Weekend Links #37

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:
--A long article I have been reading about fueling a marathon while eating paleo (from Ben Greenfield Fitness). And here's another take from Mark's Daily Apple.
--While we're on the topic of sports nutrition, I was reading about a couple who are rowing from California to Hawaii without sugar or "junk carbohydrates" (from Diet Doctor).
--A great post from A Veggie Venture that answers the question, "What is a tomatillo?" plus everything you need to know about them.
--Just before our three weeks away from home I was freezing everything left in the fridge and discovered you can even freeze quiche and tortilla chips (from The Kitchn).

recipe links:
--Macaroni and cheese made with Guinness, heavy cream, lots of cheese, and some crunchy barley (from Mutineer Magazine). What a combination!
--Ginger and chocolate ice cream (from Blogging Over Thyme). I love everything ginger, and pairing it with dark chocolate is perfect.
--I was investigating grain-free Yorkshire pudding recently and found a recipe (from The Saffron Girl) that looks like it is worth trying.
--The flaxseed crust on these mini quiches is a useful recipe to have on standby (from The Kitchn). Plus, mini quiches are good for breakfasts.

Veggie Noodles with Butter and Parmesan

I bought a spiralizer! It's a little gadget with a turning arm and a sharp blade for cutting vegetables. I ordered a Japanese one called the Benriner Cook's Help Vegetable Slicer and it arrived last week.

Meatless Meatballs

Now here's a unique way to make meatballs: with lentils and brown rice. These meatless meatballs are a good party snack or a dinner main dish with spaghetti. They are made more interesting with the addition of pesto, garlic, oregano, and paprika. They tasted scrumptious with a pesto and mayo dipping sauce.

The Daring Cooks - Recipes with Tea

I have been a proud Daring Cook for several years and it is my absolute pleasure to host the group this month! This month I challenged the Daring Cooks to make a savoury recipe with tea.

I have always enjoyed learning new skills and trying new recipes with the Daring Cooks. They are always so inventive, so I gave them free rein to make one of my three recipes (below) or cook any other recipe with tea. They were able to choose to use black, green, or herbal tea. And there were so many great ideas! I am very grateful for the chance to host the Cooks and thrilled to enjoy what they came up with.

buckwheat spätzle--German pasta

Spätzle is an easy pasta to make which uses flour and eggs. The imperfectly shaped pasta are moulded by hand and can be called "rustic"!

Steph from Stephfood was our Daring Cooks July hostess. Steph challenged us to make homemade noodles without the help of a motorized pasta machine. She provided us with recipes for spätzle and fresh egg pasta as well as a few delicious sauces to pair our noodles with.

sea bass with raisins and saffron

"The first bite is with the eyes," my husband teases--and this is an ugly dish. I freely admit it, this pasta and fish combination do not look as good as they taste. This Nigella Lawson recipe looked a lot better when she made it! But the four of us ate it and agreed that it wasn't "ugly in the mouth". It certainly looked terrible while it was still in the pan....

formula one pasta with lemon and parsley

The final race of the Formula One season was on Sunday. I love the thrill of the overtaking, the strategy of the teams, the engineering genius, and the team work that is required to race well. One day I hope I get to see a Grand Prix in person, perhaps next year in Shanghai or Singapore. Then I will be a true "muffler bunny." :)

flowering broccoli with angel hair pasta and ground pork

I love the new vegetables I am trying here in Hong Kong. One of my favourites so far is flowering broccoli. I see from some web searching that other countries call this "Chinese broccoli". I think I will have to avoid names like that because otherwise every vegetable I meet will be called "Chinese". These broccoli stalks are tender and they also have soft leaves that are similar in taste to mild spinach.


Flowering broccoli needs very little preparation: just a quick steam, or in this case, a dip in the pasta's boiling water while it is just finishing cooking. The ground pork is fried separately with a couple of not too spicy chillies and then tossed with the hot pasta. Easy and delicious.


You can easily use normal broccoli in this dish: just add it to the cooking pasta a minute or two earlier.

Flowering Broccoli with Angel Hair Pasta and Ground Pork
serves 2

250 g ground pork
1 red chilli
1 green chilli
2 cloves garlic
125 g whole wheat angel hair pasta
200 g flowering broccoli
sprinkle of parmesan cheese (optional)

Scramble fry the ground pork in a non-stick frying pan until no pink remains.
Add the chillies and garlic and fry for a couple of minutes until they are aromatic.
Meanwhile, add the pasta to a pan of boiling water. Consult the package directions; one minute before pasta is finished cooking, add the broccoli to the pan.
Drain pasta and broccoli and toss with pork mixture.
Season to taste with pepper and parmesan cheese (if desired).

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.

Caribbean macaroni cheese

Here's a nice weeknight comfort food--a lovely twist on Mac'n'Cheese. I used another "Two for One" recipe from The Kitchen Revolution--it's designed for eating half now and freezing half for later. The Two for One recipe is for two meals for four people, so I halved it and made two meals for two people--except there were three of us. So we ended up eating almost all of it and saved one lunch box for Ant the next day.


I like the addition of sweet potato--low GI and very tasty. I boiled the pasta and sweet potato together, which was my only adaption of this easy recipe.


The sauce has some tomatoes and spring onions to give a nice combination of orange, red and green in the finished dish. It feels like autumn to me, with the colours of leaves and the warm hearty texture.


This was the amount of two meals for two--so I don't think I even have oven space to bake two meals for four at the same time.

Caribbean Macaroni Cheese
serves 2x 4 people

500 g macaroni
250 g sweet potatoes, cut into 1-2 cm chunks
3 free range eggs
2 c milk
3 T HP Sauce
2 to 3 t sweet chilli sauce
5-10 drops chillis sauce (for example, Tasbasco)
2 x 400 g cans of chopped tomatoes
2 bunches spring onions, sliced
300 g mature cheddar, grated
40 g (approx.) butter
2 slices of bread for breadcrumbs (optional)
handful of fresh parsley, chopped
salt and pepper

Peheat the oven to 200 C/400 F.
Cook the pasta according to packet directions, drain and set aside.
Bring the sweet potatoes to the boil, then simmer for 5 minutes. Be careful not to overcookt hem of they will turn to mush. Drain and set aside.
Meanwhile, make the sauce. Break the eggs into a bowl, add the milk, HP Sauce, sweet chilli sauce, chilli sauce, tomatoes, spring onion, and half of the cheddar cheese. Season with salt and pepper.
Add the pasta and sweet potatoes and mix well. Pour into two ovenproof dishes.
If using, add the breadcrumbs on top and sprinkle with the rest of the cheddar cheese. Dot with butter and the parsley.
Bake for 20 minutes, or until the tops are brown and the pasta mixture has set.
Put one dish aside to cool and freeze.

On the day of reheating, defrost the macaroni cheese thoroughly. Cover with foil and bake at 180 C/350 F for 30 t0 45 minutes. Uncover for the last 10 minutes of cooking.

spaghetti with velvety green sauce and bacon

I was inspired this week by Ele's post about pureed broccoli pasta sauce. Like Ele, I have made the delicious Kitchn recipe Velvety Broccoli and Feta Pasta. Pureeing the broccoli was so delicious and now the idea has cropped up again: first on 101 Cookbooks and then on The Kitchenist. And with broccoli firmly established as Ant's favourite vegetable.... Well, the time had come for a pureed recipe of my own.


We had a lovely broccoli from last week's veg box. But we also had one of Ant's least liked veggies: green beans. He always complains that they squeak when he eats them. He hates all things that squeak, especially food. So I was determined to use up some of the green beans without any dreaded squeaking. All that was needed to complete my inspiration was a basic spaghetti with zucchini and eggs recipe from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything.

Spaghetti with Velvety Green Sauce and Bacon
serves 2

Boil a large pot of water and cook 250 g spaghetti according to the packet instructions.
In another pot of boiling, salted water cook a large handful of green beans for two minutes. Add chopped florets of broccoli and boil for a further three minutes or until desired tenderness (or longer to avoid squeakiness!). Remove from heat and drain the veggies.
Meanwhile, gently fry a chopped onion, then remove the onion from the pan into a bowl and fry a few snipped rashers of bacon.
In the bowl, add to the onion the cooked veggies, 2 eggs, and a generous handful of grated Parmesan cheese. Puree using a handheld blender (or in a food processor).
Serve the spaghetti topped with broccoli sauce, bacon, cracked black pepper, and more Parmesan cheese.

The deliciousness of this meal was well worth the vast quantities of washing up it generated! The grateful eaters were very willing to help.