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.

Beef with Parley Pesto and Sauteed Vegetables

People are always asking me how I eat complete meals with no carbohydrates. First, I answer by pointing out that vegetables are carbohydrates, and actually I only avoid starchy carbs such as pasta, bread, and grains. Secondly, I make meals like this: full of veg and filling, too, thanks to the protein and fats.

Courgette, Corn, and Tomato Sautee

Fresh corn looses its sweet flavour soon after harvesting. I read (in The Vegetable Bible) that corn is past its best only a few hours after it is picked. I guess this explains why frozen corn often tastes so good. It is frozen immediately after harvest, thus preserving both nutrition and taste.

Thai Basil and Cashew Stir-Fry

Sometimes my body just craves a big pile of vegetables. One of these days was last week during my half term holidays. After ten weeks at school my body was run down and seeking nutrients. What I needed was more sleep, less stress, and some highly healthy food.

In the past I have arrived at my half term break on the verge of illness. Many years I have made it to the Saturday after school ends and succumbed to a cold or the flu. I have laid on the couch and dribbled away my holiday.

Weekend Links #36

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:
--Saveur's Best Food Blogs Awards highlight some incredible blogs. There are plenty of new-to-me reads here as well as many old favourites.

recipe links:
--How ingenious is this? A porridge recipe that has a blended egg whisked in during cooking. That sounds like a great way to add protein to your breakfast (from Natural Kitchen Adventures).
--I like the idea of a corn and parmesan cheese creme brûlée (from Tasty Kitchen).
--You can make your own electrolyte energy cubes for endurance sports like long distance running (from Healthful Pursuit).
--My friend at work made fermented ginger ale (from Wellness Mama). I want to make some too. I also really want to buy some nice flip-top bottles; hee hee!
--Also on my list of fermented foods to make: easy peasy probiotic pickles (from Sarah Ramsden).
--And finally, I should go back to making yogurt at home (pictured above).

books I'm reading:
--Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H Pink
--A History of the World in Six Glasses by Tom Standage

Corn and Bacon Cakes

It's Wednesday, so that means I'm posting a recipe from Donna Hay's vast collection of work. Our bloggers' group chose to make corn cakes this week. My version is based on Hay's, though loosely, since I have replaced all the "pancake" ingredients. My version is gluten-free and grain-free, similar to many of recipes I have made lately. But I stuck with the original corn and bacon flavours; yum.

Mexican Soup

Sonya was my best friend in high school and university. We started off as colleagues when we worked as youth centre leaders. Soon we were inseparable. She was there when I made my first forays into cooking. This cake (pictured below) was one of the first things either of us ever baked; it was a birthday cake for Glenn, our boss. (In his car he had a wooden figure called Calvin which we copied - you can see it at the top the cake.) This cake was a huge hit with our boss - he was so impressed!

Cornbread with Corn

From the "why-didn't-i-think-of that-before?" file comes this recipe idea: adding corn to cornbread. Boy, that's an obvious idea, but it had not occurred to me until recently.

If you are anything like me, you often have some frozen or canned corn around on standby to make emergency meals when there are no "real" vegetables in the fridge. And so it is that I threw some corn into the cornbread recently. Serve with soup for a full meal. (Maybe rocket and goat's cheese soup? Or Mexican soup?)

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.

corn and red pepper chowder

The first cookbook I was given as a young university student was The Joy of Cooking. A very grown-up, serious cookbook, The Joy is packed with serious, housewifely recipes that feed a suited husband and smiling children. I was terrified of it. As a result, I didn't cook from it at all. Ever. Now I have a husband who wears a suit (though no smiling munchkins of our own) and I still never use The Joy of Cooking. It's too stuffy. Definitely too serious.

pizza nepoletana (for Fresh from the Oven)

My mother often makes pizza when guests come over. I decided to follow suit as we had some new friends visiting for dinner and to watch the Formula One. The dough recipe is part of the Fresh from the Oven baking group that Lauren from Coffee Muffins hosted this month. Have a look at the round up from the challenge.


I used my dough recipe to make one large pizza and one tray of garlic bread. The dough was fluffy but not too heavy, and it made great bases for both the pizza and garlic bread. The recipe starts the night before, and rests in the fridge overnight. Then it rises and gets pressed onto the pans. There's no kneading, just some heavy mixing on the first day. Overall the dough was simple to make and didn't require much preparation time at all. We topped it with tomato puree, sweetcorn, mushrooms, courgettes, green peppers, caramelised onions, and mozzarella.

I would definitely make pizza dough again. Next time I plan to use some whole wheat flour as well. I remember reading a few years ago about a fast version that uses soda instead of yeast, and I want to try that as well. So all I need to do is keep inviting people over so that we can keep eating pizza!

brunswick stew (for the Daring Cooks)

The 2010 April Daring Cooks challenge was hosted by Wolf of Wolf’s Den. She chose to challenge Daring Cooks to make Brunswick Stew. Wolf chose recipes for her challenge from The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook by Matt Lee and Ted Lee, and from the Callaway, Virginia Ruritan Club.


Brunswick Stew was easy to make and very satisfying to eat! The recipes are huge and were more than enough for several days of hearty lunches at work. Perfect when served with a salad or cheddar cornmeal scones.