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.

Weekend Links #39

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:

--This pictorial guide to mushrooms (from Oh My Veggies) takes you through the main types, storage, and preparation.
--A guide to recipe copyright by Paleo Living Magazine. An in-depth look at recipe copyright from all angles.
--I'm still trying to find healthy milk to drink - and the latest wandering step is A2 Milk.

recipe links:

--I find wine too hard to navigate so I think I will try to learn something about whiskey instead. Here is a list of the best affordable bottles (from Serious Eats). And here's an extremely simple cocktail made with whiskey called The Presbyterian (from Martha Stewart). There's also the hot toddy, of course (from The Guardian's wonderful How to Make the Perfect [weekly recipe] column by Felicity Cloake).
--German mulled wine (from Rachel Cotterill). Even though I live in the tropics I am still desiring this warming Christmassy winter drink.
--I'm going to be making some veggie "risotto" soon and I plan to use this recipe as a guide: turnip "risotto" with spinach and rosemary (from Inspiralized).

books I'm reading:

--I just finished Man's Search for Meaning by Victor E Frankl, a classic which argues that we can all make choices and our life's meaning is found in making them.
--The Signal and the Noise: The Art and Science of Prediction by Nate Silver. It's about separating out the "signal" in data to help make predictions. He covers many fields such as weather, earthquakes, elections, sports, and health. Fascinating.

Shiitake Mushroom and Ginger Omelette

I was reminded this week that cooking is more an art than a science. I was making this mushroom omelette using a Donna Hay recipe online. It turned out very nice looking and it tasted great. But it was totally stuck to the pan. How frustrating.

The omelette was finished in the oven, as per the recipe. For this reason, you can't use a non-stick pan or any pan with a plastic handle. I don't own a cast iron pan, just the stainless steel one you see pictured. It's actually a great quality wedding gift with copper in the base, etc, etc. But sadly, there's no use touting its quality when half the egg is falling out of the pan in large, jagged bits and the rest is still stuck inside. Sigh.

Mushroom Paprikash (with Grain-Free Dumplings)

During my undergraduate degree, I spent a semester in Budapest, Hungary. It was my first time away from home. I lived in a little apartment that had an adjoining door to a mirror-image little apartment next door, where my landlady lived. She was a single lady, exactly double my age (and I was exactly twenty years old). We became good friends, not least because I used the washing machine at the back of her kitchen. And because she welcomed me into her church, family, and kitchen.

Each of our apartments was very small, about three hundred square feet. I had my cheery yellow kitchen, a small bathroom, and a bed-sitting room with a single bed and a desk. Her apartment was identical, except that her kitchen was red and her main room was set up as a sitting room with a monstrously large (considering the size of the room) L-shaped sofa and dark wood wall-to-wall cabinets. She used to convert part of the sofa into her bed every night and then put it away again in the morning.

Four Ways to Eat Mushrooms for Dinner

Next time you see a punnet of mushrooms in the fridge you know you can make dinner. Here are four brilliant ideas.

1. The new idea for me this week is leek and mushroom fritatta, pictured above. It is a Donna Hay recipe that I tried this week.

Pork and Shiitake Mushrooms in Lettuce Cups

Using my hands to eat seems to make the meal more fun. Don't you think? There is something about picking up the food that makes it so much more enjoyable. Except perhaps on a date, when I inevitably spill sauce down my wrists and into my sleeves. Or at a fancy restaurant when my sharp elbows pointing out at the neighbouring table make me feel conspicuously out of place. But at home I can eat with my fingers and let the sauce drip where it may.

Wild Mushroom Soup

"A proper wild mushroom soup should live up to its name: a wolf in soup's clothing. The trick is to use a mixture of different fungi to layer the flavours." So says Niki Segnit in The Flavour Thesaurus, an intriguing book I received for Christmas from my brother. This mushroom soup uses both fresh and dried mushrooms, and the more varieties the better. Its wildness is highlighted by a smooth backdrop of sherry and cream. I served it as the first course of Canadian Thanksgiving dinner this year.

Mushroom, Broccoli, and Chicken Risotto

I don't eat a lot of carbs anymore, so when I do, I make sure they are the tastiest I can create. Hence we had creamy, satisfying risotto for dinner recently. I find cooking risotto helps me relax and puts me in a more patient frame of mind.

Risotto calms me down because I am tied to the spatula, stirring gently for about twenty minutes. While my arm slowly circles, I am imagining the first warm, toothsome bite. I know the rice will be soft on the outside with a little resistance inside. The first forkful of rice will be sticky with parmesan cheese and punctuated by vegetables. There will be a few grindings of fresh black pepper on top.

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!

soba noodle salad

The February 2011 Daring Cooks’ challenge was hosted by Lisa of Blueberry Girl. She challenged Daring Cooks to make Hiyashi Soba and Tempura. She has various sources for her challenge including japanesefood.about.com, pinkbites.com, and itsybitsyfoodies.com.

Chinese hot and sour soup

Happy year of the rabbit! In honour of the lunar New Year I am trying out some dishes from my Chinese cookbook. I was ecstatic to receive a basic Chinese cookery book for Christmas; I have sticky flagged about a dozen recipes that I think I can recreate. Meanwhile, I readied my "lucky money" packets for giving out later this week. These red envelopes say "blessed" (or "lucky") on the front and we add a monetary gift for those who serve us; our door staff and the dry cleaning ladies are my main conferrees. The Chinese character for "blessed" is made up of three parts: one man, in the garden, with God; and inside the envelope there is a little note about it in English and Chinese.


I feel very blessed to be living in Hong Kong and I'm hopeful about the year ahead. I intend to learn more about Chinese home cooking and Asian ingredients, and to develop this blog, sharing my adventures with you as I go.

citrus, mushrooms, greens, and beans, with a ginger dressing

These enoki mushrooms are from Japan or Korea, they are mild in flavour and crunchy in texture: they made great salad toppers. Ant and I went to our first care group meeting with our new church friends and we had a lovely pot luck meal together. Our host asked for salads to be brought--I was very happy to oblige!

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!

happy Chinese new year - ginger noodle soup

I wish I could say that I have a large Chinese food repertoire. In fact, the opposite it true. I doubt I know how to cook even one authentic Chinese dish. But I like Chinese flavours, and I enjoyed when Jeff, Mum and Dad's Chinese boarder, cooked for us over Christmas.

But I can offer this noodle soup for this weekend's festivities. It's one of my favourite soups--I've been making it for ten years since I ripped it out of one of Mum's magazines. It's not authentic Chinese, but it is tasty, easy, and warming for a winter celebration.

Ginger Noodle Soup
serves 4

500 g ground pork or ground beef
1 onion chopped
3 cloves garlic
1/3 c (75 mL) hoisin sauce
2 T chopped ginger root
2 T soy sauce
4 c (1 L) stock or water
1 carrot, shredded
1/2 c sliced mushrooms
150 g noodles
1/2 c (125 mL) bean sprouts

In a large pot, brown meat for 5 to 7 minutes and then add onion, garlic, hoisin sauce, ginger, and soy sauce. Cook for a further 2 minutes.
Add the stock or water and bring to a boil. Add the carrot and mushrooms. Reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the noodles and cook for 4 more minutes (or longer if directed on the packet). Garnish with bean sprouts.

weeknight eating

When I am not feeling up to a big production, I make a hearty salad for dinner. This involves getting together all the veg in the fridge, adding grains or beans, perhaps, and a protein item to balance on top. Recently my protein item of choice has been eggs, either hard boiled or poached. The salad above was the most recent, and Ant accepted this as his one vegetarian meal this fortnight. (Have I told you this? He has stated that he will accept one veggie meal per fortnight, with no rollover of unused meals into the next fortnight!) In the salad at the top of this post I used salad leaves; broccoli, carrots, and onions that I lightly fried together; red quinoa; and two eggs.


Sarah and I made this salad (above) while I was visiting her in Bath. It has quinoa; chard, courgette, and onions that we fried together; some sprouts; and a poached egg on top.

And finally, below is a larger shot of a salad that used to be in the header bar on this blog. There's no grain this time, so I served it with pumpernickel bread.


Most of these salads are very simply dressed with a vinaigrette: a bit more olive oil than vinegar, whisked together with pepper and herbs or spices. Warm salad feels like a good meal: I tend to cook some of the heavier vegetables (in the photo below it was chard, mushrooms, and garlic that were cooked) Quite often the grains or beans are warm and the eggs or chicken or ham on top are usually freshly cooked, or warmed up.


Making a salad like this is healthy, fresh, and easy. Sometimes I do it just to use up all the random things from the veg box that are cluttering up the fridge. There's no set plan to these meals, just toss together everything we have and enjoy!