Goboroot.com – Page 29 – Everyday Recipes from my Garden

Miso Soup and Brown Rice Balls

We have been serving this menu item on Sunday nights for a while after consuming some cheese, meat dishes and indulgences during the week. Somehow eating something very simple like this meal seems right to cleanse and restore the body for the coming week. Indeed, how soothing the very first sip of miso soup is!

Miso is well known for its anti-aging properties, cancer prevention and ability to lower the chance of cardiovascular disease as well as intestinal disorders, to name a few. When you shop for miso, I would strongly recommend that you look for organic and non-GMO (genetically modified organism) miso.

Miso Soup

Serves 2-3

3 cups water

1 cup shiitake, washed and sliced

2 tablespoons white miso

1 tablespoon red miso

1 cup mung bean sprouts

1 cup red clover sprouts

Wash the shiitake, remove any hard part at the end of stems, and slice into 1/4 inch pieces. Put the water in a pot over medium heat and add shiitake, then bring to a boil. Turn heat down and simmer until shiitake is cooked, about 5 minutes. Put the miso in a ladle and submerge it into the simmering water. Whisk the miso gently with two chopsticks until dissolved. Bring to a simmer and continue for a few minutes without boiling. Serve in a bowl and, just before eating, top with a handful of sprouts .

Brown Rice Balls

Serves 2

2 cups brown rice (or 1 cup each of Japanese white rice and brown rice)

2 sheets nori, cut in half, making 4 pieces

Sea salt

A bowl of water for wetting your hands

Cook the rice according to the instructions on the packaging. Spread cooked rice on a big flat plate, separating in quarters, and cool. Wet and lightly sprinkle salt on your hands. Then, scoop the quarter of rice and form into a triangle shape, gently pressing to make sure that the rice does not fall apart. Put a piece of nori around each ball and gently press.

Serve with miso soup.

Peanut Butter Cookies

My partner, Pascal, was craving sugar and decided to bake something at 10:00 pm! All we had was a jar of organic peanut butter in the fridge. So I pulled an old baking book from the cupboard that I had brought from Japan and been using for over twenty years! I love this recipe because it’s not too sweet. The key is to use a nice quality peanut butter.

Peanut butter cookies

Makes about 35 cookies

80g Butter, room temperature

80g Crunchy peanut butter

100g Brown sugar

1 egg

160g Unbleached all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

*I use salted butter, but if you use unsalted, you might want to add a little bit of salt, say 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon.

Preheat oven to 335 degrees F (300 degrees F for a convection oven). In a medium bowl, whisk butter and peanut butter until it becomes creamy. Add brown sugar little by little and whisk until pale and fluffy.

Beat egg into the peanut butter mixture. In a separate bowl combine flour and baking powder and add to the peanut butter mixture and blend in. If the mixture is too sticky, put in the fridge till it becomes hard.

On a lightly floured surface, form the dough into a log about 5 cm in diameter and cut into 35 pieces.

Shape the pieces into rounds by hand and place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Crisscross mark them with the back of a fork.

Bake for 20 minutes, until brown. Let them cool on rack.

Grain Cereals with Cherries

Every summer, I purchase some Okanagan cherries from a local farmers’ market and indulge myself with a big bowl of fresh cherries in the warm afternoon. But being an urban farmer, there is always a thought for winter season in mind. So I freeze the rest for a cold morning in winter to enjoy this recipe. I repeat this process every weekend until cherries are out of season. I do the same for all those heat loving stone fruits. You will come to appreciate this when there is nothing but rain!

Grain Cereals with Cherries

Serves 2

1/2 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup rolled rye

1 tablespoon butter

2 1/2 cups almond milk

1 tablespoon cane sugar

Pinch of salt

Cherry sauce

1 cup fresh or frozen cherries

1 tablespoon cane sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

*Add 1 tablespoon water if using fresh cherries

Topping

Ground flax seeds

Handful of sliced almonds

Heat a sauce pan with butter and toast the grains well over medium-high heat till you smell the aroma . Stir continuously for 7 to 10 minutes so as not to burn them. Add almond milk, bring to a boil then add sugar and a pinch of salt. Turn the heat to low, continue to stir and cook for 12 to 15 minutes or to your liking. I like it thin so I stop the heat when there is still some liquid left, about 12 minutes. In the meantime, place cherries, sugar and vanilla extract in a small pan and cook for 6-8 minutes over medium-high heat. When cherries have softened and the juice becomes syrupy but not dry, remove from heat. Serve the cereal in a bowl and drizzle cherry sauce on top. Sprinkle flax seeds and sliced almonds over top.