Workday Gourmet

I'm sharing my version of salade nicoise. This hearty summer dish originates from the French city of Nice. Modern renditions commonly includes cooked eggs, green bean, potatoes, olives, all the good stuff you can think of. I'm making mine with a quick seared tuna steak, and some not-quite hard boiled eggs.

This looks like a lot of ingredients, but each one takes little time to prep, and with a little multi-threading, you can easily complete this in under 15 minutes. 

Obligatory disclaimer: this is not exactly traditional; will fail purity test. But it makes for a very enjoyable summertime meal. The briny olives and creamy eggs complements the tuna perfectly. The starchiness from the potatoes, freshness of the green bean, and little bite from the shallot, just all work so well together.

This is one healthy dinner that won't leave you feel remotely deprived!

Ingredients:

for the dressing:
1 shallot, minced
1 lemon, juiced
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp dijon mustard
1/4 tsp fresh grou…

This is my take on this Indian restaurant favorite. A vibrant green vegetable curry, so flavorful even a carnivore would love it. If you follow my channel or blog you might've guessed, this is yet another, quick shortcut recipe. Get some frozen naan or roti ready and dinner will be ready in 10 minutes!

Usual disclaimer: this is far from authentic, & no offense intended. I've made gnocchi with instant mashed potato mix, and soup dumpling with gelatin & pasta press. This is another one of those quick, easy, hacky fix for lazy foodies in quarantine. I'm microwaving the potato, wilting the spinach, and using jalapeno instead of whatever proper pepper I should've used but don't have easy access to.

Ingredients:
4 cups spinach
3 cloves garlic, crushed
2 medium potatoes, diced
1 medium onion, chopped
1 shallot, chopped
1 green chili pepper, chopped (I'm using jalapeno)
1 tsp chopped ginger
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp onion salt
1/2 tsp corriander powder
1/2 …

We've all seen these in anime! Dangos are chewy rice balls on skewers. They can be sweet or savory, and prepped with a variety of ingredients. Some use a combination of short grain rice flour & sticky rice flour, some use hot water & kneading, all to achieve a good balance of texture. They should be soft but hold shape, chewy but not too sticky, bouncy and slightly al dente.

A shortcut to making these with minimum experience and effort is to use equal weight silken tofu and mochiko. It won't quite be the stuff you get at a Kyoto tea house, but will yield a pleasant, balanced result, without hand-kneading a steaming hot dough and trying not to get burned.

The dangos themselves are not strongly flavored. They rely on sauces & toppings for flavor. Sort of like fresh homemade pasta - taste great even with the simplest seasoning, but if you don't put anything at all on it, it won't be nearly as enjoyable on its own (think unsalted pasta). If you have access to …

I was gifted a case of tomato paste (6oz cans). It had me hooked on pizza for a month (and ongoing). I will probably never bother to cook down tomato sauce again for pizza sauce. This almost-instant tomato paste pizza sauce is so delightful it's unfair (given how little work went into it). It's good for margherita, tomato pie, and good old classic cheese pizza. It is embarrassingly addicting, such that I had to roll up the edge of the pizza to accommodate the extra sauce too often requested. Happy accident - this yields an extra crispy edge, like a crusty Stromboli, so good that my dog no longer gets pizza crust from the table.

I'm cooking mine at a lower temperature than recommended by conventional recipes. Traditional Neapolitan pizza are cooked in 900 degree ovens, such that the dough is completely cooked before everything else is dried out. To mimic this effect, pizza recipes often call for heating the oven as high as it would go, and using a pizza stone for thermal m…