I took a crepe lesson with a friend 2 weeks ago.

It was taught by the very same instructor who taught the French Cooking class that I took previously. As usual, she prepared wine and more than enough food for everyone. It was a fun night experiencing the different types of crepes.

We usually think of crepe as dessert. But there are many different types of crepes, though I'm still not very used to it, savory ones are also very popular.

This is a rye crepe with smoke salmon, red radish and cream cheese with dill filling.


Our instructor prepared 5 or 6 different kinds of batter for us to taste (and make). Each was different and I enjoyed them all very much. The use of not just buckwheat but also corn, rye, whole wheat, orange zest, herbs...etc. in making the batter to match with different fillings was something new to me.

I particularly liked the sweet batter with herbs. It was delicious and went well with simple fillings like tomato and cheese. Other than just wrapping it into a cone (that's the very typical scene we see in Japan), we also baked some with cheese, ate some like an open sandwich, and so on and so on. .

We wrapped spinach and cream sauce(close enough) filling in a buckwheat crepe, rolled them up and topped it with some cheese and baked for 15 minutes.


If you wonder how it looked it, this is it. Rich in flavor so it's really a dinner dish to me.


We had a lot of fun making our own crepes. We started off with some fairly thick and ugly looking crepes but we improved as we made more and were able to achieve making thinner ones towards the end of the lesson. The next thing would probably be to bring home a crepe pan and start making them at home! haha


There were so many crepes that we couldn't finish trying every single type so we brought some home for the next day. Here we have a whole wheat or buckwheat crepe with ham and cheese, the other one is a corn crepe with chicken filling (see below). I also brought home some crepe suzette for hubby.




Actually speaking of the crepe suzette we made, there was a little incident while our instructor was playing with fire. With a bit too much grand marnier in the pan, the flame got a bit aggressive and caught on her hair (just a little bit). So we learn not to be too greedy or we'd have a new hair style by the time we can sit down to taste our crepe suzette.

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今日はアメリカの誕生日。
ボストンではＢｏｓｔｏｎ　Ｐｏｐｓのコンサートと花火があります。
去年は大雨の中Ｈａｒｖａｒｄ Ｂｒｉｄｇｅから見ましたが、結構近距離から見れたので迫力があります。
今年もみに行く予定だったけど、やっぱり行くのをやめました。

ボストンドットコムからの画像です。


今年の花火はテレビでみても感動しました。
やっぱり音楽が聞こえたほうがいいですよね〜♪
現場で見るのが迫力を感じて結構いいですが、ソファに座ってフルーツを食べながら見るのも悪くないかも。（＾＾）ｂ

そろそろ寝ようかな・・・

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It's 4th of July, America's birthday.

There are lots of celebrations and events going on. Was actually planning to go see the fireworks but decided to come home after dinner.

I still remember how crowded it was in the rain last year. And how long it took us to get on a train to come home. But it was still fun.

The weather was good this year. Not sunny but at least it didn't rain at night. We watched the show on TV and could actually hear the fireworks in Newton. I like the sound, I liked the sound of the fireworks of Tenjin matsuri back in Osaka too. =)

It felt good to be able to sit in my sofa while watching the show with background music and everything available.

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我がキッチンでは３種類の塩を使っています。



普通の塩、海塩、そしてKosher Saltという種類(実はただの粗い塩だけどね）です。

去年フランスに行ったときモンサンミシェルから当地の塩も買ってきました、確かに料理も違う味がしたので、料理によって違う塩を使うと味も奥深くなるんだと実感しました。

しかし・・・種類が多すぎて使い方も全く分からないのでそこまで研究する精神がないと思います。（＾＾；；

とにかくこの3種類で頑張っています。

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These are the 3 different kinds of salt I've been using at home.

Regular salt, sea salt, and kosher salt.
kosher salt sounds like something that's kosher but it's actually just normal salt that's not as fine (smaller rock salt). They call it kosher in America because they make things kosher.

There are so many different kinds of salt available out there but 3 is enough for me at the moment. I yet have to learn to maximize their flavor in different cookings.

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I bought some blueberry the other day and thought I could make some blueberry muffins. So I searched for a recipe online and found one with over 2000 positive reviews.

All the feedbacks were so great that I've just gotta try it. Turned out like this...




Looking good right?! (^^)b

The crumble on top is sorta similar to a cookie texture so it gives the contrast to the soft muffin body down below.

I didn't like the recipe for the muffin itself since it turns out to be pretty dry and firm. It's a very simple recipe that yields a thicker dough/seed to prevent the blueberries from sinking, but at the same time, it gives less moist, which is also important.

Maybe I'll mix my previous banana muffin recipe with the crumble topping. That may work!

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先日ブルーベリーを買ってきました。
そのまま食べるのも美味しいですが、旦那がブルーベリーが好きなので、おやつにしてあげたいと思ってレシピをサーチしてみました。

そこで、２０００人以上コメントしているブルーベリーマフィンのレシピを発見！
皆美味しいと書いているので、さすがに作ってみたくなりますよね〜♪




アイデアとしてはマフィンのトッピングとしてソボロをのせるのがとてもいいと思います。食感を与えるし、味のコントラストがあるのでいいなと思いました。でも、レシピのままで作ると、マフィン生地がちょっと固めで食べるときパサパサするのが分かりました。



そもそも、ブルーベリーが底に落ちていかないように生地を固めにしたと思うけど、やっぱり水分があったほうが食べやすいかも。

今度は前のバナナマフィンのレシピと今回のトッピングを合わせて作ってみようかな。

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この前ナイフを買ったときのおまけですが、在庫切れで届くまで結構時間かかったナイフオーガナイザ。

ブロック形のものは格好いいですが、カウンタースペースをかかってしまうし、ブレッドナイフが長すぎてはみ出る恐れが有るのでこの形にしました。



結構楽しみにしていたこのアイテム。実際届いたとき思ったのは・・・日本の引き出しってちゃんと入る深さがあるかしら？ってこと。まぁ多分無いでしょうね。

ナイフを並べて収納できるので嬉しいです。引き出しもすっきり！

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This knife organizer is a bonus gift from my previous purchase of the mentioned wusthof knives.
There were actually different choices. But I didn't want to use up my counter space and I don't like magnet so I picked this in drawer style organizer.

It's a bit longer than I've anticipated. Perfectly fitted into my drawer but I'm not sure if it'd fit in any Japanese kitchen drawer. (^^;;

Anyway, it's a heavy duty solid wood item. I'm glad I now have it so I can lay out all of my knives neatly in my drawer! =)

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