Mushroom Spaghetti with Miso Cream Sauce

I love Asian mushrooms. I am so grateful that I can find shitake where I live. But in a bigger cities, more varieties are available. I brought "Enoki" from Florida. I love this mushroom. It's very long and skinny and a kind of crunchy. I should have bought different kinds of mushrooms at the Asian market that I went to. I decided to do creamy mushroom pasta, so I went to a store near my house to get shitake.

I remember that I had Miso cream sauce at a restaurant in CT before we moved away. I made it for chicken and it was good, but I thought it would be really nice with pasta.

When I was growing up in Tokyo more than 3 decades ago, Italian style pasta was not really common. Fortunately I was introduced to it by my father who had lived in Rome. However, if we go to a pasta restaurant (there were restaurants that serve only pasta dishes... they still exist), lots of dishes were very Japanized. We didn't like it at all. I also remember Western people were complaining about weird Japanese spaghetti dishes in 80's. I completely agreed with them at the moment. Nevertheless, now I look back, those restaurants seem to be the pioneers of fusion dishes.

This pasta could be easily on the menu back then though I don't remember seeing it.

*Mushroom spaghetti with Miso cream sauce*

Spaghetti 240 g

Olive oil 1tbsp

Garlic 2 cloves sliced

Mushroom of your choice 2 cups

Cream 2/3 cup

*Yuzu Kosho 1/4 tsp

Miso 2 tsp

Salt

< 1 > Start boiling the pasta.

< 2 > Saute garlic in olive oil and put mushrooms when garlic started to brown.

< 3 > Pour cream in and cook in low heat for 5 minutes. Remove from heat.

< 4 > Cook pasta to al dente. Keep 2 table spoon of boiling water.

< 5 > Dissolve Yuzu Kosho and Miso in the boiled water, and pour it in the cream mixture with pasta. Cook with medium heat for 2 minutes. If the miso is not salty enough, sprinkle with sea salt.

< 6 > Serve with Shiso if it's available. Putting bunch of Arugula is nice, also.

*Yuzu Kosho is citrus pepper paste from Southern part of Japan. It's made of Japanese citrus, Yuzu and chili pepper. I didn't know about it until 10 years ago until I was befriended with someone from Oita. She recommended to put it in Miso soup. I loved it so much and it became regular condiment in my house hold ever since.

I would think substituting is possible... Maybe grated lime zest and green pepper sauce? I need to try that sometime.

We enjoyed July 4th in St. Augustine. I loved the blue sky and beautiful architecture in down town.

Christmas Rainbow

We visited Florida for Christmas.  It was so warm!  It was pretty chilly last year, so we weren't expecting to swim in the pool but it was warm enough to do so.  I usually would think it's nice to feel warm air, but for Christmas, and the fact that I was not expecting the warmth, it was too much.  But we had a very nice time with family.

It was raining on the Christmas morning.  On and off.  I looked outside from the patio, and there was a rainbow!  It was not clear, but everybody came out to see it.  Then all of them expect my daughter and I left.  More we stood there and looked, it became clear and clear shaping a perfect half circle very vividly.  It was the best Christmas present ever.

Tiny Raspberries and Long Blackberries

I started seeing berries at the farmers market.  I remember we had very big blackberries last year when we came here for closing of our house.  They made my daughter who never had liked blackberries completely change her opinion on blackberries.  So we've been looking forward to having them again.  I also found tiny raspberries.  They are half of normal raspberries in a grocery store.  They are very sweet and I can't pass them since they are so cute looking!

So I made Raspberry Custard Tart for July 4th.  

We came back from Florida 4 p.m. and I was baking the tart right away....

It was such a short trip.  We left on Friday night and drove back on Monday.  But it was really fun taking our dog to beach.  Although he is afraid of water.  I hope he will get use to it but there are no beaches where we live....  We need to look for a lake, I guess.

Besides the berries, South Carolina peaches are in season.  So I baked Peach and Blackberry Tart one day.  Instead of almond cream, I made walnut cream.  I love changing out the nuts to make cream.  My favorite is pecan cream with brown sugar.  It tastes very country-like to me.

I was happy that I used up my berries very tastefully, but I saw them again at the market yesterday.  I couldn't walk away from them....  So they were thrown into mini Lemon Cake.

I guess my baking with berries will continue for a while until they stop selling them at the farmers market.

Visiting St. Petersburg

When we visit my mother in law in North Florida, we sometimes drive to Orlando for theme parks.  But this time, we went to St. Petersburg.  I've wanted to visit St. Petersburg for long time to go to Dali Museum.  I found out that Busch Garden is in Tampa which is on the way to St. Petersburg so my daughter might be able to have a fun there also.

It turned out that the rides there were too much for both of us.... and after going to very relaxing and not crowded Jacksonville zoo, it was difficult to enjoy the zoo part at the park.  But I definitely enjoyed Dali Museum!!

I was so lucky to visit the newly opened museum.  The building itself was amazing.  Dali's art was a little too much for my daughter but she enjoyed the little garden outside and his film. 

We also went on a cruise to see dolphins in Tampa Bay.  It was so much fun!  They followed the boat that we were on and jumped right next to us.  Of course we tried to take pictures of them, but it was very difficult.

One night, we went to eat oysters on shells.  We love oysters.  We had a favorite oyster bar back in Connecticut, but in East Tennessee, it is not easy to find a place to eat them.  After having great dinner, we suddenly decided to go to the beach.  It was too early for the sunset but the beach was surrounded by the beautiful colors.

We looked for pretty shells in the air that was tinted with pink and blue.  It was such a nice moment.  We usually don't do things spontaneously.  So coming to the beach after dinner was fun. We decided to spend next afternoon at the beach.

Before going to the beach in the next afternoon, we went to a tropical garden named Sunken Garden.  It was full of the plants and flowers that we weren't used to seeing.  I enjoyed it much more than Bronx Botanical Garden.  

We spent all the afternoon at the beach.  Reading Françoise Sagan.  Taking a nap.  Building sand statues.  Playing with baby horseshoe Crabs.  Finding more shells.

This time, I couldn't miss the sunset.  So I planned to go back to the beach right on time for it.  When you think about it, you can't see Sun setting on the ocean in East coast unless you are in Florida on the side of Gulf of Mexico.  So it's special.

It was beautiful.  That's all I can say.  I loved the little trip we took.  

From Florida

It's still beginning of June but the summer vacation has started in East Tennessee.  So has the remodeling for bedrooms and bathrooms.  So I am away from home to my mother in law's house.  We drove for 8 hours to get to North Florida.  It used to take us 16 hours from Connecticut, so 8 hours is nothing comparing to that!

What a nice place to be.  She lives in a beautiful house decorated really comfortably.  I always loved visiting her here, but coming to North Florida was not as exciting to us when we lived in North East, but now that we live in Appalachian, it became really exciting.

The size of the sky is significantly larger.  I've developed love for the beautiful mountains surrounding us in TN, but the large sky makes me feel free.  

Coming from the city 1 hour away from NYC, I didn't need to shop at all when I came here before except for outlet malls near by.  But now that I don't have Anthropologie, William Sonoma, Apple Store, Sephora and Wholefoods in driving distance, there are a lot to look forward to.  

Moreover, we had beaches in CT and Jones beach in Long Island was an hour and half away from where we lived.  But of course there is no beach we can go as a day trip in the mountains.  So being able to pack light to just play for a few hours at the beach has become luxury.   We did that yesterday and the ocean was so warm. 

The biggest thing we miss about North East is the diversity of food.  Although the lots of different kinds of food have become available comparing to even 5 years ago in East Tennessee, it's not like NYC that has so many people from different cultures bringing their authentic cooking and ingredients.  Not many place in US can compete with NYC on that, I'm sure.  But Jacksonville has a lot more to offer comparing to East TN.  So we are taking advantage on that.  We found a nice Korean restaurant run by Korean people.  I just love Kimchee!!  I feel right at home when I eat really good Japanese.  (I must say that doesn't happen often in the States....  once a while in NYC)  Korean food makes me feel very similar to that.  I don't know why. I didn't grow up eating Korean food.  It is also spicy and the Japanese food is not.  But there is some similarities in use of vegetables, fermented products, how the rice is eaten with meat or fish, and broth that they use for soup, etc....  So I felt so happy, almost home sick eating tofu and seafood soup, kimchee and white rice.

We always enjoy eating great fruits when we visited FL.  I had berry salad for breakfast for last 3 days with greek yogurt.  It's so simple and nice.  I put 2 cups of different berries and 1 table spoon of tupelo honey and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar.  

I love eating fruits for breakfast.  The colors of red berries opens my eyes.  The tartness of them stimulates my mind.  The sweetness of them makes me happy.  I'm ready for the day.

Last night we had a dinner here.  I made a crab salad with mango and avocado, and my sister-in-law (J's brother's wife) brought a home made herb quiche.  My mother-in-law was very happy to have 2 daughters in law cooking for her.  I guess next thing she should look forward to is her grand daughter preparing a nice meal for her.  I need to get busy teaching my daughter how to cook.

There were a lot of berries so I made a rolled cake for desert.

I don't have a standing mixer at home.  I don't even have a hand held mixer either.  So when I bake roll cakes, I usually use a whisk.  I don't mind spending 20 minutes trying to make the egg white stiff....  But it was so much easier to use my mother-in-law's standing mixer!!  I hate to give in to modern technology too much, but this is tempting.  

It's so beautiful to be here.  So relaxing.  Drinking tea in the air-conditioned room with plenty of sun with the cooking book that I wanted to read.  Chasing my mother-in-law's cat.  Going out with a hand weaved basket.  Watching my daughter swimming like a mermaid.  It's so peaceful.