To Burn Nervous Energy, Visit Morocco

As has happened the previous times I've taken part in a race event, I had a lot of nervous energy leading up to the Run Austin Run half-marathon. It started coming on midway through Thursday then really kicked in Friday. So what's a Faudie to do with a lot of nervous energy?

She retreats to her kitchen and gets busy.

The mindless, straightforward, methodical actions of gathering ingredients, chopping and prepping ingredients, measuring and combining ingredients is all very soothing for this restless soul, Gentle Reader. When I'm especially agitated, I like to channel that excess energy into preparing new recipes. Since the weather leading up to the race was rainy and chilly, preparing some warm, comforting dish or other seemed like an ideal solution to my problem. And coming on the heels of the tasty Ethiopian honey bread and the much earlier African chicken, this recipe seemed tailor-made for a restless, rainy Friday.

Moroccan Vegetable Stew2 T olive oil
3 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed with the side of a knife
1 t ground coriander
1 t ground cumin
1/2 t cayenne
1/4 t ground cinnamon
5 C vegetable or chicken broth
4 carrots (12 oz. total), peeled and cut into 1/2" lengths
2 1/2 C diced peeled eggplant
2 1/2 C sliced zucchini, 1/2" thick
2 C cauliflower florets
1 C diced onion (about 5 oz.)
2 14.5-oz. cans stewed tomatoes
15 oz. garbanzos, drained and rinsed
3/4 C dried currants
1 C chopped toasted almonds
1/2 T kosher salt

1. Pour the olive oil into a small frying pan over medium-low heat.
   
2. Add the garlic and spices and cook, stirring often, until fragrant (1-2 min.), being careful not to scorch the garlic.
   
3. Scrape the mixture into a slow cooker that holds at least 5 quarts.
   
4. Add the broth, carrots, eggplant, zucchini, cauliflower, onion, stewed tomatoes (with juices), garbanzos, currants, almonds and salt into the slow cooker, stirring to combine.
   
5. Cover the slow cooker and cook on high until the vegetables are tender and the flavors are blended (8-9 hrs.).
   
6. Ladle about 3 cups of the stew into a blender.
   
7. Holding the lid down with a towel and taking care to avoid steam, blend the stew until smooth.
   
8. Return the purée to the slow cooker, then stir to blend.

Yield: 12 cups for 6 to 8 servings

Nutritional Info
Calories: 292
Protein: 10 g
Fat: 14 g
Sat fat: 1.4 g
Carbs: 36 g
Fiber: 8 g
Sodium: 741 mg
Cholesterol: 2.3 mg

The Faudie's Futzings
I don't think I've shared this information, but I haven't been able to sell plasma for about a month now because my protein levels are too low. That deficiency is not because I don't eat enough protein. Instead, the issue is a result of my...full schedule of exercise. I work hard, I burn a lot of protein and when I go in for the tests to measure the protein level, I typically have come from a workout. So, well, yeah, I suppose I'm not eating enough protein then.

In the hopes of getting back to selling plasma, I decided to add some meat to this stew, specifically chicken breast meat. With that addition, not only could I introduce some extra protein to the dish but also increase the likelihood that the boys would enjoy the stew. To even further increase the likelihood that the boys would enjoy the stew, I opted not to go out and acquire an eggplant to peel and dice or cauliflower, fresh or frozen, to put into the mix. Ahh well, maybe next time.

While on the topic of veggies, I must say I would have loved to have included zucchini in the stew. But I couldn't. Fresh zuccs are a bit too expensive, I didn't want to use the one bag of frozen stuff Mum gave me for fear the stew turned out to be a bust, which means I would have wasted that last back--plus the boys won't touch the stuff. But given how much I'd already accommodated the human male residents of Chez Boeckman-Walker, I tossed in not one but two bags of chopped yellow squash. Take that, XY carriers!

Here are my other, minor futzes:

• I used minced garlic instead of buying a head to get those whole cloves.
  
• I used raisins instead of currants.
  
• I didn't include any almonds.
  
• The stew wasn't in the slow cooker for eight or nine hours. I think it was in the works maybe four hours. I was concerned initially that the slow cooker would heat the stew hot enough to cook the cubed chicken breast, but it did. And the carrots were just the right tenderness for the husband--not mushy but not too crisp.

Much like the Persian cuisine we've come to love from Alborz, this stew had a bit of heat to it, but that heat was tempered well with the sweetness of the coriander and cinnamon. Those raisins, by the way, absorbed the cinnamon-coriander sweetness after stewing in the slow cooker for four or five hours, just as the golden raisins and dates do when I make Moroccan tagine.

Just a tip, Gentle Reader, if you're concerned about the rather high sodium content of the dish: Use low-sodium broth. This recipe appeared in Sunset, which isn't exactly concerned about the healthful nutrition content of its recipes. Using no-salt-added stewed tomatoes and using maybe half a teaspoon to a full teaspoon of kosher salt, as I did, can also reduce the sodium content.

Soup Needs Crackers
I've noted before, Gentle Reader, that I have this innate need to pair soups and stews with some kind of crisp carb. But what goes good with a Moroccan stew?

Why, Moroccan bread, obviously!

Moroccan Anise Bread3/4 C water
3 T margarine or butter
3 T sugar
1/2 t salt
1 t anise seeds
2 C bread flour
1 1/2 t yeast

1. Add the ingredients to the bread machine in the order recommended by the machine's manufacturer.
   
2. Select the Sweet or Basic cycle on the machine.
   
3. If available, select the crust color.
   
4. Press Start.

Yield: One 1-pound loaf

Nutritional Info
The recipe's from Donna Rathmell German's Bread Machine Cookbook II. I cannot give what I do not have.

The Faudie's Futzings
Don't you hate it, Gentle Reader, when you get really excited to make something new only to discover you don't have one ingredient? I do. That's why I try to keep stocked in a certain number of ingredients that have become staples for my culinary range of expertise. Anise seeds, though, aren't one of those staples.

Fortunately, I do have a small quantity of star anise, which feature somewhat prominently in rice pilaf recipes (most of which I've yet to make). Thanks to Cook's Thesaurus, I learned one crushed star anise is roughly equivalent to half a teaspoon of crushed anise seed. So out came my mortar and pestle and two star anise--just to be sure I had enough.
And yes, I had more than enough anise, albeit crushed, for the recipe from those two star anise.

Did you notice, Gentle Reader, how much sugar is in this loaf? Three tablespoons is a lot of sugar, and I was this close to substituting honey. But I didn't. And I'm glad because the finished loaf tastes wonderfully like King's Hawaiian bread, which I've loved since I was a kid. The anise and its licorice scent just made the loaf all that more heavenly. Trust me when I tell you I had a helluva time resisting the urge to gobble up what was left of the loaf after supper.

With the growing number of North African dishes I've been making and reading about of late, I've come to realize I just need to save my money so I can take a culinary tour of North Africa, the Middle East and India. Gads, wouldn't that be a truly tasty adventure!