I made this lentil curry dish recently based on this coconut dal, we eat dal all the time and the method of cooking the lentils in coconut milk sounded so good to me. I couldn't find red lentils in the grocery store so used French green lentils, over all it was a tasty dish but a tad rich for us, will stick with our regular dals :-)
I made a lemon bundt cake recently as hubby loves lemon cakes, this was a memorable day for me as I put together the little guys new high chair and let him eat cake, didn't get any super food blog worthy pictures of the cake but the cute kiddies eating it make up for it.
Meyer Lemon Bundt Cake
Ingredients:
8oz butter, room temperature
8 oz sugar
zest of 1 Meyer lemon
3 eggs
8 oz gms all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
1/4 cup natural yogurt
juice of 1 lemon
1 tsp vanilla extract
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350
Butter and flour a bundt pan.
Cream sugar and butter, then mix in flour, lemon juice, natural yogurt, vanilla and lemon juice and lemon zest together.
bake for 50 minutes or until a knife comes out clean.
dust with powdered sugar and feed to cute kids :-)
Got to adore kids they bring so much laughter and joy to life:-)
and a wee update on Shorty Awards, I didn't win but wanted to say thanks for all your support
Reading The Guardian food section got me again recently with this post on how to make the perfect custard. My Dad loves his custard and always uses a can of Birds Custard, he proudly makes the paste and carefully stirs to create his signature thick custard to eat with crumbles, pies and steamed puddings, very British.
After reading this I just had to make custard from scratch with egg yolk, it seemed so easy, did you know Birds custard was invested by Mr Bird because his wife had an egg allergy its just coloring, sugar and corn starch. So a from scratch rich custard sauce was needed to fix my craving.
This is a wonderful way to serve green beans, we cook okra in the same way at home, a South Indian style of cooking I learnt from my hubby. For this recipe it helps to steam the green beans for about 5 minutes first to soften them to speed it up, I simply did this in a microwave in a glass bowl with a lid with a little water added. No need for those expensive bags of steamed veggies.
I have to say my favorite Food Section is The Guardian I always seem to get so inspired and cook from it and I tweet with a couple of the writers, lovely folks. This article about a smoked salmon dish with greens and poached egg in a pub, got my attention as I have been wanting to try home smoking and it sounded so easy. So I made chai smoked salmon it was so good. But the only draw back to making it is the fact it makes the house smell :-) I bet you could do on a grill outside.
Spring is in the air in North Carolina, I have been enjoying seeing some wonderful blossoms on my walks and thought I would share some. Flowers always make the world a better place.
Here's a great recipe for lamb curry I pretty much make it the same way each time as its a winner, this time I added spinach it was so good, not sure why I hadn't done this before. In fact I was recently featured in ADA Times now Food and Nutrition Magazine see page 17 on lamb and my recipe is there for a Moroccan inspired Lamb dish.
March 14th is National Registered Dietitians day, a time to celebrate my wonderful profession.
The clip above explains why we are the nutrition experts from The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics formerly The American Dietetic Association. Dietitians, work in hospitals, dialysis centers, nursing homes, home health, doctors offices, local gyms, the media. They are cookbook authors with many being qualified chefs too, pioneers in food and culinary nutrition, TV stars, social media practitioners and bloggers like me and more the possibilities are endless.
I made this chicken and pepper stew recently, easy to make and all in all a great stew. The recipe is from The New York Times always enjoy their recipes and I didn't really change anything so follow the link :-)
It was a pleasant weekend here, lovely weather me and the kids had a little picnic in our backyard and played.
I wanted to do a wee post to to mention Japan, one year after the Tsunami that claimed the lives of 19,000 and damaged 300,000 homes. A lot of has improved but folks there still need your help and prayers to continue to support them and rebuild, we shouldn't forget them. The red cross continue to work and help people there, if you click the you tube link you can donate below :-)
I did a screen shot tutorial demonstrating how to use pinterest and thought you would find it helpful. I am enjoying my travel boards, and using it as a way to collect recipes. It is becoming a good source of traffic and I find it fun, I even do pinterest for a client.
This is a super simple salad, with my two favorite citrus fruits, the Meyer lemon and blood orange, we ate this for valentines with a whole roasted red snapper :-), lovely. Its so easy to make your own vinaigrette's and much better for you :-)
I love rice pudding its a great British comfort to me. I made this one a day Jasmine was sick as all I needed to do was add the rice, chopped dates, sugar and milk and bake and voila a tasty treat. I love using dates in desserts. You may remember my date shake recently :-)
So what is #Tuesfoodmarket. Like other twitter hash tags its a fun way to collect images and blog posts about a topic from around the world. There wasn't one on food markets so I figured why not start one. It doesn't matter if your market is even on a Saturday I just choose Tuesday. Feel free to tweet pictures of farmers markets, cool foods you have grown, or even in your grocery store and lets celebrate good food. It will be fun to make new friends in different countries and share our love of food.
I have also started a Pinterest board, let me know if you would like to contribute I would gladly add you
It was last October that the king of Bhutan got married, I remember being captivated by the beautiful clothes and pretty countryside it provided a rare glimse into this most isolated of countries. Around this time Patricia commented on the Chow and Chatter facebook wall she was going!, I always enjoy Patricia's comments and conversation and finally last night I asked to see pictures and asked for a guest post. She's a busy lady and doesn't blog but has a facebook page for food and shares my passion for food, travel and culture. Here's a wonderful treat a look at the delightful food of Bhutan thanks so much Patricia means the world to me.
I have been tweeting with @ourmaninsh- Peter who helps @DavidMarteau with social media and Chef David for a couple of years now. Chef Marteau is the executive chef at Parklands hotel in Shanghai in fact I asked him to do a guest post here a in 2010 where he describes how he cultivated his love of food and travel. He is a sweet guy originally from France then lived in Canada he is married to a Chinese lady with two wee kiddies and am more than happy to help promote him, he truly deserves it.
I must admit when he offered to send me his cookbook I happily agreed to receive it. I never take free cookbooks and would have bought it anyways. Its a wonderful book, inspired with global recipes the first thing I have made is this zucchini and bacon soup. It never occurred to me to let zucchini be a star ingredient in a soup but it works to well.
Here's chef David talking about his book
and here is him at work making a red wine risotto
and finally a link to his book on amazon, I love supporting others, as I know personally how hard it is to market two apps, chow and chatter recipe app and now Go Social the social media tips app :-)
Do check him out and follow on twitter @DavidMarteau he's a sweet person and talented chef.
This stew is so good, inspired by a recipe I saw on pinterest with my own twist I made it again yesterday and added Spinach. I was also happy that Jasmine liked it too. Super healthy with protein from the nuts and chickpeas, and anti oxidant rich carrots and sweet potatoes.
Ingredients:
one can of chickpeas
2 cloves of chopped garlic
1/2 a lime's juice
1/4 cup freshly chopped cilantro
1/2 teaspoon cumin powder
1/2 a chopped red onion
1/4 teaspoon coriander powder
one tomato chopped
one can of chopped tomatoes
one large carrot chopped
one large sweet potato chopped
1/2 a cup of roughly chopped peanuts
salt to taste
1/2 teaspoon of Turkish seasoning
one cup of vegetable stock
Method:
saute the onion and garlic in olive oil, add the cumin and coriander powders for 5 minutes
add the tomato and let it form a paste 3 min
then add the carrot, sweet potato, chickpeas, vegetable stock, lime juice, cilantro, Turkish spice and peanuts mix
