:
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tablespoon of water
  • For the Garnish:
  • Sesame seeds
  • ** Make sure you take one that the inside is a "pulverized paste" without too many big chunks. The goal here is that this sausage stuffing will keep the filling together.
Instructions
  1. - Pre-heat your oven at 350. Line a parchment paper on a baking sheet.
  2. - Mix all the ingredients for your filling in a food processor and blend everything together till it becomes a nice and smooth paste. In another small bowl, prepare your egg wash by whisking the egg and water, reserve in the fridge till the end.
  3. - Roll your pastry dough (making sure it's always cold - never let your puff pastry get to room temperature - I usually work with a cold ice pack on the side) and make a few rectangles or squares of dough, the size you want.
  4. - Time to add your filling and roll your pastry, follow the graphic below for the easy technique.
  5. - Brush with your egg wash, sprinkle some sesame seeds on the top and bake at 350 for 45 minutes or till the crust is golden brown.
  6. Serve with any dipping sauce you want but I like mine with either ketchup of Dijon mustard!
  7. IMPORTANT NOTE - Since you can find a lot of different style of Mergez... If, during the cooking process, you find there is a lot of juices coming out of the pastry, you can move your rolls on the paper to make sure it doesn't boil in juice and make the dough saggy.

Puff_Pastry_Sausage_Shrimps_Rolls_HOWTO

Homemade Basil Sugar

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OOhh my basil plants are happy with me this year. I think I have found THE perfect spot on the balcony to place them because they have been giving me fresh basil for the past few months like CRAZY! For the people who are following me on twitter, you know what I’m talking about. I was tweeting my harvests almost daily for a while and kept taking your suggestions on what I could do with all that amazing basil. One of my sweet followers had the great idea of suggesting me to do basil salt. I LOVED the concept but I wanted to do different. Often I like to use basil as a fun desert flavor ( don’t do a weird face, wait till you taste my strawberry/basil pie) so I thought, if we can make basil salt, we can for sure make basil sugar!

Using the same process as we would to create basil salt and like I’ve done for my “pesto” powder, I created this recipe for a fresh and flavorful basil sugar that you will be able to use in all sort of delicious ideas; cookies, tarts, pies, cakes, yogurt or just on top of fresh fruits… this aromatic sugar wont disappoint. Try it out, SERIOUSLY!

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Grilled Cabbage, Apple and Tofu Salad

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The day of my trip to Budapest is coming soon.. At this same time next week, I’ll be on the other side of the world doing… well… a description of what I’ll be doing would inappropriate to for this blog so I wont finish my sentence LOL…  Witch means that I have to go over all the veggies and fruits left in my fridge and make sure I keep eating healthy and not too much to get to my weight goal for the trip.

I’ve been experimenting a lot with tofu in the past weeks and since it’s such a versatile ingredients, extremely healthy and low fat, I thought it would be important to create a new category for it since I’ll be sharing a lot more recipes featuring this amazing ingredient.  Today I’ve been teasing my facebook followers about a tofu spread recipe but I’m not 100% happy with everything I’ve made yet so here’s a fun little salad instead that could be serve as a fun appetizer….

The measurements for this recipe is for 2 persons so make sure you adapt the quantities if you’re serving more than 2.  Enjoy!

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Sweet & Salty Cajun Roasted Almonds

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I always have nuts laying around in my house.  Either roasted with spices or just raw, I love them all.  It’s a great and healthy way for me to get a boost of energy and make sure I eat all your good fat and control my blood sugar to get me through the day at the computer or on the go at a photo shoot.  I’ve been wanting to show you all the great recipes you can do with my homemade cajun spice blend but didn’t had much time as you can probably see by the number of updates on the site.  So this morning I decided that enough was enough and I had to shoot at least one recipe!  Good news, I ended shooting 3 new recipes including this one so make sure you don’t miss the next updates because they are going to be delicious 😛

Ok enough chatting and more recipe right?  I hope you’ll enjoy this simple snack that can be eaten on the go or maybe while you’re watching the football game on Sunday? 😉

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Sweet and Salty Maple and Walnut bars

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One of the things I like the most in life is to cook sweet stuff. I don’t know why but I’m obsessed with deserts.  Clearly not something you want to indulge in too often but once in a while it’s ok to cheat!  Enjoy this terribly delicious recipe that is worth cheating on your diet.

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