apple cake (whole grain baking)

Birthdays are a time for a big celebration! This blog and my day-to-day eating habits are both 95% healthy; but there are times when a treat is in order. This cake still has a few healthy features, as you may spot, but it is very sweet and definitely celebratory!

Blood, Bones & Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton

Blood, Bones & Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton is an expertly written memoir. In it, Hamilton gives insight into her fond childhood memories and her long wanderings before becoming a New York restaurant owner. It was our June Kitchen Reader selection, chosen by Aileen of Pharma Foodie.

Usually our Kitchen Reader books make we want to rush into the kitchen and start cooking. With this book, I was strangely uninspired to cook. Instead I found myself happy to contemplate the ideas of family and belonging, and to contact my brothers more.

sea bass with raisins and saffron

"The first bite is with the eyes," my husband teases--and this is an ugly dish. I freely admit it, this pasta and fish combination do not look as good as they taste. This Nigella Lawson recipe looked a lot better when she made it! But the four of us ate it and agreed that it wasn't "ugly in the mouth". It certainly looked terrible while it was still in the pan....

weekend links #17

Weekend Links is a way of sharing all the engrossing things I see around the internet. I publish Weekend Links approximately every two weeks. As usual, I welcome your ideas and feedback.

food reading links:
--Does being a food blogger lead to a book deal? An article from The Guardian exploring the idea of bloggers versus "expert" book writers.

recipe links:
--Pizza dough made with white wine; what an interesting idea (from Suzie the Foodie)!
--Four new ways to drink gin and tonic (from The Kitchn). G&T is my favourite after-work drink. I think the lime and cilantro version might be enjoyable.
--This cottage cheese and mint flatbread sounds exceptionally easy to make (from Lite Bite).
--Chocolate chip cookies that are gluten- and sugar-free (except for the chocolate chips)--sweetened with bananas (from Gluten Free A-Z Blog).

off-topic links:
--I've been researching camera handbags. I really want a girly bag for my camera and laptop. VeraLana posted a great list of women's camera bag options. At the moment, I'm leaning towards an epiphanie bag called Clover.
--An article about the correctness (or lack thereof) of meta-anaylses of scientific studies. If you read only one article about scientific studies, this is my suggestion (today, anyway!).
--Why we find things annoying and how to cope (from Sarah Wilson). An insightful and funny article.

creamy potato salad - but with no mayo!

I do like potato salad as a side dish, but I hate the mayo-laden monstrosities I sometimes see. Yet there is something comforting about a forkful of creamy potato that I find irresistible. So I developed this recipe to fill the spud-shaped hole in my belly.

rainbow salad with corn, carrots, and tomato

This salad is so brightly coloured you almost need sunglasses to look at the picture above! This gorgeous salad is my part of the Secret Recipe Club. All the blogger participants are assigned, secretly, to one another. This month I have been enjoying the food blog It's Yummy to My Tummy, and I've chosen a recipe from Heather, the mother behind the blog, to recreate here. She called it Shamrock Salsa, but I saw it as more of a side dish salad. I've renamed it in honour of its full spectrum of bright colours.

cucumber salad with garlic and mint

Cucumber is fresh and crunchy, the perfect accompaniment to roast meat or grilled fish; it also belongs stuffed in a lamb kebab. I am attracted to recipes like this one because I adore the thriftiness of mundane vegetables such as cucumber. (I find myself gravitating towards all the dull vegetables: carrots, cucumber, and broccoli, for example. I like to think they can be exciting, too. Psychology, anyone?)

lime and goji berry quick bread with white chocolate drizzle

I am pleased to be participating in the Paper Chef cooking challenge. It resembles a lot of our daily cooking conundrums: looking at a disparate group of ingredients and wondering what to make. The Paper Chef challenge assigns four randomly picked ingredients and food bloggers try to make something out of them.

weekend links # 16

Weekend Links is a way of sharing all the engrossing things I see around the internet. I publish Weekend Links approximately every two weeks. As usual, I welcome your ideas and feedback.

food reading links:
--A list of cookbooks recently published by Hong Kong chefs (from Asia Tatler).
--Graph: money spent on food vs. ability to cook (from Indexed).
--I recently missed Lima Bean Respect Day. I wish I had known! Think of the themed events I could have planned! :( Keep ahead of the game with this calendar (from Wellness News).

recipe links:
--Spiced coconut spinach (from 101 Cookbooks). This recipe is from a cookbook I actually have. Therefore I can see that I will be making it soon!
--Almond-based yogurt (from Small Bites). I already make my own yogurt but I never thought of trying this. And so I am intrigued.

off-topic links:
--I have been trying out the to-do list software from Remember the Milk. You use tags, location, and searchable lists to keep organised. So far, it's working.
--I've been reading about ways to improve employee satisfaction (from inc.com). Not that I have any employees. Just because I'm curious.