Beef with sesame, orange, rice, carrot & lettuce

Made this tonight from a blend of recipes and memories of a dish I used to enjoy for lunch at an Asian restaurant in Stockholm. I think it's actually a Korean dish.

It's thinly sliced steak strips, with fine chopped onion, marinated in soy sauce, honey, sesame oil & seeds, with a little ginger, chilli & garlic, and orange zest.

Once flash-fried in a hot frying pan I served it on a bed of lettuce with warm sticky rice & topped off with grated carrot and orange slices to squeeze over to taste.

For two people I used 400 grams of meat, 1 small onion, 3 tablespoons of soy, 1 tablespoon of honey, 2 teaspoons of sesame oil, and 1 teaspoon each of lazy ginger, chilli & garlic. Grated the surface off 1 orange, and prepared sushi rice finished off with rice wine vinegar. Sliced the remains of the orange and grated two carrots.  Really yummy and fresh. Top marks from the better half! :-)

Update - made it again without the onion or carrot, more honey, and more sesame oil. Also heated the rice wine vinegar with some vegetable oil, sugar and salt. Tasted even closer to the dish I hoped to recreate...

Paths Through Addictions

I've recently drafted this diagram to help outline what I feel are my own paths through addition to both alcohol and nicotine. I feel very lucky to be able to say I've recovered from both - five years free from smoking and ten years free from drinking.

After unsuccessfully trying patches & gum a few times, I quit thirty years of cigarettes by using Champix tablets over two months. Effectively they "switched-off" the part of my brain that craved nicotine.

Interestingly, my escape from alcohol ten years ago involved a massive last binge (and prolonged hangover/withdrawl) with a very powerful movie* as a background narrative, and transferal of addiction from booze to fags in the first few weeks. After that period there was almost no temptation to drink again (I did have a couple of 12 hr curiosity lapses 6 months apart in the first year which only reinforced my determination each time). It has, since then, felt that the part of my brain which craved alcohol has been switched off too.

I'm keen to get any and all feedback, in the comments below please, to refine the diagram and answer anything I haven't explained adequately. Thanks.

* Touching The Void - which shows the extent to which people can recover from trapped situations.

Cheesy Chicken & Vegetables

Chicken breasts - 4
Cheese - grated 200 gm
Carrot sticks - a bowl
Mushrooms - 6 medium
Sweetcorn - half a small can
Green beans - pack trimmed
Peppers - one large diced
Cream - large dash
Milk - a cup or so
Chilli powder - sprinkle over
Salt - to taste
Pepper - to taste
Chicken Stock - one cube mixed in water
Mixed Herbs - to taste
Parmesan - to sprinkle over near end of baking

Made this after New Year to use up stuff in the fridge that needed eaten.

Dice meat and chop veg. Mix with other ingredients except Parmesan.

Bake covered at high heat for 1 hour stirring halfway. Reduce to medium heat and and bake uncovered for another half hour, sprinkling the Parmesan on halfway through to brown.

Serve with lettuce and tomato salad with vinaigrette. Yum yum :-)