Sunflowers!

One of my favourite plants—big, bright and in your face (or towering over you). Sunflowers celebrate life and encourage me to do the same. I love harvesting their over-heavy heads full of seeds. We roast them in the toaster oven and feast. Here's a pro tip: if you wait until the seeds are hot to salt them, the salt will stick to the seeds' oils, which are released by the heat. Super pro tip: try Hy's seasoning salt. (I put that #$*% on everything.)

Baking on a rainy sunday: Food for the Gods and Banana Bread

Food for the Gods

Food for the Gods is a Filipino treat. If you're not familiar with Filipino cooking, let me tell you they are sweet baking experts. If there's a Goldilocks near you, check it out. Really. Go now. (Brazo de Mercedes and Sans Rival will change your life.)

One of my favourite indulgences is Food for the Gods, a date square that leaves all others in the dust. It's a popular, time-tested dish—every lola has her family's recipe—and easy to make. The recipes I've seen all include dates and walnuts (I make mine without walnuts to appease Youngest Daughter) and a variety of sweeteners, including sugar, molasses, honey and corn syrup.

Recipes abound online—just be sure to search "food for the gods" (not of the gods). It's easy to make, uses very little flour (a plus for me, the gluten-free-ish gal) and popular. In the Phillipines you see it around christmastime, but at our house anytime is FFTG time. Only problem is that it disappears so quickly...

Banana Bread with Coconut

My favourite banana bread recipe is still Bittman's, from his How to Cook Everything. I usually add more sugar than he calls for, and a touch more fat. (Everything's better with butter.) We eat a lot of bananas in my house, but often lose a few to over-ripeness. The ones with black spots are usually fine but the kids won't eat them because they're ugly, so I just toss them in the freezer without peeling them (the bananas, not the kids). When I want to make banana bread, I thaw three frozen bananas. The quickest and easiest way is in a steamer basket over a pot of boiling water; takes less than 10 minutes. Don't let the kids see the bananas at this point—they look gross, practically liquid—but they're super easy to work with. I add shredded coconut but not walnuts, due to certain people's nut prejudices. DH and the kids love this bread, and it packs well for school lunches. It's also amazing toasted with peanut butter.

Easy Fish Stew

Remember that curried cauliflower I made the other day? I turned the leftovers into a fish stew. It took exactly two minutes to dump the leftovers in a pot with some leftover potatoes, and add half a cup of broth and three frozen halibut fillets. I heated it gently (medium-low) for about 20 minutes. Easy peasy.

We ate it topped with tamarind-date chutney. The kids loved it! For an extra kick of heat, we paired it with ginger tea. I'm no physician but I swear all that spicy goodness makes sick people healthy and maintains good health.

Vegomania and crispy noodles

One of my favourite things is crispy noodles. It's hard to make them at home, if you don't have one of those crazy-hot wok rings they use in restaurants. But having the wrong equipment never stopped me before...

This was pretty easy to make and the family loved it. I fried cooked noodles on the highest temperature on my stove, which is electric but gets hotter than the gas stove we had a few years back. (Shh, don't tell the cooking snobs that I prefer electric over gas.) I used peanut oil, as it has a fairly high smoke point, although I think we passed it. Added soy sauce, so the sugars burnt a bit and added even more flavour.

The cauliflower and eggplant dish was super easy. I make this one a lot. It was inspired by the delicious Najib’s Special cauliflower dish at Nuba, which was the dish that made me appreciate cauliflower. My recipe is different than Najib's; in fact the only thing in common is probably the cauliflower, but hey, it's good. I just heat some masala in ghee and toss in the cauliflower (and in this case, eggplant). Cook down and stir to coat. Voila.

The peppers, onions and mushrooms were just quickly pan-fried in very hot peanut oil.

Another quick and satisfying evening meal with leftovers for lunch.

From Aparatus to Art

Darn! I broke my favourite frying pan lid. That classic mistake of putting the lid on a cool back burner while preheating my pan on the front burner... or so I thought. I turned on the wrong burner--to max heat, of course, because I was frying noodles. The bang startled me but I instantly realised what happened.

I was disappointed—it's my favourite Ikea lid, and fits the big pans. But oh, such pretty art.

DH was awfully nice about my mistake. He's going to try replacing the glass with wire mesh for a frying cover that fits the pan. (We have one now but it's giant and blocks us from using the element next to the one we're frying on.)

Dinner of Threes

For a family birthday celebration this weekend, I made three salads, each with three varieties of an ingredient. Each dish contained at least one ingredient from our garden. Lots of positive comments on the freshness and flavours!
Three-Tomato Salad
Cherry, grape and beefsteak tomatoes with homegrown basil, parsley, truffle oil, white balsamic, and green onions from our garden.


Green Beans and Nuts
I blanched long green beans, cooled them then tossed in a bit of olive oil and sea salt. Topped with toasted walnuts, almond slivers and sunflower seeds, which provided protein and a blast of crunchy goodness.
Three-Pepper Leafy Greens
Red and yellow bell peppers and long reds were diced and mixed in with three varieties of lettuce (Romaine, green leaf and red leaf). Garnished with homegrown green onions, and topped with a dressing of olive oil, pineapple vinegar with crushed homegrown rosemary, lavender and oregano.