A New Week + Recipe Scout 12

A ghastly week behind me; a new (brighter...) one ahead in which my father’s health improves (please…) and his doctor considers releasing him from hospital, and in which I write a rather fine, rather clever 2500-word profile on the rather appealing, rather clever Sydney actor-writer Brendan Cowell, get to the gym and take a healthy packed lunch to work every day, let nothing pass my lips stronger than a Single Origin Roasters skim latte, and count the varieties of food I’m eating.
Have followed with interest Limes & Lycopene blogger Kathryn Elliott’s charting of the varieties of food she eats. “If you try to eat a greater variety of foods, you will be healthier for it,” writes Kathryn, who tallies between 30 and 35 different foods a day in her own diet. (And, I warn you, no cheating by counting the Brie de Meaux and the Parmigiano-Reggiano as two foods! That’s one and it’s called dairy!)
But Kathryn, I have questions:

• If I have miso soup at work — made from a packet mix but one without MSG — can I count the spring onions and wakame and tofu that rehydrate with the addition of boiling water as three varieties of food? And what about the miso sauce that they provide for you to mix in?
• And do pizza toppings count? And, if they do, is there a statute of limitations on how many days old the pizza can be before those toppings have lost their food value?
• Do freshly ground black pepper and Murray River salt flakes have any credentials here?
• What about a clove of garlic crushed in a lazy pasta dish and the chopped parsley from my sad balcony herb pot that I might consider using too? And hey, how about the olive oil?
• If I have muesli, do I count everything I put in it, even if I might only end up having an eighth of a teaspoon or less of the ingredient?
• What about raspberry jam, eaten with a croissant on a Sunday morning?
• And how about the store-bought spinach dip I’m hoeing into right now (and the pinenuts it claims to have)? Is that two ingredients, three if you count the rice crackers?

In the meantime, while I anxiously wait for answers, here are the latest recipes I’m adding to my Recipe Scout Index:

1. Salmon Rillettes on the David Lebovitz blog.
2. Rick Stein’s Fillet of Turbot with Clams and Chardonnay on BBC Food.
3. Chickpea, Almond and Sesame Spread on A Life (Time) of Cooking.
4. Gourmet Traveller's fine-looking Lasagne. 
5. "Salmon Noodle Soup for What Ails You" on Cook & Eat.
6. Algarve Buzz's Portuguese Codfish Cakes (Pasteis de Bacalhau).
7. Indian Squid Curry on Rasa Malaysia.
8. Bake until Bubbly Macaroni Cheese on Bay Area Bites.
9. Saveur's Spinach with Pinenuts and Raisins.
10. Strawberry Panzanella on 101 Cookbooks.