This is a treasured recipe for dinner rolls, especially during this long fall and winter holiday season in the U.S. when sharing food means memories and love.
It was lost, though the Thanksgivings we ate it are remembered fondly. It is now found So I’m happy to share the recipe.
Do give it a try! The cardamom is a flavor from childhood so means my mummu, mum, and daughter are there sharing with me. Friends loved the rolls, and so will you!
Last year our gingko tree produced a massive crop of nuts leading to the question of how to preserve them. I carefully washed and dried the unshelled nuts and put them into sealed plastic containers. Some I stored in the pantry, some in the fridge, and some in the freezer.
The gingko nuts from the freezer were chewy, and while they retained a little gingko-ness, they were not the ephemeral seasonal gingkos. They are fine to add to a hot pot, or soup, or steamed with vegetables because they would add a nice texture, but they are only a sorry memory of a bountiful autumn.
Our beautiful tree won’t have many nuts this year…
Exotic yet familar, this innovative combination of pureed edamame beans, feta, yogurt, and olive oil makes a deliciously distinctive dip. It’s a lovely appetizer, a wasabi-pea-green and salty-not-quite-sour dunking medium for rice crackers or vegetables to snack on while the grill does its magic on dinner.
I learned that too many beans can spoil the dip…
Sweet avocados? No, that is too strange!
As unlikely as you having seen this movie:
But my curiosity was piqued, and this delicious Vietnamese milk shake is what I discovered.
When I was 12, I read an article in one of my mother’s “women’s magazines” about grilled bananas. We lived in a big old house with two fireplaces where we would often toast marshmallows over the glowing embers. Roasted bananas appealed to my desire for the exotic beyond the isolated UP. My mom was skeptical while I was persistent. She finally agreed to the experiment if the bananas were wrapped in greased tinfoil and placed in the embers. She wisely prevented me from poking a banana on a marshmallow stick—the result was a gooey mash of burnt banana and margarine…
Yesterday, under a sunny sky with golden ginkgo leaves raining down on me, I gathered yet another bucket of ginkgo nuts. Yes, we have several hundred. It must be my squirrel genes! Thanksgiving is coming up so I have been thinking about appetizers to bring to holiday dinners. Hostess gifts! Crackers are good: they can be served immediately or saved to enjoy later. I thought of cheese crackers with ginkgo nuts and found a few recipes which inspired me to try a version of my own.
In April 1984, a 115g jar of vegemite became the first product in Australia
to be electronically scanned at a checkout.
A friend in Australia sent me an amazing gift package which included a jar of Vegemite. There was some discussion on past posts here about whether I would like it or not. When or if I can find it here in the U.S. it is very expensive, but because of this lovely present I will most certainly pay the price: I love it!
A ginkgo tree is lovely with its summer grey-green fan-shaped leaves fluttering in the slightest breeze. We are lucky to have a female gingko in our front yard. This is our first year in this house, and I’ve watched the tree, waiting for the edible “nuts” to fall. The fleshy seed coat may look like yellow cherries, but it smells something like very stinky cheese or even dog feces. This post describes how to prepare ginkgo nuts for a fun and tasty snack.
Whenever we visit “Up North” Mr. Tess and I like to stop at The Big Stone Bay Fishery to stock up on fresh Great Lakes whitefish, smoked menominee, and fish sausage. He went up by himself to help close the cottage for the season. It was an early warning of the leaf-color soon to come to us in Southern Michigan. He spent a long weekend up there and came home with lots of great fish.
Oh sweet potato cakes!!
I’m looking through my window at the jungle our garden has become, at the bunches of pale green tomatoes hanging heavily in the cool sunlight. The trees and the house are casting shadows narrower and angled more northward than they did only a month ago. The sunlight is thinner after traveling through more air at a steeper angle, providing ever less warmth as we move closer to the equinox.
I’ll admit that today’s recipe is not suitable for my weather. It’s a light and refreshing Japanese sweet to be enjoyed on a hot and humid summer day. (ok, I’ll admit my posts have been sparse and I made this a month ago…) But it makes me happy that somewhere it is warm enough that this recipe will be just the perfect cooling dish to invigorate melting flagging spirits / appetites.
 A few weeks ago, we hosted a dinner for Mr. Tess’s “new” brother, his wife, their neice, and her boyfriend. We don’t know these folks very well, and I get nervous whenever we have guests. I wanted to have most of the dinner ready when they arrived, just in case an unanticipated kitchen disaster meant I’d have to resort to pizza delivery… Yes, Mr. Tess always tells me that it’s the company and not the food that is important, but none the less, I wanted to make a nice evening where things went according to plan.My solution was a menu which I could prepare the evening or morning before, with only a small bit of close attention in the kitchen just before serving. |
Tess's Japanese Kitchen 