Apple Muffin Rosemary and 5 Random Facts

Sweet and flavorful, apple & Rosemary Muffin

I have been tagged again :-)

Infact, It’s a long over due meme on five random facts and since I will be on vacation soon, I thought it would be the best time to post it. I am deeply honored to have been tagged by the gifted artist-blogger Ronell of My French kitchen and a fellow DBer Gabi of The Feast Within (you can check their answers here and here). I will share 5 random facts with you and then I will tag 5 people to do the same.

Here are the rules:
1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.
2. Share 5 facts about yourself
3. Tag 5 people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them).
4. Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment at their blogs.

Evereyone else seems to be showing pictures of themselves as a child- but unfortunately all my baby photos are in my parents’ house. I’ll be sharing instead some of my not so « old photos » for you to understand that despite my age im still young at heart and mentally childish (these are scanned photos sorry for the quality.)

Taken in one of the numerous temples you could find in Tokyo

1. I am born under the sign of Sagittarius and under the year of the rat.
2. I am a middle child, that explain’s my weirdness from time to time.
(I am funny, bubbly and I love company but I can be moody sometimes)

Posing with the Roman soldiers during Moriones festival in Philippines

3. I have a photographic and very sharp memory. I dont know how many times I passed important exams relying on this ability. I could memorize recipes by just looking at them for few seconds.
4. Dessert is the most important part of the meal for me. I could start a bad entrée followed by equally bad main course but the dessert should be absolutely delectable. I could skip out all parts of a meal : entree and main course but never the dessert. For medDessert comes first.
5. I love inventing recipes. Mix and matching flavors and ingredients: Lasagna ratatouille, risotto with coco cream, dark espresso sauce on duck breast or this apple-rosemary muffin. But I tell you5 out of ten ends up in the garbage uneatable.

I am passing on this to the following: Oggi of I can do that (sorry if I have to tag you again :-), White Rice Couple, Manggy of No Special Effects , A Forkful of Spaghetti and Tigerfish of Teczscape.

Apple-Rosemary Muffin

125 g of flour
100 g of almond powder
75 g of sugar
5 tbsps of oil (you can use peanut or any nut oil)
1 pack of baking powder
20 cl of milk
2 big apples peeled and mushed
1 tsp of fresh rosemary
1 egg
10 g of butter for the mold

Beat the egg yolk with sugar. Add in the flour, almond powder, baking powder and milk. Fold in the apple and rosemary into the mixture. Preheat the oven at 200° celsius and bake on buttered ramekin or muffin molds for 20 minutes.

For my french readers, the french version of this muffin recipe is here: http://www.lesfoodies.com/hilda/recette/muffin-pomme-romarin

Gone nuts: Meme, & my new kitchen

I have been out lately and almost gone "nuts" with all the prep for the upcoming holidays. You might have noticed too my new kitchen. I really wanted to renovate into something fresh and yet classique mine. And so I thought better start it at least virtually. And with this new kitchen I thought it would be the best time to the "meme" I have been tagged to give you a "peep" about the real person behind this blog. Anyways, thankd you for tagging me twice Susan of Well Seasoned Cook and Oggi of I can do that for this meme.

(Ps. I will be using the photo above for this month's Click Photo Event on the theme Nuts.)


What were you cooking/baking 10 years ago?
Ten years ago we were based In Tokyo, so I was basically discovering, cooking and eating lots of Japanese food. Basically eating with chopsticks everyday. Well not everyday most of the time.

What were you cooking/baking one year ago?
Last year I discovered an avant-gardiste french chef "Thierry Marx". Since then on I wanted to adopt his style of cooking: lots of mix and match of flavor and very creative way of presenting them. But so far I still need a lot to learn.

Five snacks you enjoy:

1. Gummybears (my all time favorite)
2. Pop-corn caramel ( I share it with my husband. But he is so scared to eat with me, coz I eat like machine gun for him..hehehe)
3. Marshmallows (we love to barbeque it)
4. Salty Japanese snacks (with sesame, soy sauce,spices, etc)
5. Pistachio nuts

Five recipes you know by heart:

1. Ratatouille (First recipe I've learn from my husband)
2. Quiche Lorraine (Second Recipe he thought me)
3. Tarte tatin (This I 've learn myself)
4. Chicken teriyaki (I learn from the Japanese cooking shows)
5. Menudo (I learn from my Mom)

Five culinary luxuries you would indulge in if you were a millionaire:

1. Spend a lot of money in having a very big and fully equipped kitchen that has a perfect view of a garden with a swimming pool. So in case of emergency it would be easy to plunge into the pool.
2. Travel once a week to different countries to collect spices and other culinary utensils.
3. Build a big "personal" library close to my kitchen that will gather all the best cooking book of all times. Written in all languages.
4. Have a wine cellar that will house more than 5000 bottles of wine.
5. To have a personal "all-around" assistant in my kitchen. I need somebody to take care all of these don't I?

Five foods you love to cook/bake:

1. Ratatouille: I always cook, let say once a week. Specially during summer when zucchini, tomatoes and eggplants are at season
2. Cakes: I use different kinds of fruits and nuts. I bake 3 times a week.
3. Crepe: very easy to make and I never go wrong. I prepare this when I run out of time to cook something or when receiving guests at home. I often organise "crepe party".
4. Anything that has coconut milk. I love to experiment dishes using coconut milk: like risotto with cream of coconut or creme brulée purely with coco milk.
5. Anything with chocolate

Five foods you cannot/will not eat: (I know Susan would love to know my answer)
1. Balut: just click here to know.
2. Japanese Natto: these are fermented soy beans that Japanese love to eat in the morning.
3. Sea weeds: like Nori (the one we use to wrap sushi for example). I dont like the smell.
4. The tentacles of big octopus


Five favorite culinary toys:
Unfortunately, I don't have any.

Five dishes on your "last meal" menu:
1. Jambon Serrano with a slice of pear and parmesan cheese over a cereal bread.
2. Fresh pasta with white sauce of sautéed gambas drizzled with wine.
3. Roasted stuffed chicken.
4. Roasted apples over a slice of honey spice cake and vanilla ice cream
5. Cheesecake brownies.

Five happy food memories:
1. The first dinner date ever prepared by my husband. (Ratatouille, roasted chicken rosemary and creme puffs)

2. The best "peking duck" and "dimsum" I've ever eaten in my life during our trip to China in a restaurant really hidded. The restaurant was so booked that they made us eat in the kitchen. Since we were foreigner they were so happy to tour us around that big house converted into a restaurant.
3. The best "noodle soup" I've eaten in my life in floating market in Thailand.
4. The best "gellatto" in the world are in San Giminiano Italy.
5. All the kitchen disasters of my father and my sister. My sister is so clumsy in the kitchen she has plenty but just to give you idea. Just listen to this: an asian that eats rice 3 times a day forget to put water when she cooked the rice. He hehehe. My father is good cook but loves to experiment. Sometimes he has mistaken flour for sugar or vinegar for some kerosene. He hehe but he is good cook when he is not in a hurry.

Well I am passing this meme off to: Dessie of Maybahay, Cynthia of Taste like home, Gloria of Canela's Kitchen, K& S of Our Adventures of Japan , Kevin of Closet Cooking, Ruy of Married life, Asha of Aroma . But none of them should feel obligated to participate. And if anyone else wants in on this, have at it.