Family Sunday - Pizza Dinner

Sunday is designated 'Family' (plus random friends/boyfriends) day and involves me, my cousins and flatmate cooking. Any excuse to have food really. Now, it hasn't been my turn to host for a few weeks and so I felt the need to impress. I bring to you rustic Pizza a la thelondoner.me

For starters we made cheesy mushrooms and garlic bread. Cheesy mushrooms are really easy - lay out some portobello mushrooms in a baking dish, add olive oil, balsamic vinegar, crushed garlic (I love my pestle and mortar), oregano, salt, black pepper and parsley. Cover with foil and bake at 200 degrees for about 20mins, you can then add cheese (if you want) and continue to bake until the cheese is bubbling. Adding breadcrumbs is another option.

For the garlic bread I used the recipe for pizza crust from http://thelondoner.me and topped it with garlic, butter and oregano.

For the main dish we had thelondoner.me inspired pizza topped with homemade pesto and tomato sauce (the recipes for those are also on her website) and I can vouch for how easy this meal is to put together. Only thing was, I'm missing a food processor so I just used my pestle and mortar to grind together my pesto. Also, one pizza was a bit too big so I rolled the crusts and stuffed it with mozzarella which was delicious.

We had the pizza with a mixed leaves and cherry tomatoes side salad topped with tzatziki dressing. For this you need more  garlic (you definitely won't have any vampires stalking about now), half a pot of yoghurt, half a grated cucumber, juice of a lemon, finely chopped mint leaves, olive oil  with salt and pepper to taste.

 Unfortunately I can't take credit for the yummy dessert after, which was covered in frosting. Enjoy with 'Singing in the Rain' after.

Freedom for Gaza

I'm the least likely person to be on a march for anything. I don't watch the news, I don't know my left from my right wing (getting there though!) and I don't know why they don't replace the whole news broadcast with weather news. I am a bit obsessed with the weather.

I'm also a very westernised arab. I have my own theories about religion, based on science fiction novels for the most part. All I know is that religious beliefs are very personal. So I was just as confused as everyone else when I ended up in the middle of a demonstration to end the seige in Palestine. Especially as I have never been on a demonstration before.



I think it was because despite everything that I'm not, I'm also a humanist. I had gone to a talk earlier this week which had a speaker on medical aid to Palestine. Now, what I need to explain is that I have this interest in specialising in 'world disaster medicine' and being on the call list to help out with any big disasters (I think I've watched too many hurricane shows). So I went to this talk to hear what someone who has been involved in medical aid would say about it. There were two other talkers, one man who was a bit too cocky and aggressive for my liking and this other woman who was Palestinian.



Hearing her talk about her situation made me think of all the times in history when people were subjected to a similar violation of their rights. Berlin, South African, the second World War, America. I realised that I was living through a similar situation and that I was too busy watching the weather to notice the extent of suffering. The least I could do was wave a placard. That is until I get good enough as a doctor (if I ever do) to be of use in another peaceful way.

Peace out.

My Great Chinese Hotpot Discovery

I didn't really know what to expect when I was invited to a 'chinese hotpot buffet'. I'm not sure how many other (non-Chinese) people have tried this but it's good fun. Apparently it's a common chinese dish, mostly eaten in winter. I wanted to share it because it made me happy after a stressful day.

We went to 'Little Sichuan' which is just a few minutes from Finchley Road Station.

Now the idea is you get two pots, a spicy one and a non-spicy pot on a hot plate which you switch on to boil or keep warm (depending on what you are doing). You also get given a gazillion things to drop in it: shrimp, oysters, beef, tofu, fu-ju (tofu skin), noodles, pok choi, mushrooms, ham, fish, crab, squid. Really just about anything, and you then drop it into whichever hotpot you like and wait for it to cook.

You then got some more familiar dips to sprinkle on top, like peanut sauce, garlic and spring onions.

The fun bit is the little nets you get given to scoop out what you are looking for.

And why is this a buffet? Well, you can keep ordering your favourites. Wash it down with some jasmine tea and then get a banana fritter (one because you're going to be really full) to get that sweet kick at the end.

If you are really hungry, cold and a sharer this is definitely the perfect meal to sit down to.