Halloween

Halloween was most fun when my daughter was young.  I made costumes for her ever year.  But now that she doesn't go trick or treating anymore, it is not too exciting, sadly.  We had lots of Halloween candies to give out.  But they didn't appeal to me.  I am not a big fun of Halloween candies even though I love sweets.  So I decided to bake chocolate financiers with hazel nuts.

The combination of chocolate and hazel nuts is inspired by Nutella, obviously.  I just make hazel nut powder with a grinder.  

It was really rich and tasty.

I realized that I had missed baking.  Now that I go to school, it is hard to find time to bake.  I love the quietness in the kitchen and I like moving slowly to savor every moment of baking.  But that kind of baking hadn't happened for long time.  So I enjoyed baking these financiers in the Saturday afternoon.

We curved the pumpkin in the last minute.  I love the devilish smile my daughter designed.

The curtain has been opened

The whole one year I spent after we moved to East Tennessee seemed so empty to me.  Because I didn't work at all.  I wasn't really happy.  It was like construction and painting after the construction, and new construction and more painting and new construction.......  Anyway, that is almost done.
I wanted to do something creative like when I was in North East.  I do miss the time.  Yes, I was almost going to drive myself sick by working like a mad woman.....
I was getting fed up with not moving forward.  I know it's not entirely true.  I learned a few tricks during the first year in TN.  I became much better at baking.  I got a new camera and started to really enjoy taking photos. I housebroke our puppy.  Even I don't have a green thumb, I was able to grow some tomatoes and basil in the little garden we made.  But I still felt empty.
But that period is over.  I now have a few small plans for my business.  And more importantly, I'm back in College.  I'm going to finish BFA that I never finished in NY.
Two weeks ago before the school started, I was thinking that the first year in TN had been a very long overture before the curtain was opened.  I liked the idea because I've worked at a theatre.  But now that the school has started, I am so busy.  But it feels good.

But August went by working on painting, getting ready for College...  I couldn't bake much.  But I am happy that I can make roll cakes pretty effortlessly these days.  

Summer Holidays are over!

I can't believe that the school started already.  Somehow, it starts early August in East Tennessee.  So I feel like it should be cooler, but it's still August, so it is still hot.  Summer is not over yet.

We had a busy first half of summer vacation.  We went to Florida, we attended Wedding, my daughter went to drama summer camp, and we went to Florida again. 

But last half of summer vacation was very slow.  We didn't have any plan, and the construction was going on, we practically stayed home everyday, not doing anything much.

It was not really fun for my daughter nor for me.  

So we are so glad to have school started.  And the construction is done, so we can now paint the newly renovated bathrooms and bedrooms.  Suddenly we are very busy!

Here are the sweets that I made during summer.  I was so fortunate to have good berries and peaches in June and July.  Almost all the sweets were made with local fruits.

Today marks one year from the day we came to TN form North East.  I feel like I didn't do anything this past year.  We had the cycle of having renovation going on, which means I get stressed out having workmen in the house all the time, then it's done and they are gone for a while but we can't relax, because we have to paint, then the next renovation starts.... we did that 3 times in the past year.  Our painting part is not done yet.  But after that, it's done for now.  I am glad.

I hope 2nd year of our new life in Appalachia will be nicer.  We couldn't go out much because either we wanted to do something at home while the workers are not around, or we had to paint.  I'd love to visit lots of places and check out some events.  I want to start working if it's possible.  I don't know if there are many chances like in North East for me to make dance costumes, but I would like to do something with my skill.

There are a lot of hopes for the future.

Tarts

I had never baked tart until this January.   I like tart all right, but I always preferred cakes with cream.  But I remembered that I enjoyed tarts from this nice little shop called Aux Delices in Connecticut.  However, I can't get anything like that here in my town.  Only solution is to learn how to bake it.

So I started.  I remember that some kind of filling they used was so good.  Now I know that was almond creme.  It was not too difficult make.  After I got comfortable making dough, I started to experimenting.

I like custard in tart, so I made very simple custard and fruits tartlets for afternoon snack.

It is so much fun to arrange the fruits.  Especially caramelized apple.  I like make it look like a flower.

I just love cooked fruits.  Of course fresh fruits are great, too, but I do like them cooked also.

Now when I make filling for tart, I do substitute almond with other nuts.  I like Walnuts.  It gives more down to earth feeling to the tart.  I especially like pecans.  If they are coupled with brown sugar, it becomes very "county" tasting to me.  I love making peach pecan tart.  To me it tastes Southern.  It probably doesn't to real southern people, but the all the ingredients are from this region, an taste so simple and kind so I feel that way.

Making small tartlets is fun too.  They look so cute.  I always make a few for taste testing when I make big tart.

*******************

I've been wanted to make something pretty.  Not food.  With my sewing.  But I couldn't find what to make for long time.  Doing renovation all the time brings chaos to the house and my brain.   I always had clients to tell me what they want, so without them, I felt lost.  But I think something brewing in me.  I found a scrap book that I made 20 years ago to get ideas.  I love the feeling of thinking about making something pretty.

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.

Gorgonzola Pancakes with Roasted Cherry Tomatoes

I sometimes put chocolate chips in my pancakes or blueberries, or nuts and bananas.... but I never cooked pancakes that are not sweet.  But I was feeling experimental.  So I deicide to make something different with the ingredients that I'm comfortable with.   I love gorgonzola.  It's my favorite cheese!  Gorgonzola and red wine makes me as happy as sashimi and Sake.  I know I don't need to pick but I sometimes like torture myself by asking which would I take if I can only have one for rest of my life....  It's difficult decision. 

Anyway, that afternoon, even though I spent all the afternoon making Father's day cake for my father in law the day before, I was ready to work again!

*Gorgonzola Pancakes*

1/2 cup Flour 

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 egg yellow

Salt to taste

1/3 cup Milk 

1/4 ~1/3 cup gorgonzola cheese

2 egg white

3 tablespoon butter

< 1 > Mix flour, baking powder, egg yellow, salt together.

< 2 > Dissolve the cheese  with milk and mix into the batter.

< 3 > Whisk egg whites until it forms a peak and mix it into the batter carefully.

< 4 > Melt the butter in a heated pan.  Swirl the pan to coat the bottom and pour excessive butter into the batter and mix.

< 5 > Cook pancakes as you would cook normal pancakes.

I roasted halved cherry tomatoes with olive oil and dried oregano to accompany the pancakes.  It was very nice to have sweetness and tartness of the tomatoes to balance out the bitterness and richness of the cheese.  The pancake is very fluffy with the whipped egg whites.   I think fig preserves will accompany this pancake very nicely, too.

I guess I was in the cooking mood this weekend.  I do bake every Sunday to bring to my father in law's house as desserts.  But I wanted to make something special for Father's day, so I opened the book of Pierre Herme even though it is a huge challenge for me.

It took hours to make, but it was tasty.  And my father in law loved it.  So I was very happy.

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.

Spring is here and so are the Farmers Markets

The farmer's markets in my area are finally opened.  I am so happy!  Even though the scale of the markets are much smaller compared to Union Square Farmer's Market, there are lots of nice local produces.  And each town has their own market, so I can visit different ones easily and that's fun, too.

Tomatoes are very reasonable at the market and the wether is getting warm, so I decided to make fresh tomato pasta one day.  This recipe is adapted form the cook book written by Sophia Loren, the Italian actress, which was translated to Japanese and published in 74.  My parents must have bought it when it came out.  It is really a precious cooking book for me.  Same version translated in English is published in 98 as " Sophia Loren's Recipes and Memories".  The English version has more pictures of the actress and nicely styled food photos, but the Japanese one has more recipes.  

* Fresh Tomato Pasta (For 4)*

2 large tomatoes

10 green olives

3 teaspoon capers

1/2 small onion

A bunch of parsley

2 cloves garlic

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1 table spoon oregano

Salt and pepper to taste

1 box of your favorite pasta 

< 1 > Chop tomatoes to bite size.  Chop olives and capers to small pieces.  Mince onion and parsley.  Crash garlic with the blade of large knife so the extract will seep out. 

< 2 > Put everything together and keep it in the refrigerator for at least 12 hours.  (It will keep 1-2 days).

< 3 > Just boil the pasta to al dente and pour the tomato sauce over and serve.  Don't forget to take out the garlic cloves.

I always feel like that I should put fresh squeezed lemon juice in when I'm putting all the ingredients together, but it is not called for.  The tartness from olive and caper is enough, yet more gentle than lemon juice so the sweetness of the tomato stands out more.

Don't press garlic through a garlic press.  The juice comes out from the crashed cloves is just right amount of garlic taste.  More than that will be overbearing.  A slight garlic taste is more suited for this dish.  I have to admit that even though I'm a garlic lover.

This pasta makes me feel like it is finally spring.  It was nice weekend lunch.  Although we had a cold spell this week.  

The strawberries are in season right now, too.  I found a gallon of them for $10.  That is a lot of strawberries and we ate them in many ways.

Strawberries with pancakes, strawberry mojito, strawberry and grapefruits sorbet, strawberry roll cake, strawberry and rhubarb pie.....  They were all very enjoyable.  Simple strawberry sorbet is in my freezer right now.

Other thing that I must write is these donuts at the Farmer's Market.  These donuts are very famous in this area.  Mennonites fry them and glaze them right in front of your eyes.  I am not a big donut fan.  Not a even small fan either.   I only eat them every 3 to 5 years.  I love sweets like tarts and cakes, but I was never attracted to donuts. 

There is always a long line of people trying to buy these donuts.  The first time I saw it, I though: they are probably good, but I definitely wouldn't stay in the line for 20 minutes to get something like donuts!  But J sent me for them one day because he ate it at his office and it was very good.  The day, the market was not too crowded because it was early and drizzling a little, so I stayed in line for 5 minutes.

These donuts are not donuts that I knew.  It's fluffy, light, not greasy, not too sweet, has nice aroma of vanilla, so simple.  They are the best donuts I've ever eaten.

Now that I know that they are the donuts form heaven, I must fight the urge to stay in the line every time I go get fresh vegetables....  It is spring now and summer is around the corner.   I can't put on weight right now.

Financiers

I became addicted to come up with ideas for Financiers.  I guess I had never thought of using powder made of nuts until I started to making Financiers.  I love varying the nuts and adding different flavor to it.  

From left top to right bottom : Walnut and brown sugar with tiny bit of soy sauce .... tribute to Japanese sweets, Kurumi-Yubeshi.

Green tea Financier and basic financiers with chocolate shavings.

Basic financiers with chocolate chips.

Hazel nut and chocolate financiers.

Earl Grey Financiers with rose pedals.

Pecan financiers with chocolate swirl.

Strawberry financiers.

Pecan financiers with chocolate shavings.

Chocolate financiers with raspberries.

I love using walnuts and pecans!  Hazel nut is great with chocolate.  Cashew and coconut flake make financier more tropical.  There are so many ingredients to experiment with...  It's sometimes far from financiers.  Shall I call them nut cakes?  

Southern Cooking and Sweets Cooked in March

I am interested in lots of kind of food.  When people ask me what I usually cook, it is very hard to answer.  I do cook Japanese naturally, but now that I'm living in TN, it's not easy to accomplish.  I also cook other Asian dishes....  Chinese, Korean Thai, Vietnamese.  But usually, I cook with more common ingredients so Italian and French influenced dishes appear a lot on the table.  

When I lived in Connecticut, my friends and I sometimes pick a town to visit in NY based on what kind of restaurants and stores available there.  We visited Bronx for Italian food, Brighton Beach for Russian, Astoria for Greek, etc...  When I have a chance to eat something that is from different culture, I am so happy to try it.

Nevertheless, I never liked Southern food that much even though my husband J is from Appalachia.  I guess the richness of frying food is not too appealing to me....  I know J wanted me to learn to cook good Southern food, but I didn't really take it seriously.

But one day, I baked biscuits.  J says that it's not supposed to be sweet like the ones in North.  I got the recipe that is not sweet and tried it.  It came out pretty tasty.  Even my daughter who never liked biscuits like it a lot.  

I baked cornbread other time since J wants to cut down gluten intake, I thought I'd give a try to bake cornbread with only corn meal.  

He also said that cornbread shouldn't be sweet like the ones in North.  So he liked my cornbread that didn't have any sugar in it.  It was fun baking in a pre-heated cast iron pan!

Somehow, now I am more open to cook southern food.  I am not a big fan of frying food, but I can certainly try to make some recipes less rich to suit my taste.  I think visiting Asheville was good for me in the regard.  I don't get to eat southern food in my town because it's not a tourists place so there is not much of Southern restaurants.  But place like Asheville has interesting Southern food.  More modernized, more healthy, more trendy....  Looking at them made me interested in it.  

Grits is one of the thing I picked up there.  It's practically Polenta...  I can put different kind of cheese in it.  I love it with fried green tomatoes!  It's not a heavy combination especially if I cook tomatoes in a little bi of olive oil.

There are lots to learn ....  But it at least started.  It's too bad I don't have hard core Southern relatives around me to teach. 

It's already April.  It was so warm yesterday.  But it went back several step today and I was wearing my coat this morning.  I hope to put it away soon.

So in March, I made these sweets.  I hope to try something new in April...

Smoked Salmon and Avocado Pasta

We are renovating 2nd floor right now.    I have to tell you the house J bought for us is very old.  It's built in mid 40's which is not a surprise at where we live.  But the couple who lived here were old and weren't taking care of this house well besides whatever the renovations they did was very unprofessionally done.  So by the time this house was on sale, the couple was long gone, the house was unattended for years on top of the original messed up conditions.  It is true because of it, we had a such a bargain.  I didn't look at this house until the day of the closing.  I was busy in North East.  So it was such a shock to see the state this house was in....  but we took out the carpeting from entire house, cleaned up, had the kitchen remodeled, painted the wood paneling walls.  It's slowly coming together.  The one thing (which is most important factor to me to pick a house) that I love this place is its size and layout.  It's not huge, but adequate for 3 of us.  It has funny little place or hallway to play around.  So even though it is far from my dream house yet, I'm happily waiting it to be the one someday.

So the entire 2nd floor is demolished to have new electric, air conditioning system and walls installed.  Which is great!  Yet when the lunch time comes, I feel too self conscious about cooking something has strong aroma such as frying garlic.  They are working hard and cooking some nice smelling food and not serving them seems to me not nice.  

But I do get hungry.  And I don't want to eat PB & J every day....besides the fact that we don't keep bread in the house since J is trying to avoid gluten as much as possible and our daughter doesn't care for a sandwich.

So the cold salad pasta is actually great lunch for me to whip up.  All I have to do is to boil the pasta.  It doesn't create aroma of cooking.  I just have to cut ingredients and mix.  

*Smoked Salmon and Avocado Pasta*

For 2 servings

1 avocado

2 oz. smoked salmon 

10 cherry tomatoes

1/4 red onion

2 table spoon capers

2 tea spoon Dijon mustard

2 tea spoon extra virgin olive oil

Freshly squeezed juice form 1 lemon

2 tea spoon white wine vinegar

Salt and pepper to taste

Your favorite pasta 1/2 lb.

< 1 > Start boiling water for cooking the pasta.

< 2 >  Chop avocado, salmon, and tomatoes to bite size.

< 3 > Slice the onion into thin strips or mince.

< 4 > Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl.

< 5 > When the pasta is cooked, mix with everything in the bowl and serve.

Both avocado and salmon contains lots of fat, so I hold off the amount of olive oil in this dish.

This actually will be really nice on a hot summer day.  But It is getting pretty nice here in east TN.  I hear birds singing in the morning.  The are very colorful.  I can't wait till spring....

February has passed....  I can't believe it's already March!  Here is the review of the sweets I made in the last month.

There are lots of chocolate sweets because of Valentine's day.  I actually lost a week worth of data because the construction upstairs cuts off the electricity suddenly.  So there should have been more sweets...  However the sweets that I made during the time were actually not really successful.  Especially the tartlets that I baked with raspberry tinted very pale pink pear compote. It somehow resembled too much like a mini chicken breast.  It really did.  Those were called chicken breast tarts by J and our daughter.  It could have been perfect for halloween with some red sauce drizzled over it though.

Steamed Chocolate Buns

I remember making steamed buns in the home economics class in elementary school.  We had the class once a week.  We made aprons, or small bags.  we embroidered them.  We cooked simple dishes.  I remember making English style finger sandwiches.  Japanese curry.  Both girls and boys had to take the class.  A few mischievous boys created a new dish of cream and strawberry sandwiches with sprinkles of mountains of salt and pepper.  They nearly froze their fingers off by competing who can tolerate touching ices longer.  The teacher was frustrated, but the cooking part of the class was everybody's favorite.

Chinese style steamed buns were always available in the winter.  It smelled so nice.  I love the aroma of yeast.  But the steamed sweet buns that we cooked in the class didn't require yeast.  The ingredients were more like the ones for muffin or cake.  But instead of baking, we steamed.  I guess it was easy to do so in Japan around 30 years ago because normal household didn't have a oven.  The people might have had the special compartment for grilling fish, but not the oven to bake cake and such.  

So it is more like a steamed cake.  It's popular because it doesn't require much fat, and all you have to do is mixing the ingredients so young children can participate in the kitchen, too.

So remembering the memories, not having enough butter and eggs to spare for sweets today, yet thinking about my daughter coming home starving everyday, and how she loves chocolate and it is almost Valentine's Day, I decided to make steamed chocolate cakes ...or buns.

*Steamed Chocolate Buns*

3/4 cup of all purpose flour

1/4 cup rice flour

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/3 cup sugar

1table spoon of vegetable oil or melted butter

1/2 cup whole milk

< 1 > Start boiling the water for steaming.

< 2 > Put the all the dry ingredients together in a bowl and mix with a fork.

< 2 > Pour oil and milk in the bowl and mix.

< 3 > Divide the dough to 6 cup cake mold.

< 3 > As soon as the water is boiling, place the buns on the steamer and steam them for 10 minutes.

It's very dense cake but not really rich....  I used less sugar so my daughter can put a spoonful of Nutella on it.  

When I was thinking how some people prefer the steamed cakes since they feel guiltless to have sweets that don't contain much fat nor eggs, my phone rang.  My husband who just had his blood checked out was calling me.  He told me that his cholesterol level came out really great.  He even have high level of good cholesterol.  He is following the diet of omitting gluten as much as possible, but not worrying about eating organic animal fat and coconut oil.  Actually, to conventional eyes, it almost seems like he is consuming excessive fat.  

But he is doing better than the time that he was eating low-fat diet.  So he probably wouldn't touch these buns unless I put a chunk of good cultured butter from Vermont.

So I got 10 Meyer Lemons

I went to a market and found Meyer Lemons were on sale.....10 for 2 dollars.  I just couldn't pass the deal so I picked 10 of them not knowing how I am going to use them.

I had left over tart dough at home so I decided to use the recipe that I use for Key Lime Pie filling for the lemons.  It worked great!  I felt like I need some fruits for decoration, so I used blueberries.  

I must tell you that I always preferred cakes to tarts.  I felt like tarts are too much like cookies.  I liked the softness of cakes and cream on it.  But recently, I DO love tarts.  I realized how versatile they are.  You could use any fruits on it, cooked or raw to really enjoy the season.  As for the cream, I can make custard cream, pastry cream, almond cream, or citrus cream like this depends on what I have and feel like it.  I feel like the tarts suit everyday life more.  I still like cakes though!

*Meyer Lemon Filling For 9 inch shell*

1/2 cup freshly squeezed Meyer lemon juice 

1 cup sweetened condensed milk

4 large egg yolks

< 1 > Mix the all the ingredients and bake at 325 F in the shell of your choice for 15 to 20 min.

*Note* 

I made 3 4-inch tartlets so reduced the ingredients to half.  A store bought graham cracker pie shell works great for this recipe, too.  You can substitute lemon or lime for the same recipe, but that case, you might want to serve with whipped cream since it will be quite tart.

They were quite delightful.  But I didn't describe what kind of tartlets they are, my husband J was pretty surprised with the tartness.  I'd been making tartlets with custard cream a lot recently so he thought these were the same things.  They look quite similar.

But as he realized that it was Meyer lemon cream, he enjoyed it a lot.  My daughter who loves anything sour was very happy too.  I made coconut whipped cream with whipped cream and coconut milk to serve with the tartlets as desserts.  That was nice combination.

OK, tart filling didn't use too many lemons...  instead it created egg whites left over.  I would usually use them for Financiers but my challenging spirit was rising in the afternoon.  Therefore, I decided to dare try making Macarons.

There are some sweets I consider that I'm not experienced enough to bake.  The macarons were one of them.  But I do have egg whites, and I do have lots of nice lemons to make lemon cream for it.  I just had to do it.  

Well, the result is....  I made the dough too runny so except for few really small ones, they didn't turn out to be a perfect circles.  The texture and taste, J liked it a lot.  My daughter didn't like it.  I, myself.... confused.  

I've only had macarons once in Tokyo a year ago.  They were from a brunch of reputable French pastry shop and tasted great.  But details are far away in my memory.  I guess I need eat them again in order to know what I am after.  Yet in this small town by the Appalachian mountains, it's impossible to find one.  I must put macarons on the list of the things that I must eat in Japan when I visit my family next month.

Yes, the macarons didn't consume the lemon too much either.  So I made lemon cake in Bundt mold to take to Sunday dinner at my father in law's house.  

I also made Greek lemon potatoes at his house to go with Lamb chops.  Now 3 Meyer lemons are sitting in the bowl waiting to be squeezed.  What I am going to use them for today?

Green Tea Whipped Cream

Green tea (Macha) has become a very common ingredient for sweets in last 10 to 20 years.  When I grew up in Japan, I remember eating green tea ice cream at a tea shop, but that was pretty much it.  Now, it's a popular flavor for any kind of sweets.  Green tea cheese cake, green tea cookie, green tea cake, green tea caramel, green tea anything.  It's almost used like cocoa powder in the west.

But I have to admit....  It tastes really good in sweets.  It adds a little bitterness and that gives any confections such sophisticated taste.  

As for drinking tea, Macha is very special.  Unless you study how to make it and the ceremony of it, I don't think average Japanese have so many experiences drinking it.  I myself had few occasions in my life.  You can experience it at some tea houses, but it will cost quite a lot.  But it is not about only drinking and making tea, it's about art of serving, and coordinating the whole setting, etc.

But the leaf green tea is very commonly brewed at home.  I would end up drinking it after breakfast and dinner everyday when I visit my family in Japan.

Japanese teas are drunken without sugar.  Green tea, roasted tea, any kinds.... As a small child, I was so excited to find out that you can put sugar or honey in English tea.  I did that for my entire childhood and as soon as I grew up, somehow I stopped.  I love drinking any tea without sugar.  

So I was very disappointed to find out that there were no bottled tea without sugar sold in the states when I first came here.  But now there are.  I hope it will be more popular because it's so refreshing cold in summer.  

Even though the tea is not supposed to be sweet, using green tea for sweets is exception for me.  I sneak it in my baking sometimes.   Also whipped cream made with green tea powder is great accompany for some baked goods.  

*Ingredients*

1 small package of heavy whipping cream

2 table spoon of sweetened condensed milk

2 tea spoon of green tea powder 

< 1 > Put everything but the green tea in a bowl.

< 2 > Using a sieve, sprinkle the tea powder in the bowl.

< 2 > Whip it until it achieved desired texture.

I ate it with a small financier that is made with cashew nut powder and fine coconut flakes as mid morning tea snack.  In fact, the combination of green tea and coconut is really nice.  I need to think up some other recipe to incorporate both of them.

I'll bake plain pound cake today and will serve that with a scoop of green tea cream on side for dessert.