Soba with Mushrooms and Spinach

As a child, my diet consisted mostly of Swiss and Italian dishes. Pasta, potatoes, gratin and such. We were fed the occasional Thai curry or sweet and sour pork, but not much else from the exotic department. And it is only in these two cuisines, those I know best, that I stay true to the original recipes and ingredient combinations.
I am not that familiar with Japanese food, my experience of it is limited to 2 or 3 restaurant visits in Switzerland or Germany. I also make sushi from time to time, but I would not consider myself a sushi expert. So when I tell you this dish is Japanese, I am probably wrong.
I cook soba and other Asian noodles like I cook Italian pasta, in salted water, on a rolling boil. I learnt to rinse them in cold water after cooking, but I usually reheat them with the sauce I want to serve them with. And it turns out fine, even great with this dish.

Buckwheat and mushrooms are to be considered close friends in the kitchen, at least in mine. Whenever I cook with buckwheat, I want to add mushrooms, these two earthy flavours complement each other so well. This dish was inspired by a recipe by Heidi Swanson, her Black Sesame Otsu, a recipe from her second book that you can also find on her blog. I made it as she wrote it, too, and I love it, but I also like to change things up. And I have to say, the mushrooms do more for the dish than the tofu in the original recipe. I actually quite like tofu, but it is does not add much flavor to a dish.

Lemony Asparagus and Spinach Crepes

This is a quick post for a rather quick meal. I found myself in a bit of a hurry the last week or two. Or rather, I put myself int a bit of stress by not doing much during the first part of semester. Duh! I really should know by now, this is not my first semester. But every time I do the same, relaxing and enjoying my free time in the first part and then stressing about getting everything done on time.
 Thats when I crave simple food, simple but still delicious. Because I really need to step away from cooking all day in this time of the semester. Simple might mean different things to you, but making these crepes and filling them with simple ingredients was just the thing I needed. This is not the quickest meal around, but they were easy enough to make and reconnected me with something real.

Spinach Tart

So I just finished my last presentation for quite some time, the next few weeks should be a lot calmer now. So I hope to post more often now, especially since the weather is great and taking pictures is a lot easier now.


Even though I didn't post much here, I actually have been cooking. I ordered Heidi Swansons cookbook Super Natural Cooking a few weeks ago, and since it arrived last week I already used some of the recipes in there. The risotto-style "Quinoa with Crescenza" was great!

Quinoa and Spinach Gratin

I decided to use more whole grains and just "whole" food in general. My first attempt at incorporating quinoa into my diet resulted in this Quinoa and Spinach Gratin. I saw a recipe for baked spinach on smitten kitchen just last week and new I had to try it. But as always I changed things up quite a bit.

Quinoa and Spinach Gratin

Ingredients:
200g spinach, washed and destemmed
1 tbsp olive oil
1 clove of garlic, pressed
salt and pepper
italian herbs, optional
60g quinoa
~35g mozzarella
1 tbsp bread crumbs
1 tbsp ground hazelnuts

Preheat the oven to 180°C (or 350°F). Prepare the quinoa according to the instructions on the package. While it cooks, heat the oil in a skillet, add the garlic and the spinach and let the spinach wilt. Add salt and pepper to taste. I also added a teaspoon dried italian herbs. Mix the cooked quinoa and spinach together and pour the mixture into a small baking dish. Sprinkle with mozzarella, the bread crumbs and the hazelnuts. Bake for about 15-20 minutes or until cheese is melted.

Serves 1.