Pesto Japanese Mushroom Flatbread

This menu is like a quick & easy homemade pizza with Japanese mushrooms and Pesto. It turned out to be very yummy!! This recipe was adapted from Steamy Kitchen.

I just bought various kinds of Japanese mushrooms this week. The kind that I used for this menu is called Brown Beech Mushrooms.

To make this quick, we could use naan bread instead of rolling out our own pizza dough. The naan that I used is mini whole wheat naan from Trader Joe's. It's baked in Tandoori oven so it has pretty nice oven smell (though it did not taste that much like Naan in indian restaurant). I used pre-made Pesto from Trader Joe's which was made from fresh ingredients. I also used part skim milk Mozzarella cheese from Trader Joe's. Actually almost everything was from Trader Joe's except mushrooms lol. With some pepper flakes, this turned out to be very delicious!! I forgot to buy fresh basil so I left that out. It probably tastes even better with it. Now what should I cook with remaining pesto...

Notes to myself:

• 1/4 of big (typical) onion should be enough. I added too much onion this time.
• This naan is a bit too thick and too small. Maybe try other kinds of flatbread like Pita bread next time?
• Need to add more pesto!

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins

These are the most delicious muffins on earth. They are also light in butter and sugar. The muffins are moist and have nice balance of banana and chocolate flavor. I adapted this from skinnytaste's blog. I used white whole wheat flour which is more filling and healthy. I also reduced amount of sugar and used dark brown sugar instead. Muffins are actually very easy to make. Each batch makes 12 muffins. I like to freeze left over and pop one in microwave for breakfast.

It is important to use super ripe banana (turning brown/black of course). The most time-consuming part is probably to mash banana...

I used Ghirardelli for cocoa power and chips. They taste very good for baked stuff.

The main trick of mixing muffin ingredients is to mix wet and dry ingredients separately initially. Then slowly mix the dry mixture into wet mixture and don't over mix.

Recipe adjustment

• 3 large super ripe banana
• White whole wheat flour (Trader Joe's) instead of all-purpose flour
• 1 large whole egg instead 2 large white eggs
• 1/4 cup of dark brown sugar (Trader Joe's) instead of 1/3 cup of normal sugar
• Ghirardelli 100% unsweetened cocoa powder
• Ghirardelli chocolate 60% cocoa bitter sweet baking chips

Poached Cod with Miso, Shiitakes, and Edamame

I've been enjoying cooking recently. I'm afraid I'll forget all the things I learned and experimented in my cooking so here comes my diary :) My cooking focuses on healthy food (including dessert!) in various types of cuisines. My first dish was adapted from a main fish dish in The Complete Cooking For Two Cookbook. This dish has all the ingredients I really love namely Cod, Miso, Shiitakes and Edamame! It is also very easy to cook. The main idea of this dish is to partially simmer and steam the fish in Japanese-style soup base.

First was to sauté Shiitake mushrooms. I used organic Shiitake mushrooms from Uwajimaya.

Then the cod was gently cooked in covered skillet with a mix of mirin, soy sauce, garlic, ginger and edamame. I used the cod which was separately frozen in a package. So convenient. I (partially) thawed it in the refrigerator over night before cooking. To take the dish to the next level, I used Dashi as a poaching liquid instead of just water that original recipe calls for. Dashi is a Japanese stock made from dried kelp (kombu) and dried fish (bonito). This dish does not require a lot of dashi so I saved the rest to make miso soup (will make another post for it)

Finally, I stirred the mushrooms into the broth along with red miso paste and toasted sesame oil. Don't forget to sprinkle scallion on top. The toasted sesame oil really made this dish so divine!!

Note to myself:

• I just forgot that typically for Asian steamed fish, we pour the hot toasted sesame oil on top of the fish and thinly-sliced scallion. I should try that next time!
• It is kind of hard to know when the fish was cooked. Since my fish was partially thawed the cook time would be a bit longer than in the recipe. Next time I should use the instant thermometer.