Simple pleasures

So I did some heavy duty cooking this week but the best things lately were my simple recipes.

I made fried rice with green onion, garlic, and mushrooms. Added a cold boiled egg and some soy sauce and it was delicious!

I made a radish cheese pie and used the extra Gruyere cheese pie dough to make a simple popover. Some extra cheese, a cheddar curd, some green onions chopped up. The best thing ever. Pictured with radish compote and rosehip and hibiscus iced tea.

I get lost sometimes in all the fancy recipes and complicated techniques. Sometimes it pays to remember the basic simple fact that cooking should be about joy. The food need not be complicated to be delicious. A simple salad or fried rice at the right moment may be much better than any fancy recipe. A simple mug of hot milk with honey, rum and mint may be the best thing in the world even if it is easy to make.

Red beans

So I actually cooked a couple of things this week but the best of the lot was definitely the red beans.

I started with toasted sesame oil (this stuff tastes kinda like bacon fat) and I browned a bunch of garlic and some spring onion (lower part only not the chives.) Mean while I washed a package of Camellia brand red beans. I put them in a pot covered with water and then I added the cooked up onion and garlic along with two or three bay leaves, some salt and some Tony Chacheres extra spicy and a vegetable bullion cube. I cooked the whole think on low simmer for two hours adding water every 30min or so to keep them from drying out. So tender and salty and yummy I sat and ate a whole bowl of them right there without even waiting for the rice.

This was my first week cooking in my new kitchen and it was wonderful! the light was so beautiful I kept having to stop and admire the things I was washing or chopping before I could cook them. Also the beans spread a wonderful cooking smell through the top flour making it all homey and inviting. Ahh I am so glad we decided to do this it really is a great place to spend a day.