Lemon and poppy seed cake, and absolute truths.

(Em português)

There are some things we learn as small kids, often times through observation, and they end up becoming absolute truths for us.

One of such things I have learned from my grandmother Nelci: everytime we receive a visit at home, or every time someone from home is coming back from a trip, we make something special to wait for that person. Every time.

It happened that 98% of the time the special thing was to bake a cake.

So in my head, receiving a visit is associated to baking cakes.

A few days ago, I received two very dear people (hi Ire, hi mom), so there it is, lemon and poppy seeds cake.

Of course I got this recipe at technicolor kitchen, the kingdom of sweets made with citrus fruit, and for me, the perfect place to find something good to do with my recently-acquired seeds.

Bifum with shitake. What?

(Em português)

Maybe I haven't mentioned this before on the blog, but I have a fascination for Japan and Japanese people. I think the foods are pretty, the absurd clothes are pretty, those many colorful things I don't understand, the martial arts movies, the incredibly specific stationary items, the design, the architecture solutions, I find it all pretty.

But I never enjoyed Japanese food, because I think the textures are weird.

Recently I ate at a ramen restaurant with my boyfriend, and I really liked it. Then I went to a place at Liberdade with a couple friends and had yakimeshi, then I went somewhere else in Liberdade with other friends, so forth and so on...

I continue not having interest in seafood and raw fish, but Japanese cuisine has so much more than that.

This was my lunch today, and look how nice: I did it without any recipe, just from the ingredients I had at home.

Bifum is this very thin noodle made from rice, and shitake is the kind of mushroom.

You can improvise something similar substituting the ingredients with what you have around.

By the way: how to wash leafy greens.

(Em português)

People, to eat salad, what do we need?

We need salad ready to eat. It's that simple.

Properly washing salad takes time and is boring, that's why nobody has patience to do it when they come home from work and cook dinner, or when they make a quick weekday lunch. Or prepare their lunchbox, whatever.

At least, I am like that.

However, I like eating salad, and a lot of it too.

To solve this matter, I adopted an idea I've seen in La Cucinetta - I can't remember in which post nor when - that's to do everything in one single day: go to the farmers market & washing the leafy vegetables all at once.

The remaining vegetables and fruits I wash only when I use them, but for the leafs this has been quite useful, because they last me a whole week.

Of course I'm not able to do that every week, but I would like to.

Below you can see how I prepare my greens to make sure they are clean and fresh for a couple days.

Going back to talking about food: cornmeal bread.

 

(Em português)

At last, here I come with a recipe, people.

On Sundays in which it's possible, I like to tidy up my place, bake fresh bread and wash salad.

Talk about this Sunday then, considering tomorrow I'll receive a very special visit - a friend I haven't seen in some 5 years. And on Wednesday my mother will come to visit too.

I have prepared cornmeal rolls before, with a recipe from wild yeast, but this one is different because it's a loaf. And because I adapted it from Dona Benta.

Truth be told, I adapted it quite a bit. But considering Dona Benta's loaf was the spark to bake the bread, I'll have it written down in the end of the post.