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.

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.

Beef Stir Fry with Black Bean Sauce

Happy Chinese New Year! It's the biggest festival of the year this week in Hong Kong and everywhere is decorated and filled with people celebrating. Red is the colour of choice everywhere. Buildings are decorated with lights and cartoon-ish animals as well.

I'm not celebrating this week, though. I had two small procedures on Saturday to remove a mole from my face and a large lesion from my foot. I'm immobilised on the couch for at least a week. So it's probably a good thing that we have a week's holidays from work. The stitches on my cheek are making it hard for me to eat (and smile!, as you can see below). So it's mostly soup at the moment.

Mongolian Beef with Red Pepper and Chinese Cabbage

My parents host a Chinese student in their home in Canada; he moved there to attend high school and learn English for university. This is the second Chinese student they have hosted, and this time food has been an issue. All teenagers are picky eaters, but especially this one who is far from home. In an effort to help him, my mother and I have been getting Chinese cooking hints from Kylie Kwong's book, Simple Chinese Cooking. (It was one of my Christmas presents from my cousin. Cookbooks are my favourite presents!) My mother and I each have a copy and we are exchanging notes about what we try.

This dish took only 35 minutes from start to finish - and that includes 30 minutes of marinading time! Next time I'll also add very thinly sliced carrots; you could use any vegetables. Just slice them thinly and throw them all in together. I reckon my mother's picky eater would love this recipe because of the thick, tasty sauce that seeps down into the rice (or noodles).