Rich and Creamy Eggnog

Even living in Singapore, when December starts, I am ready for the comforting winter items of my childhood. Eggnog tops the list. (Further down the list are hot chocolate, warm apple cider, stews, and pumpkin dishes.)

Eggnog is not common in Singapore, though, so I have to make my own. And so I chose this eggnog recipe, from Mark's Daily Apple. It has less sugar (and hence tastes less sweet) than any commercial version. This means I can drink more of it - and with abandon - yippee! December beverages are sorted and lots of eggnog lattes are coming my way.

Chipotle Beef-Topped Portobello Mushrooms

Please excuse the quick kitchen counter photo. But I wanted to share this brilliant dinner. It's a portobello mushroom topped with chipotle beef chilli and vintage cheddar cheese.

After mananging to do some meal planning recently, I have been able to actually cook from a recipe instead of throwing together whatever I can find in the fridge each night. This dinner is from Weeknight Wonders by Ellie Krieger. It's nice to pick this cookbook up again after many months away from any serious cooking.

Coffee and Chilli Steak Salad

I"m a people pleaser at heart. It's a feature, and a flaw. I guess in cooking, it's more of a positive! My husband certainly appreciates that I have honoured him by not becoming a vegetarian.

In general, I find meat boring. I don't enjoy the taste, and that, together with the environmental impact and the cost, leads me to not prioritise it in my thinking. However, I keep making meals with meat as a way of pleasing my husband. And thankfully, over the years we've been married I've learned to cook meat in ways that both of us find interesting.

This salad makes us both very happy. Raw spinach is my favourite food and steak is his. The steak is crusted in a mixture of coffee grounds, chilli powder, smokey paprika, and cumin. The cooking time is short and so this made a fast weeknight dinner. It uses a single steak and made enough for three salads (his, hers, and one lunch).

Pumpkin Pasta with Walnuts and Lemon

This unusual dish caught my eye because of the combination of ingredients I wouldn't have thought went together: walnuts, pumpkin, cream, sage, and citrus zest. I can perhaps imagine putting three of these things together (pumpkin, cream, and sage, maybe; or walnuts, pumpkin, and sage) but all of them at once sounded delicious.

Combinations like this characterise Yottam Ottolenghi's recipes for me. They are unexpected puzzle pieces that you suddenly know will fit together perfectly into an incredible dish.

Baklazhan: Georgian Eggplant and Walnut Appetizers

I have a colleague who lived in Moscow for several years. Last spring when Anthony and I decided we wanted to visit Russia in July, I started having long talks with my colleague to hear about all the things he loved (and also those he hated) about Moscow. He said authoritatively that Georgian food was the best Russian cuisine - and I have decided he was right.

When we had a free day in St Petersburg, we used our handy Lonely Planet to go to a recommended Georgian restaurant. The photo below is of an appetiser called baklazhan we had there. Baklazhan is made with slices of fried eggplant wrapped around a walnut and garlic paste. My rendition is pictured above - and it was delicious both times!