I just realized that I took the pictures and I forgot to add the chick peas…too late!

I love this dish, I wouldn’t have thought I would have loved it so much but the cauliflower “semoule” goes so well with it. There is a little confusion when translating couscous from French into English.

For us, French people when we talk about couscous, it refers to the Middle Eastern dish (vegetables/meat stew + semoule) and not only the little wheat grains that in the US they call couscous. What people call couscous in the US, we call it “semoule” or semolina.

As usual, being a huge eater of vegetables, I thought to substitute the couscous (wheat semolina) with cauliflower. I was wondering if the flavor wouldn’t be too strong. The truth is, it was not, it was just perfect.

If you want to consume less starch, don not hesitate to use cauliflower in couscous, it works perfectly.

The vegetables need to be cut in larger pieces, over one inch, maybe 1.5 inches. I found the same harissa as we use in France in a Middle Eastern store. Harissa is a middle eastern hot chili sauce made out of roasted peppers, hot chili peppers, and many other herbs and spices. You can equally make it. If you cannot find harissa, you can use any chili based hot sauce to add at the end.

Ingredients for 3-4

For the vegetable stew

• 2 tbs olive oil
• 1 small onion, diced
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 celery stem, diced
• 2 carrots, sliced
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 turnip, diced
• 3 zucchini, sliced
• 1 small eggplant, diced
• 4 tomatoes, peeled, seeds removed and chopped
• 1 cup chick pea, cooked
• 1 tbs tomato paste
• 2 tsp ras el hanout
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1/2 tsp paprika
• 1 dose saffron
• harissa to taste
• salt and pepper
• cilantro for garnish

For the semoule

• 1 medium cauliflower
• 2 tbs pinenuts
• 2 tbs raisins
• 1 tbs olive oil
• salt and pepper

Instructions

For the vegetable stew

Heat olive oil in a large pot. Add onions and cook until soft, then add garlic. Add tomato paste and stir well. Add all vegetables except chick peas, and add some water. Add all spices, mix well and cover with lid. Let cook at medium heat for about 20-30 min until vegetables are cooked but not mushy. When cooked, add chick peas, drizzle with olive oil, cilantro and serve hot.

For the cauliflower semoule

Using a food processor, grate cauliflower on the same blade you would grate carrots.

Bring large pot of salted water to a boil. Pour cauliflower and cook for 3 minutes. Remove from heat and drain. Keep warm. Add pine nuts, raisins. Adjust with salt and pepper.

Eat with vegetable stew and that’s what we call couscous!

If you are a carrot fan, this is your dish.

After my wonderful trip to Portland, I came back very inspired. This is a Portland inspired dish, that I ate at Coquine restaurant. Basically, there were three kinds of carrots in three different textures: a puree, roasted and shaved. So I decided to reproduce something similar which turned out quite delicious. I love the deep orange color of the dish and the very different carrot textures and flavors. It is a vegan dish, so one of those “make-you-feel-clean-meal”, at least that’s how I feel.

This dish is very well balanced in terms of textures and flavors. The smoothness of the puree contrasts with the sweet crunchiness of the fried leeks and soft lentils.

In France we have a saying “les carottes, ça rend aimable” (carrots make you pleasant), which I don’t know where it comes from, so today I have to say that I am extremely pleasant, especially that I ate two portions instead of one.

There are many different steps in this recipe but fast steps, so it’s not too time consuming.

Ingredients for 2

For the roasted carrots

• about 10 small carrots, peeled with stems (keep one inch stem)
• 1 tbs olive oil
• 1/4 tsp paprika
• 1/4 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp honey
• salt and pepper

For the carrot purée

• 3 carrots, peeled and cut
• vegetable broth (enough to cover the carrots)
• 1/4 tsp cumin powder
• chili powder
• 5-6 tbs cashew milk
• salt and pepper

For the lentils

• 1/3 cup black lentils
• 2 cloves
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/4 onion
• 1 celery stem
• 1/2 carrot
• 1 tsp olive oil
• salt and pepper

For the fried leeks

• Leek bottom (the white part) cut in 2 inches pieces, then into match sticks
• vegetable oil
• flour
• corn starch
• salt

For the shaved carrots

Using a mandoline, slice carrots very finely.

Preparation

For the roasted carrots

In a small bowl, mix oil, paprika, cumin powder, honey, salt and pepper. Coat the carrots with the mixture and broil under broiler until carrots are golden brown.

For the carrot purée

Place carrots in a pot with broth and let cook until carrots are tender. You might need to add broth if not enough during cooking process. When carrots are cooked, place in a mixer and mix until smooth consistency. Add all the other ingredients. Keep warm.

For the lentils

Wash lentils. Cook lentils in a pot of water with all other ingredients. When lentils are cooked, drain and add olive oil and salt.

For the fried leeks

Heat oil in a pan. Mix flour and corn starch. Coat leeks with mixture.

Add leeks to hot oil and cook until golden brown and crunchy. Make sure not to burn the leeks. When leeks are golden brown, remove from pan to a plate and pat dry with paper to absorb oil. Add salt and pepper at the end

Place some purée first on bottom of the plate, add lentils, divide roasted carrots on the plate. Top it with sliced carrots and fried leeks.

Today I had to battle my demons, and stop obsessing about some terrible thing that happened recently, so I decided to try anything I could, and went for a long run. It did help somehow. After a few hours of running in circles, I went home and had no idea what I would make for lunch. I had no appetite and and no inspiration either. I found among my million items in my pantry those edamame fettucine I bought along with the black bean spaghetti a while ago.

So basically, edamame and mung bean fettucine are simply a type of pasta made with edamame and mung bean flour, that’s why they have this beautiful light green color. In the picture they could be blending with the cabbage color, but if you look closely, you can distinguish the fettucine.

This type of pasta is filled with fibers and proteins, so you will not feel bloated or stuffed as you would when eating regular white flour pasta. They are easily digestible, nutritious and very delicious. They remain a bit chewy and al dente, and personally I love chewy textures.

The combination of the sweetness of the cabbage and peas, complement the nuttiness of the noodles, so we have a very balance dish as far as textures and flavors. I ate two whole plates so this portion is enough for three people, or two if one of them is very hungry.

Ingredients for 2-3

• 2 tbs olive oil
• 1/3 yellow onion, finely diced
• 1/2 cabbage, finely sliced
• 1 tbs mirin
• 1/2 cup peas
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 2 handful of shrimps, peeled and deveined
• about 3.5 oz (or 120 grams) edamame fettucine
• salt and pepper

 Preparation

Heat olive oil in a pan, add onion and let soften about 5 minutes at medium temperature. Add cabbage and mirin. Cook and cover until cabbage softens but still a bit firm and mirin evaporates. Add peas, shrimps and garlic. Cook until peas and shrimps are cooked. Adjust with salt and pepper. In the meantime, cook fettucine in hot salted boiling water until al dente, about 5 minutes. Drain and serve with cabbage, peas, shrimps mixture. Drizzle some extra unrefined extra virgin oil on top and serve hot.

I have always wanted to make my own almond milk, but I thought it would be too difficult to make a good one, so I left that project on the side, thinking oh well, maybe one day.

Recently, I have been particularly interested in almonds and their nutritional benefits, eating them, cooking and baking with them, etc…so from one thing to another, I finally decided to make almond milk…and wow is that easy. If I knew it would have been so easy, I would have tried a lot sooner.

I drink store bought almond milk on a daily basis, and today after looking at the ingredients, I was a little shocked. I had not idea that the milk contained 18 ingredients such as, tapioca, carrageenan, sunflower lecithin, d-alphatocopherol, etc…and a bunch of other ingredients I have never heard of, so that gave me the motivation to make my own with only two ingredients.

So even though you have to soak almonds in water overnight, the process is very very simple…the most time consuming would be perhaps to peel the almonds, but they do peel very easily after soaking.

I love this almond milk, you get of course the nutty flavor of the almonds but its texture is really smooth. It’s a lot whiter than the store bought and less thick, but it definitely is more wholesome and natural with tons of nutrients and vitamins.

The other great thing about making your own almond milk is that you can use the left over “pulp” (or ground almonds that you obtain when you filter the milk), to make cakes, desserts, etc… The delicious almond cake recipe I made with the leftover almonds, will come in my next post. Out of 200 grams of almonds you get about 1 cup of ground almonds.

Don’t buy almond milk any longer, make your own!

Ingredients:

• 7 oz (or 200 gr) peeled almonds
• 3 cups (or 700 ml) filtered water
• 1 tsp agave nectar (optional)

Instructions:

Soak almonds overnight in 2 cups water. Peel them. In a blender mix almonds, water and agave nectar. Blend a few times for about 40 seconds until the mixture is homogenous and almonds are crushed.

Filter milk mixture through a thin sieve squeezing well to get all the water out. Place almond milk in a container and refrigerate. Keep the “pulp” or paste to bake.

Usually I would never think of making cheese, because in my mind, it was something too complicated, something only cheese makers knew how to do.

This changed my mind. Living in the US, it’s sometimes difficult to find imported cheeses, such as mascarpone. In the past, stores like Rainbow or Whole Foods carried various Italian brands such as Santa Lucia. In any European country, you can find Italian mascarpone anywhere. For whatever reason in San Francisco, they stop selling them, selling only domestic mascarpone, and with no offense, domestic brands are not good, either the texture is too solid, too yellow, too this or too that, making really bad tiramisù. So in my mind, I could no longer make good tiramisù, and I have to admit that I got a little frustrated and annoyed. Then I tried to find on the web some information of the fabrication of mascarpone, which I was curious to know why it was called cheese (it’s because of the caseine). And here we go, the easiest thing on earth is to make mascarpone with just two ingredients! Yes it is possible! I was amazed when this came out of the refrigerator.

One pint will give you about 250-300 gr of mascarpone (a little more than the quantity of the container you find in the store)

Morale of the story: Do not buy domestic mascarpone any longer if you want to make a killer tiramisù, make it yourself, it’s worth it.

Ingredients

• 1 pint of heavy cream (a great quality, I used Straus)
• 1 tbs of lemon juice (filtered)

Preparation

in a large pot, bring about 2 cups of water to a boil. Pour cream in a mixing container that could be exposed at high temperature (I used a pyrex one), place on top of the pot and lower the heat. Stir cream and let it reach about 80-90C, then add lemon juice. Keep stirring for about 10 minutes, at that point the cream will become thicker and coat the spoon. Remove from heat and let it cool.

Place a cheese cloth (the thick kind, not with holes) on top of a strainer, then pour cream in it. Cover with a cloth and place in the refrigerator for about one day (24 hours). Use withing the next few days.