Super Easy Mikan (mandarin) Rice

So again, this isn't actually baking. But it does involve food, and that's what matters right?

I get email newsletters from a Japanese health food company called Yomeishu Seizo, and this month they did a feature on mandarins (mikan in Japanese), including some novel "cooking challenges." Namely, oven roasted mandarin and mandarin rice. The mandarin rice looked so easy that I had to try it! 

You literally just put rice and water in your rice cooker as usual (I was my usual lazy self and didn't even rinse the rice), sit a peeled mikan on top of the rice, and press go (or whatever you usually do to make your rice cooker work).

By the time the rice is cooked the mikan gets soft enough that it's easy to break up and mix through.

The original post (here, in Japanese - scroll down to "Challenge 2" for their photos) suggests 2 cups of rice with 1 mikan, but I tried 1 cup with one mikan and the flavour was good. Subtler than I was expecting actually, but good.

So there's one super easy way to add some vitamin C to your dinner!

Bacon, Potato, Tomato and Onion Quiche

Hold onto your hat. I baked something savoury. That's right. Dinner.

After declaring that I would make quiche I realised I had an odd selection of filling options available. I did some scouting and located some bacon bits in the freezer, one large-ish potato, a tomato and half an onion. A perfect 2 cups of filling, fried and cooled (...somewhat cooled, I'm a bit impatient) .

Eggs, milk, self-raising flour, a little melted butter. Fold in grated cheese and fillings. Look at that - I don't know how to focus my fancy camera on the batter.

Savoury has its moments.