in the mood for food

Last summer I cooked a Pissaladière - aka Provençal onion pie - from one of my favorite cook books ever: Elizabeth David’s French Provincial Cooking. While tasty, simple and reasonably healthy - onions, tomatoes, olives, anchovies on a rich bread dough - I felt I could go further on the healthy side and completely transform this recipe into something equally tasty, plant exclusive, and sattvic friendly.

Another thing that this trip brought to my attention was snacks, or more precisely what constitutes a good & yummy snack. I never really thought about the structure of a snack. For me a snack was a piece fruit, a handful of nuts, or a protein bar.

I used to make this every week for breakfast when I was in Switzerland last year. It’s warm, filling, fragrant, and versatile. Feel free to swap the raspberries for blueberries, add some bananas, or pear slices. Although it’s quite quick to assemble, it takes some time in the oven, so it might be best suited for a brunch, or a lazy morning.

With summer being the time of the year where we can get away with eating mostly raw foods, there are still a lot of things I love to cook, like a hearty Niçoise salad, with roasted potatoes, tomatoes and peppers, perfectly blanched green beans, thinly sliced raw cucumbers, boiled eggs, lots of olive oil, capers and parsley, baked whole fish, stuffed with herbs and lemon, pasta salads with ratatouille or cold noodles with soy sauce, coriander, lime and chili dressing, and anything with strawberries, figs or peaches, like these tartlets I’ve adapted from the book “More Home Cooking” by Laurie Colwin.

In general, people look for the best recipes of anything: the best chocolate chip cookies, the best meatloaf, the best banana bread (these are the top suggestions I got from Google search). Here I’m aiming for the simplest, in this case, the simplest lasagna recipe, one that has a short utensil and ingredients list, preferably using fresh or minimally processed ingredients, a swift preparation, and a quick cooking time. Did I mention it is plant-based too?

I came back to the kitchen today after a few weeks of feeling no motivation to cook at all. I made hot cross buns for the first time and roughly followed this Donna Hay recipe.

For many years my favorite café in Lisbon was Kaffeehaus in Chiado. I loved going there for a cup of coffee, which they always served in a silvery platter with a glass of water. Occasionally, I’d order their delicious vegetable strudel, made with a combination of potatoes, pumpkin, spinach and Feta cheese. I haven’t been there for quite a while and I’m not sure if they still serve it.

I really like apricots. It’s a pity that the truly good fresh ones are so hard to find , even at the peak of their season. It appears to me that most of the time what you get at the market is either stone-hard and sour, or mushy and tasteless. On the other hand, dried apricots are always good and available. Not too sweet and sticky like dates or prunes, not too dry and grainy like figs, dried apricots are perfectly chewy and aromatic, sweet and sour.

About this creamy wintry soup, while there’s nothing new about mushrooms or chestnuts in a soup, I thought that using a tea instead of a stock or plain water would be interesting. Well, firstly I thought of using coffee, but I’m avoiding coffee lately, so kukicha tea, aka twig tea (or Chá de três anos, in Portuguese), popped into my mind since that’s what I’m having for breakfast instead. Kukicha tea has a nutty, roasted flavor that pairs well with mushrooms and chestnuts. Plain, this soup is a great starter, but topped with loads of caramelized onions and a wintry pesto, it’s a perfect hearty supper.

As you may recall, okonomiyaki is a sort of Japanese pancake made with cabbage and lots of toppings like bacon, fish flakes, seaweed, and creamy sauces. The previous one I made was a very simplified version of the traditional recipe, with a creamy avocado mayo and some flaked almonds. On this one I went completely plant-based and a bit crazy: I used chickpea flour for the batter, fermented cabbage instead of fresh one, topping the pancake with carrot ribbons drizzled in a smoked paprika infused olive oil, and why not a few slices of avocado too, followed by another pancake and all the toppings?! I mean, move over avocado on toast, and let’s hear it for the avocado on double okonomiyaki!