Saturday, August 28, 2010

more experiments in the kitchen

Sugar snap peas with lemon, garlic and basil
(a good side-dish and I love crunchy sugar snap peas)

Zesty Quinoa with Broccoli
(Good recipe - I like the subdried tomatoes in it though I think I overdid their amount and will have to go a bit easy on them next time. Also I didn't use the cashews or the white wine mentioned in the recipe since I didn't have any at home. Also would not add the raw scallions to this at the end, maybe some fresh herbs but not sure what - parsley maybe)
and in case you're wondering what that strange looking lump is next to the quinoa, it is
Broccoli Baked Potatoes
(I'd made it because I had some remaining broccoli and I also had too many potatoes in the house - but didn't enjoy this so will not make it again - it also looks quite unappetizing though the photo in the BBC recipe looks pretty good!)

And finally, I attempted for the first time to make fish since a friend told me that salmon is easy to make and tastes good even if very simply prepared - so I found a quick and simple recipe for salmon that sounded a bit like the way she cooks it - I was quite happy with this though I think I overcooked the salmon a bit so one side of the salmon got a bit too crispy.

Grilled Salmon with Chili and Lime Butter

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

twilight

a photo i came across today in my berkeley albums and which reminded me of
some tense periods of solitude which were at times relaxed by moments like this:
sighting the tiniest sliver of a moon beyond a dark beautiful rising cactus.

Friday, August 20, 2010

looking from the balcony in

cooking experiments

I've been thoroughly enjoying cooking and particularly buying ingredients I've never cooked with before (bulghar wheat, butternut squash, harissa paste, oyster sauce, tofu - yes yes i've never cooked with tofu before, bean sprouts) and then pouring over the internet looking for good-sounding recipes. Some dishes turn out good, others are okay - thankfully no total disasters yet. (If I still know where the recipe came from, the link is below the picture). And by the way, I don't think it would have ever occurred to me to take pictures of food if I'd never met Herlily - so this post is dedicated to her with love :-)

Spiced bulghar, chickpea and squash salad (Yum!)

Potato Spinach Gratin and leftovers of the spicy bughar salad (Yum!)
(the gratin was my own take on all the potato spinach gratin recipes I saw on the internet since I wanted to use both parmesan and cheddar)

Chinese Aduki beans salad
(I wasn't too impressed with this one, maybe coz I got the recipe off the aduki beans packet)

Thai Basil Tofu Fry, Szechuan Green Beans and Jasmine Rice (Absolute Yum!)

More coming I hope!

Saturday, August 7, 2010

at home in newcastle

The kitchen that has inspried me to try my hand at new things

The wonderful living room

One of my cooking experiments: Aubergine and Feta Gratin

Flowers from Vanesa

View from my bedroom