Weekend Links #27

Weekend Links is a way of sharing all the engrossing things I see around the internet. I publish Weekend Links approximately every two weeks. As usual, I welcome your ideas and feedback.

food reading links:
--A Christian food blogger talks about bread (from Kitchen Stewardship). She and her family are gluten-free for health reasons but Jesus calls himself "the Bread of Life". How does she reconcile life and faith?
--Are you a supertaster? This article includes a link to a quiz on the BBC Science website to help you find out (from The Guardian).
--A study links eating more fruits and vegetables with better moods (from Science Daily). Eating better today also improves your mood tomorrow.

Valentine's Day Ideas

We long ago stopped debating about eating out or in for Valentine's Day. Eating out on February 14 is too expensive, with fancy, overpriced set menus. And the service always seems a little surly because the restaurant is busy and the staff would rather be elsewhere. As a result, we eat at home on Valentine's.

(The best day to go to a restaurant, we discovered, is February 15! The restaurant is much quieter and the meals are back to normal price.)

What about you? Will you or your loved one be cooking for Valentine's Day? Here are some ideas to make this romantic day easy and successful.

Starters:

Pumpkin and peach salad with lemongrass dressing

Cauliflower soup with roasted red pepper swirl

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.

My Berlin Kitchen by Luisa Weiss

Luisa Weiss had an American dad, an Italian mother, and grew up in Germany and the United States. As she reached adulthood, she began to wonder where in the world she belonged. She explored her heritages through travel and food. Her memoir, My Berlin Kitchen, is an attempt at catharsis through writing and eating. It was our Kitchen Reader pick for January.

Much of Luisa Weiss' story resonated with me. It is hard to be a person who doesn't know where home is. I am not sure my homeless feelings are as consuming as hers, though. I count Canada, the UK, Europe, and Hong Kong among my choices for a place of belonging. And for the most part, I feel happy in all of them. For Weiss, she was overwhelmed not by rootlessness, but the feeling that she had roots in too many places. And these places were impossible to be in all at once.

Coconut and Nut Snack Bowl

This simple snack bowl has got me through many sugar cravings. I have found that cinnamon and coconut are both tastes that I find sweet, even when there is no sweetener involved. This lovely little bowl contains almond butter, coconut oil, flaked coconut, and some walnuts, all sprinkled with cinnamon.

It was Sarah Wilson who first put me onto cinnamon and coconut. The added cup of chai tea makes it even better. I have been eating variations of this snack in the afternoons and also as a "dessert"; my main sugar cravings are mid-afternoon and late evening after dinner.

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).

Edible Gifts: Irish Cream and Pistachio Fudge and Dark Chocolate Kahlua Fudge

These two delicious fudge recipes are from the blog Eat Good 4 Life. Irish cream pistachio fudge is made with white chocolate. Dark chocolate kahlua fudge also has almonds. Both are heavily rich! Even a small cube is luxurious.

Last Christmas I gave these as gifts to my colleagues. I wrapped up two pieces of each kind of fudge with plastic wrap and ribbons.

Chickpea and Chorizo Flatbread

I wrote recently about how I was out of ideas. Not just for blogging, but for cooking as well. Thanks to all of you for your sympathy in the comments on that post and on Facebook. A few days later I was frustrated and feeling like chucking stuff out. I attacked a messy kitchen cupboard and ditched some old, expired flours. I consolidated three bags of almond flour into a canister. Foods I am trying to avoid eating (mostly wheat-based) were put out of reach. And I discovered I had a big container of chickpea flour that I had forgotten about. I was determined to make something interesting out of it.

Cranberry and Walnut Muffins

Here are four things that make me feel Christmassy:

1. listening to Christmas carols while cooking
2. singing along to Christmas carols
3. the smell of baking muffins with cranberries and orange
4. my fingers around a mug of steaming spiced tea

Empty

I haven't blogged much lately as I feel empty of ideas. I haven't been photographing much lately because I haven't been enjoying cooking much lately. And I think not enjoying grocery shopping much lately has been a part of the problem, too.