Looking back on October: Cooking Edition
I have a routine now where I cook ONE dish every day, and I want to share some of my favorite recipes.
Can you imagine it’s November already? It’s practically 2023, and honestly…how did this happen? After I came back from Europe, I completely lost my routine. A friend of mine introduced me with the idea of a morning routine, and the recent issue on Morning Person has done a great job in explaining her day, and other people talk about what they do to get started on their day a lot as well. (It’s a bit green juice, hot water with lemons vibe but you know) After Covid happened, I think that’s when I started my morning routine. It’s really nothing complicated or if anything long. I wake up, I open my windows, I make coffee, I stretch, if I have the mental capacity, I’ll meditate with Calm for 5minutes and read for 15-30 minutes. This is already about an hour of my morning so I try to wake up early and while I was working at my previous company, it got things rolling and I enjoyed it. The things is, I was gone for more than a month, and I forgot what time to wake up, reading for 30minutes before looking at any screen, preparing breakfast and even getting properly dressed. It’s also a bit different for me now because I’m currently unemployed. I don’t have a job that I need to show up to so I needed to promise myself, a couple things.
waking up at a certain time, read religiously again, cook one dish a day.
I know you have to enjoy cooking to begin with I guess, but there is a profound beauty in cooking something for yourself or for someone of course, and having this joy of overlooking the process to the final version of it. I just love it.
All this to say, why keep the beautiful dishes to myself and recipes to myself? Here are some of the dishes and favorites I made in October and I hope this inspires some of you! (I couldn’t list all of them but if you are interested in the process of making these dishes, I also film my cooking here on Instagram!)
Dinner
🍝How the Romans will make Carbonara
I have to say, carbonara is just one of those dishes that seems hectic to make but it’s not it’s just…if you know how to do, you got it. So Italians will never use any type of cream and …well pancetta. They use guanciare (The cheek part of the pork). But we do live in Japan and getting guanciare is very difficult so we will have to make do with pancetta. There is literally only 4-5 ingredients in here. 2egg yolk, just the right amount of pecorino romano (finely grated) , pepper, pasta water, and the pancetta. Now Matteo Lane is a great Italian that we all need in our life and omg so funny, he makes pasta videos on Youtube and this is a great video to just go off of.
🌿Creamy Potato Leek soup #Lotsofdill
Recipe by Alison Roman Here
Just tons of Dill! I mean who doesn’t love dill for real. As for leeks, we live in Japan so I used both 長ネギ and 九条ネギ. To make it a bit more creamier, I think I should have used more potatoes but other than that, this sour but creamy soup just hits the right spot for soup lovers in fall. Oh and don’t forget the bread… The insanely yum bread by Katane bakery. I’m so happy I found this food news letter to read up on because she has so many good ideas!
🍗Curry tomato sauce Chicken served with raita
Recipe inspiration by Morning Person Here
This curry tomato sauce that Leslie’s mom has been making for her…omg, it’s so simple but so good. It could be arranged with so many things but it’s such a good party sauce food that could be marinated with any kind of meat I think! Gosh, Raita sauce…? I mean I’ll want a yogurt sauce on any day but god damn, with the tomato sauce being a bit spicy, it milds out and it’s perfect.
🎃Pumpkin and Nira curry stir-fry
Recipe by Kentaro. This one is by one of my favorite cooking books.
Super simple, if you want to add pork, you can add it if you want. Only Nira, sliced pumpkin, ginger and garlic. The sauce is mirin, soy sauce and curry powder.
🥬Chicken thighs with Japanese Daikon
Recipe by Kentaro. This one is by one of my favorite cooking books.
Super easy. The broth is just simply…water. The chicken thighs and the daikon (with ginger) is creating this beautiful flavor.
Lunch
🥗Baked Kale salad with crispy Quinoa
Recipe by Justine Doiron. Here
I found this person on TikTok actually!! I’m very proud of myself for finding someone through tiktok. She does mainly vegetarian options and could be a bit time consuming honestly, but this salad has two favorite things of mine, BAKED and cabbage. I failed a bit in crisping up the quinoa so I’m willing to try next, but baked cabbage is just such a delight! Oh and the homemade agrodolce dressing is…fab!
🥗Dad’s brunch salad
I got this recipe from the Morning Person issue Here. It is so so easy and you can just whip it up just in a couple minutes. One thing I did think was, it will be a great summer salad, because of all the tomatoes? but either way, if you love a coriander and tomato vibe thing, this one is for you. (I actually went on and bought this cook book too!)
Breakfast/Desserts
🥞Fluffy pancakes
Pancakes from scratch. This one is also a recipe from Matteo Lane. (Is he becoming my cooking inspiration?) For some reason, my batter didn’t become as clay-y as he said it should be, I could have possibly added more flour, but my god home made pancakes are the BEST!
🍎Apple cinnamon pound cake french style
Recipe is from Cupofjoe Here ;
This is so French to a point that you don’t have to use baking powder or baking soda… because the eggs will lift the batter up for you! God, I think I’m pretty good at baking but this one was really good. Also, Cup of Joe is a fantastic life style website.
Voilá! I hope you get some kind of inspiration. I thought one dish a day will be a bit hectic… but it actually does motivate me to structure my day around it. If I want to bake, I want to do it during the day so I’ll finish up things in the morning. I might sound like a housewife, but I will say to that, so what? All I have is time and freedom of exploring things I love doing, which is cooking!
Merci for reading xx Megumi