Roasted Carrot and Garlic Dip

Carrots are my favourite vegetable and I even contemplated photographing this carrot dip with carrot sticks for dipping. Because that is indeed one of the ways I ate it! But for this photo, I made cucumber dippers. My friend Michael showed me how to cut cucumber on a steep diagonal to make perfect chip-sized dippers. I am always looking for more ways to make vegetables feel like a natural part of fun eating. Cucumber dippers and carrot dip are great examples of fun vegetables!

And so there is no need for chips and salsa at your next snack attack or movie night. If you are searching for ways to eat more vegetables, try this easy carrot dip with veggie dippers. It's also good with sweet pepper strips, celery sticks, or even rectangles of the ribs of Chinese cabbage. (I have tried this and it was superb!)

Weekend Links #37

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

food reading links:
--A long article I have been reading about fueling a marathon while eating paleo (from Ben Greenfield Fitness). And here's another take from Mark's Daily Apple.
--While we're on the topic of sports nutrition, I was reading about a couple who are rowing from California to Hawaii without sugar or "junk carbohydrates" (from Diet Doctor).
--A great post from A Veggie Venture that answers the question, "What is a tomatillo?" plus everything you need to know about them.
--Just before our three weeks away from home I was freezing everything left in the fridge and discovered you can even freeze quiche and tortilla chips (from The Kitchn).

recipe links:
--Macaroni and cheese made with Guinness, heavy cream, lots of cheese, and some crunchy barley (from Mutineer Magazine). What a combination!
--Ginger and chocolate ice cream (from Blogging Over Thyme). I love everything ginger, and pairing it with dark chocolate is perfect.
--I was investigating grain-free Yorkshire pudding recently and found a recipe (from The Saffron Girl) that looks like it is worth trying.
--The flaxseed crust on these mini quiches is a useful recipe to have on standby (from The Kitchn). Plus, mini quiches are good for breakfasts.

Sweet Potato Laksa

Singaporeans are food crazy. I would say that the two national pastimes here are shopping and eating. Locally born Singaporeans are called Peranakan; they are descendants of Chinese or Indian male immigrants who married Malay women in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries. Laksa is a traditional Peranakan curried soup, served over rice noodles.

Chinese Peranakan cooking blends Chinese ingredients with Malay sauces and spices. Peranakan food features shallots, chillies, preserved soybeans, prawn paste, and thick coconut milk. My favourite Paranakan dish is laksa. I like the tangy spice of the curry that is calmed (a little) by the coconut milk.

Banana Nut Porridge (grain-free)

I love sweet breakfast foods like pancakes, muffins, and porridge with fruit. But I am trying to eat less sugar and I have been mostly grain-free for about a year. As a result, I now have a good arsenal of low sugar (or sugar-free) and grain-free breakfast recipes. They still satisfy my sweetish tooth and give me the fat and protein I need at breakfast.

Here are some of my sweet breakfast ideas:

• this banana nut porridge (pictured above, recipe below) has a whole egg whisked in the near the end of cooking, plus it is grain-free and has no sugar added
• these banana coconut flour pancakes, the recipe for which is given as a formula based on how many ripe bananas you have on hand
• these pumpkin and cranberry muffins, which are made with fresh or frozen cranberries and coconut flour, with pumpkin puree for moisture
• this apple and cinnamon mini cake, which is made in the microwave and takes about five minutes including the preparation
• this mango, banana, and coconut loaf, which introduced me to the idea of sugar-free eating (not grain-free)

Courgette and Ricotta Frittata

The last time I made a frittata, it tasted wonderful but it was a textural disaster. (Read all about it here: ginger and shiitake omelette.) This courgette (zucchini) and ricotta frittata was on the roster for our Wednesday with Donna Hay blogging group, and I was determined to improve upon my earlier attempt. As a result, I completely changed the procedure for making this frittata.

Frozen Grapes: a Refreshing Snack or a Tasty Drink Cooler

When it's hot outside, what's better than a icy snack? Or at the end of a hot day, do you like to enjoy a nice cool glass of white white as the sun goes down? I've discovered that freezing grapes makes them perfect for snacking and for keeping drinks cool.

Pea and Mint Soup

File this one under "food that looks ugly but tastes good". It's a blended soup made with green peas (fresh or frozen), two small potatoes, and a big handful of fresh mint. My tongue was amazed at the vibrant flavour considering how dull-looking the soup was. The fresh mint was foremost and made me feel as though I was eating summer in a warm bowl. The peas jumped out at me next, with the smooth cream bringing up the rear.

Part of the reason the soup looked so terrible: I left on the skins of the potatoes. They were brown and made the resulting soup have a brownish tinge. I suppose that shows that I care more about the nutrition of my food than the beauty of the pictures. And I definitely care about taste!