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).

Cannellini, Green Bean, and Tomato Salad

At the local vegetable market, I buy these long beans. They are sold coiled up in a bunch and are usually about 40 cm long when laid out. Fortunately for me, they are easy to use: in all the same ways as Western green beans. So I usually cut them into bite-sized pieces and stir-fry them or blanch them for salad.

Herb Salad with Goat's Cheese

I am terrible at using up the herbs that I buy in little plastic packets. And I am annoyed at myself for this. Often I will buy a pack of mint or parsley or coriander to use with a specific meal. Then I put the remaining herbs away thinking they will be just the things to sprinkle over a meal in a day or two. But then I forget. Later I realise I have a pack of leaves where half of them are already past using and the rest should maybe--no, definitely--be used right now.

Simple Kale Salad

Kale is a luxury good in Singapore. The only kind I can buy is organic kale imported from the USA, with a commensurate price tag. Because it is not very wallet- or earth-friendly, I buy it rarely. But the urge struck and so I wanted to make something that let the kale stand as the star of the dish.

This is a simple massaged kale salad. It's so simple you don't need a recipe for it. Chop up some kale leaves (ribs removed). Mix a vinaigrette with equal parts oil and vinegar. I used white whine vinegar this time. Then massage the kale with the dressing in a large bowl for about a minute by rubbing it in handfuls in your hands. Add some garnishes, like raisins plumped in hot water and toasted sunflower seeds. Voila, a simple kale salad that showcases the leafy green in all its glory.

Seaweed, Ginger, and Carrot Salad

After a recent knee injury, I have started taking swimming lessons. Until last October, I was a keen long-distance runner. Then I had quite a bad injury that put me on crutches for eight weeks. (I wrote about my first social outing with crutches here.) I'm still not able to run, though I have managed to cycle three times in the last few months.

On my physiotherapist's advice, I needed to take up a sport that has a lower impact on my knees. I never learned to swim as a child, so I have just started a series of lessons.

Chez Panisse's Baked Goat's Cheese Saald

During our honeymoon we had one memorable meal. We were young and poor at the time, so we planned to have one fancy meal out during our week in Quebec City. We went to a restaurant called Toast near our auberge (inn). It was the most expensive meal either of us had eaten up to that point in life. (I seem to recall that it cost about $100. This was ten years ago, by the way.)

We still talk about some parts of that meal. We remember Anthony ordering a salad that came presented in a massive bowl that tilted the spinach leaves towards him. There was a piece of baguette balanced on the leaves, covered with two pieces of oozing, baked goat's cheese.

Shredded Salad with Dukkah Dressing

Dukkah is an Egyptian blend of nuts, seeds, and spices. It is usually used in Egypt with a bowl of olive oil for dipping hunks of bread. The dukkah mixture is made from toasted hazelnuts and sesame seeds, and the flavouring comes from cumin and coriander, also toasted.

Cumin and coriander seeds are "more likely to be found together than apart" in Middle Eastern cooking, according to The Flavour Thesaurus by Nikki Segnit (see my review of this astoundingly useful book). The brightness of coriander seeds offsets the dustiness of the cumin. Together with the nuts and seeds, they make an interesting and versatile mixture. I haven't been to Egypt yet, so I'm happy that this dukkah let me pretend for a while.

The Flavour Thesaurus by Niki Segnit - and Cauliflower and Walnut Salad

How do you decide what flavours go well together? What are some tasty combinations that are not obvious? The Flavour Thesaurus by Niki Segnit aims to answer questions like these. What a wonderful book! She breaks foods down into 99 flavours and arranges them on a wheel in categories such as earthy, green and grassy, and floral fruity. Each of the 99 flavours has a chapter in which Segnit discusses pairings with the other flavours. Not all of the possible 9702 pairings are discussed - but the book is extensive, useful, and highly entertaining.

Coleslaw with Caper Mayonnaise

Salt and pepper are my two favourite condiments. Sea salt, in particular, and freshly cracked black pepper. They are the white and black, the most basic of all flavourings.

In this coleslaw recipe, the salty role is played by capers. Aren't they just lovely little balls of brine-y goodness? The capers are incorporated into a mayonnaise that dresses this coleslaw; they are subtle but essential overall. And the black pepper is cracked extremely generously over the top.

Quick Pickled Okra

Today I was marking a piece of student work called "Patterns in Our Lives". The idea is that we see patterns all around us, especially in design features, and there are mathematical ways to describe the patterns. This got me thinking about the patterns I see in my life more generally. As I got up from my completed marking to make lunch, I realised that I eat a variety of foods, but very similar types of dishes and meals. For example, most of my lunches are a mainly a mixture of raw or lightly cooked vegetables. This pattern of eating makes me feel energetic after lunch.

Cucumber Salad with Cumin Vinaigrette

All last school year, every Monday I went to a group personal training session. A trainer came to work and a small group of us pushed ourselves through a punishing number of of press ups, burpees, TRX rows, and the like. I did this every Monday. Every Monday, that is, except one.

How to Make the Perfect Salad: Pear, Rocket, Fennel, and Blue Cheese Salad

What makes a perfect salad? I think it should hit all the tastebud areas on your tongue. Below is a tongue map (image from James Beard Foundation). To make a perfect salad, pick ingredients that include all these tastes. And then make sure every forkful includes them!

How to Reduce the Sharpness of Raw Onions

I love raw onions but find they taste too strong. I feel as though their sharpness is just one notch too high for me. Thankfully there is an easy way to reduce the strong bite of raw onions slightly. And it only requires reordering your preparation steps.

Warm Bean and Courgette Salad with Mint

I read a lot of food blogs. Precisely 278 food blogs. I use Google Reader to do this - it aggregates all the new posts and if you've never tried it before, you should! Start by adding Simply Cooked and a few other blogs to your Reader and away you go! (You'll love it, I promise.)

Here's the thing. There is a big, gaping hole in my list of food blogs. I want, but can't seem to find, more food blogs that concentrate on vegetables. I can't get over my love to all things veggie, and I want to find more people who feel the same. I want to drool over pictures of beautiful salads. I want to find intriguing combinations of crisp and green things. I want to feel inspired to make more of my vegetables and inspired to buy more new-to-me items.

Bean Sprout Salad

Bean sprouts - not the sexiest of vegetables. In fact I find them kind of unpleasant. But I learned a new method of preparing them and I was mighty impressed. Blanch them - a brief dip in boiling water made them silky! I was amazed at how much more palatable, enjoyable, even, the sprouts became.

Carrot Salad with Spiced Bacon Topping

Here's the easy kind of food I like to make and eat. This is just some chopped vegetables and a bacon topping. But it tastes special because the bacon is fried with garlic and a few aromatic spices in butter.

Carrots and courgettes (zucchini) are such simple and cheap vegetables, but I really love finding ways to make them seem new again. I chopped them into tiny pieces in my food processor, and made this little bacon topping to go with them. There's just enough butter to coat the vegetables very lightly; you may like a bit more butter or olive oil. I ate the whole lot for lunch one afternoon.

Red and Green Salad with Chayote

Ms Hovey was my favourite teacher in elementary school. Her grade four class was the first place I tasted kiwi, and the first place I saw baking soda react with vinegar. I was a quiet, bookish girl with long, brown hair and glasses, and I wanted to please her. Perhaps because of this, she encouraged me to enter the school's public speaking competition.

Brown Rice and Avocado Salad with Vietnamese Dressing

Everyday home cooking is often about using what you have on hand. Each evening when I look in the fridge and cupboards, I have to make something to eat with what I find.

Sometimes I plan a week's worth of meals and then each evening's job is easy. At other times I have no plan. But food must still be produced. And I refuse to eat (or serve) something boring. At least not more than once a week!

This super easy dinner is based on a Nigella Lawson recipe. She made it originally with black rice and prawns, but the headnotes suggested avocado as an option. I usually have leftover brown rice on hand, and I made a few substitutions in the dressing. That doesn't really matter, don't you think? As long as an interesting meal is produced and enjoyed from what is available, I am happy.

Pan-Crisped Devilled Eggs

I really enjoy getting to know new bloggers. My favourite hobby is hopping around from food blog to food blog, leaving comments and looking at all the great recipes and photographs. This month I had the privilege of meeting Debbie from The Friday Friends as part of the Secret Recipe Club. Her food blog covers savoury and sweet recipes, with some books thrown in for good measure. I found this recipe for pan-crisped devilled egg salad on her blog and was intrigued.

Chickpea and Carrot Salad with Japanese-Inspired Carrot Dressing

When I go food shopping I try to always pick up something new (to me). Otherwise it can be much too boring to go shop for food time after time. I recently came home with a little bottle of shichimi togarashi, a Japanese spice blend made with seaweed.