Lasagna, oven, internet and bread !

C'est le titre qui dit tout ! Bonjour a tous et toutes et les autres, le message d'aujourd'hui concerne mon internet, de la lasagne fait maison et mon super micro-ondes / four conventionnel.

En debut de semaine j'ai effectivement fait mon choix et pour un maigre 24 000Y (240$ ce qui n'est peut-etre pas si maigre...) j'ai achete le micro-ondes mentionne dans l'article precedent. J'ai du le faire livrer parce que la boite etait nettement trop grande pour ma pauvre bicyclette. J'ai immediatement procede au rechauffement de nourriture avec la fonction micro-onde. Notre micro-ondes familial au Quebec n'etant plus tres jeune, celui-ci est definitivement un etalon. Meme a la moitie de la puissance maximale je cuis n'importe quoi plus vite qu'avec le micro-ondes du quebec a puissance maximale, ca prend une periode d'adaptation.

Desirant tester la fonction "four conventionnel" de la bete et puisque j'avais justement quelqu'un de tres bien a inviter a souper, je me suis lance dans la preparation d'une lasagne bien de chez nous. La japonaise en question a eu la meme reaction que moi ou mon pere lorsque l'on mange de la lasagne de ma mere (c'est-a-dire : elle en a repris meme si elle n'avait plus vraiment faim). Les commentaires de la japonaise etaient a peu pres comme suit (traduction libre) : "hmm, miam, sugoi, incroyable, j'en reviens pas, sooooo gooood". Je dois avouer moi-meme, c'etait delicieux. (et j'ai des photos !). Conclusion : super four.

Ensuite, dimanche matin j'ai recu la visite de l'installateur d'internet qui m'a branche a la fibre optique ! Je viens tout juste de terminer la configuration de mon portable et je dois maintenant faire la configuration reseau avec l'ordinateur que m'a laisse DQ mais il se fait un peu tard, alors ca risque d'aller a demain. Il semble que je dois m'authentifier ou quelque chose comme ca pour faire fonctionner la connexion, j'espere que je vais etre capable de faire fonctionner le routeur sans probleme. Nous verrons bien.

La japonaise mentionnee plus haut (faute de pseudonyme, appelons la Aya) a aussi eu l'amabilite de me montrer ses talents pour faire du pain. Tres impressionnant et tellement bon de manger du pain frais. Je n'ai pas vraiment trouve de boulangerie japonaise avec du pain bien de chez nous (les japonais ont des pains etranges, pas mauvais, mais un bon pain croute francais ou un bagel tout chaud c'est plus habituel pour moi). Je dois dire que deguster des bagels frais fait c'est vraiment extraordinaire ! J'ignorais tout du processus de fabrication du pain, c'est quand meme interessant et je sais que mon four a toutes les fonctionnalites pour en faire, alors peut-etre qu'eventuellement je vais lui demander de me donner ses recettes.

J'essaye une nouvelle technique aujourd'hui, je vais diviser les langues par couleur... Aya s'est avouee confondu entre le francais et l'anglais (j'imagine que c'est facile quand on sais lire les deux langues, ce l'est peut-etre moins lorsqu'on ne peut qu'en lire une...) Si vous avez des suggestions pour de meilleures couleurs, n'hesitez pas !


Black for english

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The title pretty much say it all. This post is about my internet, home made lasagna and my incredible Convection Microwave.

At the begining of the week I decided to make my move and I bought the microwave mentionned in the last post. The 30 Liters monster ended up costing me a modest 24 000Y (240$, which is not so modest after all...). I had to have it delivered because There was definitely no way for my bicycle to handle that kind of box. That said, as soon as I received it, I proceded to reheat something using the "microwave" function. Our family microwave in Quebec is a little bit old and in this sense lack a bit of power. Compare to this, my new microwave is a HUGE monster. Even at half power it cooks or reheats food faster than the one back home. This requires a little adaptation, but it's kinda impressive !

After that, of course, I wanted to test the "Convection oven" of my newly acquired monster. It just so happened that I had a very nice person to invite to diner so I immersed myself in the preparation of the best recipe I could come up with : my mother's lasagna. The aforementioned japanese girl had a similar reaction upon the tasting of the lasagna that me or my father usually have when enjoying my mother's preparation. Meaning : she asked for more even if she wasn't really hungry anymore. Her comments ressembled something like : "hmmm, sugoi, incredible, it's so good, it's better than any lasagna I've ever tasted". I must agree, I was quite happy with it myself. (and I have pictures !). Conclusion ? great oven !

On sunday morning I also received the visit of the fiber guy. He set up my internet connection so I now have fiber optic internet access (no more stealing !). I just finished setuping my laptop to make it work with the connection (it seems to require some kind of login). But I still need to setup DQ's computer and put everything in network through the router. I hope I won't run into too much trouble because of the login or something. But anyway, I shall do that tomorrow because right now it's getting late (and I work tomorrow).

The sweet japanese girl mentionned before (lacking any sort of pseudonym I shall call her Aya) also had the amability to show me her baking talents. She made me some very delicious bagels. It's quite impressive all the things required to make bread, but fresh bread is the best !! I must also add that I have not found any japanese bakery that serve any kind of bread resembling our bakeries back home. Japanese do have their own type of bakery but their bread is a little strange, I like it, but sometimes I crave real french bread or a good bagel). I did not know anything about the making of bread actually and I was quite impressed to see all the process of bread making. I know that my new oven has some functionnalities to make bread so maybe in the future I will ask Aya to give me some of her recipes so I can cook my own.

Two last things : following comments from Aya about the difficulty of reading my blog because of the mix of language, I'm adding color to the laguages so that you can know what is what. (green being french). If you have any better color suggestion, please don't hesitate to post !

And the last thing... I shall now transform my blog in a recipe book so that the greatness of Lasagna can be passed over throughout the world ! (sorry if my traduction is not perfect, ingredients are a little hard for me in english...)

First, you need to make spaghetti sauce :
Ingredients :
- 2tbsp (30ml) Olive oil (サラダ油)
- 1 big onion diced
- 1 big carrot diced
- 1 piece of garlic
- ~600grams of crushed or cut tomato (カットトマト), in japan that means 3 of the biggest can I was able to get my hands on, in Quebec it means 1 can...
- 1/2tsp (2 or 3ml) of salt
- Some pepper
- 1/4tsp (1 or 2ml) of Thym
- 1/2tsp of Basil
- 1/2tsp of Origano
- 1/4tsp of sugar
- 1/4tsp of Cinnamon
- 1 leave of Laurel
- Some Clove
- 1 or 2tsp (5 or 10ml) of red pepper (spicy stuff)
- 1/2lb (225grams) of grounded porc
- 1/2lb of grounded beef

Instruction for spaghetti sauce :
Heat the oil in a big cauldron and cook the vegetables (carrot and onion) for a couple of minutes until they are tender. In the cauldron add the tomato sauce and spices. Cook for one hour and a half. In a separate pan with some oil or in the microwave, cook the meat and add the it to the cauldron 30min before the end. Stir the cauldron from time to time so that the bottom doesn't burn.

To proceed with Lasagna :
Ingredients :
- 2tbsp (30ml) of Butter
- 2tbsp (30ml) of Flour
- 3/4 cup (158ml) of Milk
- 450 - 500 grams of Mozarrella cheese
- Lasagna noodles
- Previously made spaghetti sauce !

Instruction :
Make some white sauce with the Butter, Flour and Milk. In a plastic bol that goes to the microwave, put the butter and flour and cook it for 1 minute to melt the butter. Mix with the milk and make sure it is homogeneous. Cook the white sauce in the microwave and stir a lot every minute until the sauce becomes relatively thick.

Cook the noodles for 10minutes and then rince in cold water. Reheat the spaghetti sauce a little.

In a square plate (30cm*20cm*5cm or something similar) put a little spaghetti sauce at the bottom, then noodle, half what's left of the tomato sauce, half the white sauce, half the cheese, more noodle, the rest of the tomato sauce, the rest of the white auce the rest of the cheese.

Cook for at 350f (175 celsius) or until the cheese on top is really crusty and hummy !

Nothing special I guess, but such a long post !

Pictures !!

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Before cooking...
Avant la cuison...


Looks soo good !!!!
Ca l'air tellement bon !!!
おいしいそう！！！