Sudden Obsession with Morocco

Well, the title of this post says it all. For some reason I can't fully explain, I've been fascinated with dishes alleged to be Moroccan in origin. I blame my love affair with couscous. I suppose, Gentle Reader, you could dub couscous the gateway dish that leads you down an arduous but damned delicious path.

Of course, these recipes I've cooked up may have "Morocco" or "Moroccan" in their titles only by some whim of the persons submitting them just to make the dishes seem exotic. Hey, for folks like me who grew up on chicken-fried steak, mashed potatoes, green beans out of a can and a slice of white sandwich bread, spices that aren't salt and pepper are exotic. Authenticity should, I'm sure, be one of my goals, but it isn't. I'm just looking for tasty spice combinations.

Moroccan Lentil Soup2 onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 t grated fresh ginger
6 C water
1 C red lentils
1 15-oz. can garbanzo beans, drained
1 19-oz. can cannellini beans
1 14.5-oz. can diced tomatoes
1/2 C diced carrots
1/2 C chopped celery
1 T olive oil
1 1/2 t ground cardamom
1/2 t ground cayenne pepper
1/2 t ground cumin
1 t garam masala

1. In large pot saute the onions, garlic and ginger in a little olive oil for about 5 min.
   
2. Add the water, lentils, chickpeas, white kidney beans, diced tomatoes, carrots, celery, garam masala, cardamom, cayenne pepper and cumin.
   
3. Bring the mixture to a boil for a few min. then simmer for 1 to 1.5 hours or longer, until the lentils are soft.
   
4. Puree half the soup in a food processor or blender, and then return the pureed soup to the pot, stir and enjoy.

Yield: 6 servings of unknown size

Nutritional Info
Calories: 273
Fat: 3.1 g
Protein: 16 g
Carbs: 46 g
Fiber: 15.9 g
Na: 185 mg

The Faudie's Futzings
I studied this recipe off and on for about a week before deciding to make it. I read its comments, some of which are not terribly kind, some of which are...revealing of a certain lack of experience with some ethnic cooking techniques and flavor profiles and some are utterly useless in their glowing praise. Noting the number of folks disappointed with the final flavor given what spices go into its preparation, I drew on my own experience with these spices and with certain Indian preparation techniques gleaned from Madhur Jaffrey and others and got to work.

• After heating about 1.5 t of olive oil in my nonstick Dutchie over medium-low heat, I tossed in the onions to saute. Once they began to soften, I added the garlic and ginger and stirred fairly frequently lest these more delicate "foundation" flavors burn.
  
• Once the garlic and ginger became fragrant, I tossed in the celery and onion to become tender, trusting my nose largely to know when they were ready to be spiced.
  
• Garam masala is not a spice you throw in during the initial cooking stages. I can't remember where I read that (probably a nugget of wisdom from Ms. Jaffrey), but it's meant to be added at the end of cooking. If you throw it in too soon, the flavors vanish. For that reason, I added only the cayenne, cumin and cardamom and let them grow fragrant. I'm still not entirely sure the cardamom should go in at this point, if it can be destroyed by prolonged cooking time, but I put it in here rather than at the end since it makes up the bulk of the flavor profile.
  
• As my nostrils filled with heady smells emanating from the Dutchie, I tossed in the lentils (forgetting completely to pick through them) then added the diced tomatoes, juice and all, and then added 4 cups of low-sodium chicken brother plus 2 cups of water, on the advice on some of the comments. I was afraid water alone would wash out the flavors I'd been carefully building.
  
• I almost forgot to toss in the chickpeas, which I'd prepared myself. As always, I prepared too many chickpeas and wound up with a very, very full Dutchie. So full was my Dutchie that I realistically had no room for the can of Great Northern beans I'd planned to throw in. I'd already been a tad reluctant to throw them in, fearful they'd disintegrate during the simmer time needed for the lentil to grow tender, so the overabundance of chickpeas was just the excuse I needed to skip the white beans.
  
• The stew simmered uncovered for just over an hour, I believe. I can't say for sure since I failed to pay close attention to the time. I thought I'd turn the burner down low enough, but I hadn't and counted myself lucky the tad-too-high heat and the potentially-too-long cooking time hadn't rendered my red lentils into mush.
  
• After turning off the heat, I added the garam masala, stirred two or three times very gently and declared the stew done.

Because I'd let the stew simmer a bit too long over heat that was probably a bit too high with too many chickpeas for the liquid content, I wound up with a stew that wasn't terribly juicy. Lacking a lot of juice and being lazy, I skipped the puree step, put some cold, leftover brown rice in a small bowl over which I ladled a portion of unknown size.

My verdict of the result: Yummy! I'm not sure why some folks bitched about the cayenne used being too much. I found it balanced nicely with the amount of "sweet" flavor from the cardamom. I could see potentially adding some turmeric with the initial spice infusion, but that could radically alter the final flavor profile. Plus I don't think turmeric is used as much in Moroccan dishes as it is in Indian ones. A bit of an attempt at authenticity is good, right, Gentle Reader?

So Long, Summer!

I do realize, Gentle Reader, that I didn't post once all summer, thus having a summer recap post seems somewhat pointless. But who said this is a recap post anyway? Consider this a "How I Spent My Summer Vacation" post, except you get to see more pictures and read less text. Now, that has to be a miracle right there!

In the slideshow above, you'll enjoy pictures of two of Mamma Mooch's latest kittens, who took to my grandpa's old tractor seat (especially Felix) like it was catnip, along with a lot of pictures of the boy. The boy and I spent a lot of our summer at the pool, which kind of culminated in his passing his swimming test and learning to love the diving board, which is obvious in the pictures. We also took a trip to the Austin Zoo to honor the boy's halfers birthday on August 5. Despite the heat, which had pretty much zonked out the big animals, we had fun.

Who Comes Up With This Crap?

As I'm sure you know very well by now, Gentle Reader, the boys and I don't eat out much at chain restaurants because the food offerings available at them are, in a word, revolting. But given all the rumblings and rantings and ravings about the "obesity epidemic" and "America's ever-expanding waistline" and all that "scare you into eating prepackaged 'diet' food that'll kill you just as easily as the other stuff, if maybe a little slower" food, it takes a lot of chutzpah to keep adding to the menu choices that not only are revolting but just...make a sane person wonder if somewhere in some back room there isn't a cabal of fast-food and casual-dining restaurant menu planners in a race to outdo one another in terms of revolting menu items.

I present to you, Gentle Reader, as Exhibit A:

Denny’s fried cheese Melt with wavy fries and marinara

It takes a real food genius to recognize the taste sensation that results when one sticks deep fat fried phony mozzarella sticks between two slices of phony American cheese that are between two slice of bleached-to-nutritional-nothingness white bread and smeared with that slap in the face to cows every, margarine. Oh! Don't forget the novelty fries and that Ronald Reagan-approved vegetable, ketchup!

Yummy.

If you haven't been revolted enough today, Gentle Reader, check out the Web posting (I refuse to call it an article because this ain't journalism any more than what I'm doing here is journalism) from which I learned about this monstrosity.
UPDATE
Since publishing this post about half an hour ago, the husband has bombarded me with follow-up tidbits about not only this abomination from Dennys but also about the revolting trend of sticking food in food for one's gluttonous yen. Since he first alerted me to the Dennys abomination, I feel compelled to pass along these other retched (yes, I intended that) finds.


I miss Xzibit and Pimp My Ride. Remember those heady days of financial irresponsibility when people could max out their credit cards on stupid things for their cars? Okay, that probably still happens, but I still miss Xzibit.

The husband also discovered that the fine folks at Wait Wait... are Don’t Tell Me are way ahead of this thing and will no doubt be mentioned on an upcoming show, maybe even this weekend. I tell ya, Gentle Reader, you can learn anything and everything from NPR. Where do I send my pledge?