Veggie Feast for the Last Day of Summer Vacation

I suppose that in the grand scheme of things the weekend before the new school year begins doesn't probably count as part of summer vacation since, well, weekends are set-asides in my mind. They're not school days, therefore a student isn't on vacation over a weekend, right?
Well, whatever way you want to look at the Sunday before the first Monday of a new school year, I aimed to do it up right (not necessarily big, since "big" things tend to make me anxious, but what doesn't make me anxious, Gentle Reader?) so that it might be enjoyed by all. Of course, the new recipe I planned to prepare for the evening repast I knew would not be enjoyed by all because the boys are loathe to eat a vegetable that isn't a red bell pepper, a green bell pepper (although the boy can be finicky about even these) or a carrot (so long as it's still crisp and tender). Eh, screw 'em. What do they know about good food anyway?

Marrakesh Vegetable Curry

1 sweet potato, peeled and cubed
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
1 onion, chopped
6 tablespoons olive oil, divided
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 t ground turmeric
1 T curry powder
1 t ground cinnamon
3/4 T sea salt3/4 t cayenne pepper
15 oz. chickpeas, drained
1/4 C blanched almonds
1 zucchini, sliced
2 T raisins
1 C orange juice
10 oz. spinach

1. Heat 3 T of olive oil in a large Dutch oven.
   
2. Add the sweet potato, eggplant, bell peppers, carrots and onion, and then saute over medium heat for 5 min.
3. Heat the remaining 3 T of olive oil in a medium saucepan, add the garlic, turmeric, curry powder, cinnamon, salt and pepper and then saute over medium heat for 3 min.
   
4. Pour the garlic-spice mixture over the veggies in the Dutch oven.
5. Add the chickpeas, almonds, zucchini, raisins and orange juice.
   
6. Simmer 20 minutes, covered.
   
7. Add spinach to pot, cook for 5 min. more and then serve.

Yield: 6 servings of undetermined size

Nutritional Info
Calories: 275Fat: 17.4 g
Protein: 5.7 g
Carbs: 28.5 g
Fiber: 8.5 g
Na: 735 mg

The Faudie's Futzings
Usually before I prepare a recipe from AllRecipes.com, I make sure to browse the comments to determine if the recipe as posted was found wanting or lacking by other folks. This time, though, I didn't but can't give a specific reason why. I probably just didn't have time since I don't have a lot of browsing time between the transcription training and keeping the boy entertained.

That said, I did futz. I had to, Gentle Reader, or else I could no longer call myself The Faudie because a faudie futzes.

• I so did not use 6 T total of olive oil. I used maybe a tablespoon in my old nonstick Dutch oven to saute the veggies. (Sorry to disappoint, Gentle Reader, but Chive the Dutchie stayed in the cabinet because I was too lazy and tired to clean him up afterwards because Chive does not go in the dishwasher.) For sauteing the garlic and spices, I used maybe 2 1/2 teaspoons of olive oil in a small nonstick pot.
• Speaking of the garlic and spices, I didn't saute them anywhere near 3 minutes. Do this only if you want burned, bitter garlic and spices. Get the oil nice and warm, add the garlic, add the spices a few seconds later and then shut off the heat once the wonderful scent hits your nose. If this process takes more than 30 seconds, I'd say you didn't have your oil warmed up sufficiently before adding the garlic and spices. For shame, Gentle Reader!
  
• I substituted about a quarter-cup of orange-scented cranberries for the raisins (I'd been snacking on them--bad me!--while preparing this dish and figured they'd work nicely, especially with the OJ). I usually love golden raisins that have grown plump and succulent in a fragrant, spicy sauce, but I suppose my sleep-deprived stupor and munchie mouth prevented me from grabbing the bag of golden raisins out of the pantry.
  
• I only used 6 ounces of OJ because the little cans I buy are 6-oz. cans. I rinsed the empty can out with about 2 oz. of water to get the remains of the OJ out and into my curry. That said, I found 8 oz. of liquid to be far too little. I don't know if I had too many veggies (I hadn't even added the chickpeas and spinach at this point) or had the heat up too high, causing the liquid to evaporate too quickly, so I popped the top on a 6-oz. can of pineapple-orange juice and poured that in. Yes, I know, Gentle Reader, that's hardly an obvious addition or substitution (especially since I had a carton of low-Na chicken broth in the 'fridge), but I figured, Hey, what the hell! The additional 6 oz. gave the curry some actual liquid, and the pineapple-OJ blend didn't throw off any of the flavors--at least not to me.
  
• By the time I added the chickpeas (soaked 'em myself--and, as usual, had too many), my Dutchie runneth over. So even though I had an 8 oz. (maybe it's 10 oz.) of chopped spinach all thawed out and waiting to be squeezed dry and added, I opted not to add it. I just didn't want to be cleaning up flecks of stray spinach off Lumpy (me and my laziness!), and as I thought about it more, the spinach seemed like too odd an addition.
  
• Even though I have sliced zucchini frozen and needing to be used, I didn't use it. I instead cubed a glorious (and aging) yellow crook-neck squash Mum had brought me from the garden of a family friend waaay back in mid-July, allowing me to then transfer the remaining three out of the Wally World reusable bag they've been sitting in on the bottom shelf of 'fridge #2 (yes, Gentle Reader, I now have two refrigerators, but that's a story for another time) and into the veggie crisper of said 'fridge. Hooray!
  
• Because I'd sauteed the squash along with the other veggies, I didn't cover and simmer the curry for 20 minutes. Five minutes or so after adding the chickpeas (they'd been sitting in 'fridge #1 after being prepared at 3 a.m. that morning--damn almost-full-moon insomnia), the curry was ready.

I'd wanted to prepare some brown rice to accompany the curry, but I discovered I'm all out. (Bad, bad me!) So I ate the curry on its own, and the lack of rice was hardly a detriment. It didn't have a good deal of sauce like other curries, and what little sauce it did have I soaked up with a bit of pita.

This curry packs a nice one-two punch: First you get the sweet of the cinnamon, and then a few seconds later, the kick of the cayenne comes. Yowza, that's damn good eats! Now if you're not terribly keen on having your taste buds kicked by a fair quantity of cayenne, you could probably reduce the amount to a quarter of a teaspoon or even use red pepper powder that's a bit aged and therefore lacking in kick. Omitting it might even be a possibility, but then you'd be robbing yourself of the fun of this dish.

Another charm of this dish is its versatility. You could probably fairly easily swap out veggies in this one. Why not have both yellow crook-neck and zucchini squash in it? Take out the sweet potato and add more carrots and maybe some diced tomato. Use only red bell peppers, or throw in a spicier pepper in addition to the bells. Go crazy, Gentle Reader. It's the best time of year to do it because a lot of great veggies are in season.

The dish undoubtedly helped Monday morning go as smoothly as it did, for I had the boy off to school and my big 'ol butt at the gym in good time with nary a drama-queen tantrum, meltdown or crying jag.

He's dressed.

He's excited.

He's got his screwiness locked and loaded.

Yeah, this boy is ready to roll. Watch out, second grade, because here comes the boy! May the FSM have mercy on us all (but especially his teacher.)

Make This Feast!

Hold on to your hat/horses/ass, Gentle Reader, because I'm about to rave madly about a pair of recipes that don't have obvious Asian, North African or Latin origins.

Have you braced yourself? Good, because here we go.

Roast Chicken With Balsamic Bell Peppers3/4 t salt, divided
3/4 t fennel seeds, crushed
1/2 t black pepper, divided
1/4 t garlic powder
1/4 t dried oregano
4 6-oz. skinless, boneless chicken breasts
2 T olive oil, divided
2 C thinly sliced red bell pepper
1 C thinly sliced yellow bell pepper
1/2 C thinly sliced shallots (about 1 large)
1 1/2 t chopped fresh rosemary
1 C fat-free, reduced-sodium chicken broth
1 T balsamic vinegar

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
   
2. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat.
   
3. Combine half a teaspoon of salt with the crushed fennel, a quarter-teaspoon of black pepper, garlic powder and oregano.
   
4. Brush the chicken with 1 1/2 teaspoons of oil; , then sprinkle the spice rub over it.
   
5. Add 1 1/2 teaspoons of oil to pan, then add the chicken and cook 3 min. or until browned.
   
6. Turn the chicken over and cook 1 min.
   
7. Arrange the chicken in an 11 x 7–inch baking dish coated with cooking spray.
   
8. Bake the chicken for 10 min. or until done.
   
9. Heat the remaining olive oil over medium-high heat.
   
10. Add the bell peppers, shallots and rosemary and sauté 3 min.
    
11. Stir in the broth, scraping the pan with a wooden spoon to loosen any browned bits.
    
12. Reduce the heat and let the mixture simmer 5 min.
    
13. Increase the heat back to medium-high.
    
14. Stir in the vinegar along with a quarter-teaspoon each of salt and pepper.
    
15. Cook the mixture 3 min., stirring frequently.
    
16. Serve the bell pepper mixture over the chicken.

Yield: 4 servings of a breast half and 1/2 C of bell pepper mixture

Nutritional Info
Calories: 282
Fat: 11 g
Sat fat: 2.1 g
Protein: 35.9 g
Carbs: 8.8g
Fiber: 1.9 g
Cholesterol: 94 mg
Sodium: 644 mg

Normally I'd put my futzings here, but once again I ask you to hold on to your hat/horses/ass, Gentle Reader, because I'm not finished yet with the recipe fun and believe my futzings will be better presented all together.

Roasted Red Potatoes With Rosemary6-8 small red potatoes, quartered into 1/2" pieces
1 T olive oil or garlic-flavored olive oil
1 T minced fresh rosemary leaves
1/2 t salt
1/4 t ground black pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
   
2. Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl, then toss to coat the potatoes.
3. Transfer the potatoes to a large baking sheet or shallow roasting pan.
   
4. Roast the potatoes 25-30 min. or until they're tender and golden.

Nutritional Info
Unfortunately, the fine folks at FoodNetwork.com--or at least the ones posting celebrity "chef" Robin Miller's recipes--don't see fit to include nutritional info with the recipes. That's probably a good thing for the site, for if visitors got a gander at the nutritional info for Paula "Queen of Butter" Deen's recipes, they'd flee and set Google to block search results from showing her stuff.

All Hail the Queen of Butter!

The Faudie's Futzings
I'm getting spoiled by having a Sprouts closer to home. This week, the store had red and yellow bell peppers for 69 cents each, as well as fresh, hormone-free, boneless, skinless chicken breasts for $1.77 a pound. Those prices may not strike you as great deals, Gentle Reader, but they are to me--and I recommend you get out to shop more often so you know what grocery prices are these days. Even at low-price HEB, the asking price for hormone-free chicken is upwards of $3 a pound.

Anywho, I'd spied the roast chicken recipe in my freebie January issue of Cooking Light and aimed to make it if I ever got my mitts on some cheap red bell peppers. Imagine how grateful I was when Sprouts obliged not just with the bell peppers but with the chicken as well.

While I had the ingredients at the ready by and large, I had to futz. I'm The Faudie, after all, and futzing is what I do.

• While Sprouts had yellow bell peppers on sale, I didn't waste my money on them. Yellow bells have no flavor, in the opinions of both me and the husband.
  
• I didn't use more than half a teaspoon of salt total. Yes, Gentle Reader, I know its importance as a flavor differentiator, I just don't like using that much of it. My taste buds, long "deprived" of excess sodium since I don't ingest a lot of processed foods, can detect salt quite well, and I just don't enjoy that sensation.
  
• While I did purchase fennel seeds at a post-yoga trip to Central Markup (the seeds I thought we had for the husband's six-seed bread were all gone), I also purchased a small quantity of ground fennel just in case, y'know, I didn't feel like getting out my mortar and pestle and doin' a little crushin'. Which I didn't when I finally moved on in the day's culinary misadventures to start this recipe.
  
• I didn't coat the raw chicken in olive oil before applying the spice rub. I figured between the nonstick skillet and the teaspoon or so of olive oil I put in it before adding the chicken, I had enough fat and slick for decent browning. Furthermore, the spice rub had no trouble sticking to the raw chicken without the help of the oil.
  
• I used about two teaspoons of freshly chopped rosemary, purloined from the neighbor's rosemary shrub (bush? plant?). I'd told the husband to acquire a good-sized branch since I needed for both the chicken and the potatoes, and he delivered--and then some. I didn't like the prospect of the rosemary going to waste, so I used a wee bit more. It's a crime to waste something you've stolen.
  
• I didn't add any more olive oil to the skillet before preparing the bell peppers and shallots. The oils from the chicken preparation were infused with the flavors of fennel, pepper, garlic and oregano, and I wanted to try to transfer that flavor to the peppers and shallots.

By the by, Gentle Reader, I'll have you know I bought a shallot for the recipe on my weekly HEB trip. I'd only purchased shallots once, years ago, for a Korean recipe. Those shallots, packaged in a cellophane bag, were tiny, withered things that I recall not even using. This shallot, on the other hand, seemed large in comparison. Imagine my surprise when I started slicing into the thing and discovered it's like a pale red onion.

It's a real shallot!

In the magazine, the recipe is paired with one for mascarpone mashed potatoes, and after preparing the bell pepper topping, I understand why: The bell pepper mixture doesn't really thicken. It's a bunch of softened bell pepper strips and shallots swimming in a thin but tasty liquid composed of chicken broth and balsamic vinegar. I had thought the sauce would thicken slight, as it does in our favorite chicken with balsamic bell peppers and red onions dish. Nope, not here, thus the mashed 'taters are there to sop up the juice.

But I didn't know that until after the fact. That's why I thought my idea to pair the chicken with the red potatoes lightly flavored with rosemary that we'd get every now and then at the Central Markup Cafe would be a fantastic pairing. Yes, it's not the most imaginative pairing--two rosemary dishes--but for me to even consider preparing some kind of potato side dish is a huge stretch, Gentle Reader. I stay far away from potatoes.

Yet when I was at Central Markup after my yoga class, I found myself buying four palm-sized red potatoes at 99 cents a pound. I knew as I selected them that I could get then for 89 cents a pound or less at my local HEB, but I really didn't want to make another post-yoga stop. Then to top it all off, the checker tried to charge me the price for the "C" red potatoes, those iddy-biddy ones sometimes dubbed baby red potatoes, that go for $1.19 a pound. Sorry, lady, there's a noticeable difference between the C reds and the A reds, which I bought. Grrr.

If you're going to point out, Gentle Reader, that I could have bought some roasted red potatoes with rosemary from the cafe while I was shopping at Central Markup, you needn't. Those potatoes are kind of pricey, and I was looking forward to trying my hand at roasting my own potatoes, oddly enough. Since I'd be baking cookies out the wazoo for the boy to give to his classmates on his birthday (not homemade cookies, but instead six packages of Nestle mint chocolate chip cookies, with two portions mushed together to form bigger cookies, which I scored for a buck a piece at HEB some weeks back), I knew I'd have the oven hot and ready to go. Plus the recipe's just so damn simple, how could I resist an opportunity to see how badly I could muck it up?

When I made the potatoes, I used the lemon-flavored olive oil I use far too infrequently (largely because I'm so unsure how to use it to make the most of its lemon flavor). Rosemary and lemon seemed an appropriate combination to me. Fortunately, I was right. After 30 minutes of roasting atop a piece of parchment paper I put over one of the baking sheets I'd used while baking cookies, the potato wedges came out warm, fragrant and flavorful.

And a bit too early. I'd underestimated the skillet-cooking time for the chicken breasts, so they went into the oven about 10 minutes after the potatoes had come out. So much for time management! But it's not really my fault entirely. You can't buy 6-ounce chicken breasts around here. They're all friggin' huge. In fact, for this recipe, I used two breasts and halved them lengthwise; cutting them in half widthwise would have resulted in to super thick halves that would take at least twice the time to cook as their two thin companions.

Of course, the chicken needed additional time in the oven to cook through completely, which meant my tasty potatoes were cooling atop the oven far longer than I'd hoped. Fortunately, though, they were still pretty warm when at last the chicken was finished and ready to be served.

While we lacked mashed potatoes to sop up the juice from the mixture, we did have some foccacia, topped with sliced veggies and a load of Parmesan cheese, that we'd scored on the discount rack at Sprouts a few weeks back. The baked Parmesan tasted more like cream cheese it was so sweet, so I found it to be a nice pairing with the faint citrus of the potatoes and the savoriness of the fennel-laced chicken, shallots and bell peppers.

I suppose the culinary powers of the universe found favor with me on this day, for my pairing of rosemary recipes didn't just work well--they rocked our taste buds. The three human residents of Chez Boeckman-Walker were quite enthralled by the feast, and even the feline residents seemed jealous of our fine dining.

Based on these results, Gentle Reader, I highly recommend these recipes to you. They're not difficult and make for a flavorful meal you could even prepare without shame for guests. Happy feasting!

More Fun With Chickpeas

Never would I have imagined that we Boeckman-Walker would human residents of Chezbecome consumers of mass quantities of chickpeas. These legumes were unknown foodstuffs to me less than two years ago. Okay, sure, I knew of them, as did the husband, I'm sure, but they were not part of our childhood and early adulthood dietary intake. They're...foreign. And where I grew up, foreign was inaccessible and...bad, according to some folks, morons though they be.

But now chickpeas are a well-loved, familiar sight on our table. Since it's about the legume I can get the husband to eat, I'm always on the lookout for new, tasty chickpea recipes. Thanks to the thoughtful Christmas gift from my sister- and brother-in-law and the culinary wisdom of Madhur Jaffrey, I have another dish to add to the chickapalooza collection.

Easy Chickpea Curry2 C drained weight canned chickpeas (about 1 lb. 3 oz. canned weight)
2 smallish tomatoes (about 8 oz.), chopped
2" piece of ginger, peeled and chopped
4 garlic cloves, chopped
3-6 fresh hot green chilies, chopped
1 C cilantro tops, chopped
1 T ground coriander
2 t ground cumin
1/2 t ground turmeric
1/2 t cayenne pepper
1 1/4 t salt
3 T corn, peanut or olive oil
1 medium cinnamon stick
5 whole cardamom pods
2 bay leaves
1 C finely chopped onion
2 medium potatoes (about 9 oz.), peeled and cut into 3/4" dice

1. Drain the chickpeas in a colander.
   
2. Put the tomatoes, ginger, garlic, chilies, cilantro, coriander, cumin, turmeric, cayenne and 1 teaspoon of salt in a blender along with 5-6 tablespoons of water.
   
3. Blend the ingredients until smooth, pushing them down with a rubber scraper when necessary to improve even blending.
   
4. Pour the oil into a wide, lidded, medium-size pan, and set it over medium-high heat.
   
5. When the oil is hot, add the cinnamon, cardamom and bay leaves.
   
6. Ten seconds later, add the onion and potatoes, then stir and fry for 6 min. or until the onion is lightly browned.
   
7. Add the paste from the blender to the pot, then stir for a minute.
   
8. Cover the pan, reduce the heat to medium-low and let it cook for 6-7 min., lifting the lid now and then to stir.
   
9. Add the chickpeas, the remaining quarter-teaspoon of salt and 1 cup of water, then stir.
   
10. Bring the curry to a simmer, cover and cook gently over low heat for 20 min., stirring occasionally.

Yield: 4-6 servings of unknown size

Nutritional Info
I can't provide this information, but I'm sure you could figure it out for yourself. This isn't the most sinful dish every prepared, that's for sure.

The Faudie's Futzings
I've made enough curries over the past two years or so to develop a sense of when things are going right and when things are going horribly wrong. I'm sorry to disappoint you, Gentle Reader, but nothing went horribly wrong with this recipe, which comes from Jaffrey's From Curries to Kebabs: Recipes From the Indian Spice Trail. I ended up with a nicely thickened, very flavorful curry that's quite satisfying.

But yes, Gentle Reader, I did futz:

• I soaked my own chickpeas--about 2 cups worth. They'd actually been in a container in the 'fridge for about a week, since I'd finished off a big bag of the legumes and then just chilled 'em since the husband had wanted to have some cooked chickpeas on hand to snack on. He never got around to snacking on them, so I put them to use.
  
• I used a can of no-salt-added diced tomatoes. I don't feel horrible using them because (a) fresh tomatoes are kind of expensive; (b) fresh tomatoes are not terribly flavorful and (c) I haven't a bloody clue how to select fresh tomatoes.
  
• Because I used canned diced tomatoes and their juices, I didn't add the water to the blender. The juice from the can was sufficient for making the paste.
  
• I used canned chopped green chilies because I had some on hand--maybe a tablespoon and a half--from another recipe and wanted to use them before they went bad. I'd considered using the diced jalapeño I had in the pantry, but why open a new can when I have leftovers I can use up?
  
• I didn't have nearly a cup of cilantro tops, for I had to pick through the dregs of a bunch of the stuff I'd bought at HEB some weeks back to sort the slime from the...leafy. I really ought to find a better way to store cilantro than rinsing it, patting it dry, chopping off a good bit of the stems and then stashing it in a Gladware box in the nonfreezing portion of the 'fridge.
  
• I didn't use quite the full amount of cayenne called for. The boy has of late taken to complaining about the food I make being too spicy. Does that actually stop him from eating it? Rarely, but he'll bitch about it beforehand or afterwards like a dried up old biddy with nothing to do but bitch and moan. (Oh hell, my son is turning into my late Graga....)

Jaffrey is right to give this recipe the easy moniker because it is ridiculously easy to put together--if you don't mind dealing with the blender. My blender stays in its box on the top shelf of the pantry since it doesn't get much use, certainly not enough to justify giving it dedicated space on the countertop somewhere. I'm not a huge fan of cleaning the thing up because...well, I'm lazy.
I'm sure I could somehow pulverize the ingredients into the masala (for that's what the paste is, a masala) using brute force, some kitchen utensil and a large bowl--but, really, why go to that hassle when you can use the blender and probably clean it up in the time it would take you to even start to get to the paste consistency using brute force?

The potatoes, in my opinion, could be reduced in the recipe, especially since a person's more likely than not to eat the curry atop some rice, but I'm not a big fan of potatoes. The boys, however, seemed to enjoy them, especially the husband. He likes aloo matter but hates the peas that are part of that dish. With this curry, he gets tasty potatoes and a variety of pea he'll actually eat. And any time I can get the husband to eat legumes, I consider that a culinary miracle.

The Faudie, Conqueror of Eggplant

You read that right, Gentle Reader. I have conquered the eggplant.

Maybe it's just me, but there's a sort of...mystery around the eggplant. They're gorgeous to look at if you're a fan of the typical eggplant's deep purple shade, but what exactly is underneath that skin? And can it kill you if not prepared properly? After all, it's a member of the "deadly" nightshade family, so that makes a person wary of the thing.

Needless to say, the first eggplant I ever bought several weeks ago sat in the 'fridge and sat and sat and sat some more in the 'fridge while I worried about how to prepare it properly and how to recreate in my own kitchen the glory that is Alborz' vegetarian eggplant stew. After confirming that dish's name, khoresh bademjan, from the restaurant's menu, I went in search of a recipe online, for my copy of the splendid Ziryab: Authentic Arab Cuisine does not include this dish in its selection of eggplant recipes.

Here's the thing I quickly realized as I was perusing khoresh bademjan recipes online: In its authentic rendering, the stew includes meat, either lamb or beef. But the stew I enjoyed so much at Alborz was vegetarian, so I had to change my search to just "vegetarian eggplant stew" or vegetarian Persian eggplant stew" (I can't remember which I used, but I wouldn't be surprised if I used both). That change yield three really tempting dishes. How was I to decide which to use?

The choice came down to two factors: (1) Ease of preparation of the eggplant and (2) Range of required ingredients, particularly saffron. For you see, Gentle Reader, I prepared this dish on a Sunday and hadn't left myself as much time as I would have liked when I indulge in a culinary experiment. Plus I was out of saffron after the saffron chicken and rice with dates dish from late October pretty much wiped out my stash of the stuff.

Patlicanli Cive (Eggplant Stew With Rice)
1 lb. eggplant, peeled partially leaving lengthwise stripes and diced
2 medium onions, cut in thin half moons
10-12 garlic cloves, chopped finely
3 green chilies, chopped
3 tomatoes (preferably green tomatoes for a sour taste), peeled and petite diced
3 T rice
1/4 C olive oil
1 t black pepper
Salt
2-3 T chopped fresh basil or mint OR 1 T dry mint or basil

1. Heat the oil in a pot.
   
2. Add the onion and garlic, and stir for 3-4 min.
   
3. Add the chopped chilies, and stir for a couple of minutes.
   
4. Add the tomato, eggplant, black pepper and salt, then stir once and do not stir again. Otherwise, the eggplant will get mushy.
   
5. Cover and cook on medium-low heat until the vegetables get juicy in the pot.
   
6. Stir in the rice, nice and polite.
   
7. Cover and cook on low for 30-40 min.
   
8. Before serving, sprinkle with chopped basil or mint.

Nutritional Info
I first found this recipe on iFood.tv and realized it's originally from a Web site on which I'd found another of my three prime candidates, Almost Turkish Recipes. Unfortunately, neither of these sources provided nutritional information for this dish.

The Faudie's Futzings
I told you already, Gentle Reader, that I was a bit pressed for time, but I tried not to let that impact my preparation too much:

• I'm not sure if the eggplant I used weighed a pound or more. It didn't feel like it, but I didn't want to use the more recently procured eggplant along with the old one, for I was saving it for another recipe.
  
• I used canned diced tomatoes.
  
• I used canned diced green chiles.
  
• My garlic was minced and in a jar.
  
• I didn't use the full quarter-cup of olive oil called for. I probably used about 2 tablespoons, which is a lot for me.
  
• I only used one onion, but it was a fairly large one.
  
• I completely forgot to add salt when I put in a few twists of freshly ground pepper from my pepper mill.
  
• While I have dried basil and even got it out to use, I didn't in the end because that's not included in the Alborz dish I was attempting to recreate, flavorwise.
  
• The recipe doesn't specify a particular type of rice to use, so I opted for basmati.

What the recipe doesn't mention but I suppose is implicit in the preparation of any eggplant is that it should be salted and allowed to sweat for about 30 minutes beforehand to help reduce the bitterness and, if memory serves, keep it from becoming utter mush. Before embarking on the peeling 'o the eggplant, I consulted a few of my vegetarian cookbooks and Cook's Illustrated tomes for guidance and wisdom, and I seem to recall reading that letting an eggplant sweat--

and trust me, it will sweat

--allows for better frying, which is one of the "best" ways to prepare it.

Unfortunately, none of the books I browsed said anything about how to peel an eggplant. Thank the FSM for the Internet! It may be full of porn and nonsensical blather (such as this blog), but it also has some useful information.

After toweling off my sweaty eggplant, I set about dicing it. The innards were nothing at all like what I expected, which was either something akin to the hollow inside of a bell pepper or a juicy but somewhat hollow of a tomato. No, despite the hollow feel of the an eggplant, it's fairly solid but yielding, like a zucchini. Interesting!

The stew came together in a snap. I wasn't sure what to do about the step telling me to cook the ingredients until the veggies became juicy since I was using canned veggies, including their juices. I think I let the stuff cook maybe five to seven minutes before I added in the rice. And while I usually try not to disturb a pot with rice but maybe once while it's cooking so as not to screw up the rice, I checked and stirred the stew several times throughout the 30 minutes of final cooking. I broke my little rule because I was concerned the stew didn't have enough liquid for the rice to cook correctly. Oh, all that stirring did not turn my diced eggplant to mush. It stayed nice and firm. See:
Yes, the finished stew is quite gorgeous. As for the taste--it was spot on. I was so thrilled with the flavor, for I had no idea if the recipe would even yield a flavor close to the stew at Alborz.

You might be surprised to know, Gentle Reader, that the stew has a certain sweetness to it. Odd, since there are no ingredients that would bring a sweet flavor, non? I wonder if the sweetness is a byproduct of the stewing of the eggplant, or perhaps the onions caramelized while the rice cooked. I dunno. I all I do know is that I was unsuccessful in saving any of this dish for leftovers: When I went to stow away what was left in Chive the Dutchie after we'd all eaten (the boys had crouton crumbs-breaded tilapia baked in the oven, a variation on a recipe from AllRecipes.com I received via email that day), I couldn't stop myself from taking another bite...and then another bite...and then a few more bites until all the stew was gone.

Sunday Night Fish Alternative for the Boys
or
What to Do With Old Croutons

Yes, I know, Gentle Reader, I'm a terrible glutton. But the stew was just so damn tasty and warm and comforting on a hectic, rainy, chilly Sunday evening. So if you happen to have an eggplant lying around and need a nice warm-me-up meal, whip up this recipe. You too can conqueror the eggplant in a most tasty way.

3.14159265....

Everyone's mad about pies this time of year--or so various media outlets would have us believe. Mum is a baker, but she never made pies at Thanksgiving and Christmas the way friends and acquaintances of mine do. I recall the occasional pecan pie to satisfy my father or my elder sister, but I also seem to recall these things were quite a hassle to produce. As for the traditional pumpkin pie, Mum made a concoction that I found far more flavorful than any pumpkin pie that we've since dubbed pumpkin mush, since that was the result once you stirred together the pumpkin...mousse and the whipped cream Mum made to accompany it. Ahh, such fond memories I have of pumpkin mush!

I'm sort of carrying on Mum's tradition of largely boycotting pies. When King Arthur Flour was in town at the end of October for baking demonstrations, I opted not to attend the pie-making session. I have no use for tips and tricks for making the perfect pie crust. While I've made a few cookie crumb and graham cracker crumb crusts in my faudie days to hold some sort of Jello and Cool Whip blend, I don't ever see myself venturing into the realm of pie crusts lovely blended with butter chilled to just the right temperature and shaped with just the right amount of pressure. I don't like pies, therefore I won't bake them.

That said, though, I did bake a sort of pie tonight. No, it wasn't a dessert pie of any type, Gentle Reader, and no Cool Whip was involved. This pie involved ::shudder:: Bisquick, that staple of Mum's pantry that I myself used sparingly in my prefaudie days and scorn openly in my faudie days.

Mimi's Zucchini Pie4 eggs
1/4 C vegetable oil
1 t baking powder
1 C all-purpose baking mix
1 1/2 C sliced zucchini
1 1/2 C sliced yellow squash
1/4 C chopped onion
1 large ripe tomato, sliced
1/4 C grated Parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
   
2. Lightly grease a 9" deep dish pie plate.
   
3. Whisk together the eggs and oil with salt and pepper in a bowl.
   
4. Stir in the baking powder and baking mix until moistened.
   
5. Gently fold in zucchini, squash and onion.
   
6. Pour the mixture into the pie plate.
   
7. Arrange the sliced tomato over the top.
   
8. Sprinkle the pie filling with Parmesan cheese to taste.
   
9. Bake the pie until puffed and golden brown, about 35 min.

Yield: 8 servings

Nutritional Info
Calories: 184
Fat: 12.6 g
Protein: 6.2 g
Fiber: 1.1 g
Carbs: 12.6 g
Cholesterol: 108 mg
Sodium: 409 mg

The Faudie's Futzings
Yes, this is one of the Poppy Cannon-worthy recipes. And yes, I couldn't help but make a few changes:

• I used four eggs' worth of liquid egg whites.
  
• I didn't use any salt, but I did use a relatively copious amount of freshly ground pepper.
  
• Since I eschew Bisquick but have a boy who likes pancakes every now and then, I used low-fat Pioneer Brand biscuit and baking mix. And because the cannister the mix comes lacks an easy-pore retractable spout, I wound up using a tad more than one cup of the stuff thanks to spillage.
  
• While I do have some yellow crookneck squash chunks among the scads of squashes Mum gave me from her garden, I used white squash instead. (The zucchs I used also came from Mum's garden.)
  
• In lieu of a fresh tomato or even slicing up a whole, peeled tomato from a can, I cracked open a can of no-salt-added diced tomatoes, drained the juice into the pot of pasta sauce I'd whipped up for the boys and then scattered some tomato diced pieces atop my little masterpiece.
  
• Screw the Parmesan. Me no likey the cheese.

I bookmarked this recipe from AllRecipes.com on a whim: While I had all the ingredients at the ready, I couldn't really see myself making this one because I'd be the only one eating it, and I'm not terribly keen on exerting a fair amount of baking time for something just for me.

But then came our first real cold front of the fall. After spending most of the day with my already tense shoulders hunched up around my ears to ward off the cold that never seems to leave the house once it's in, I was ready to turn on the oven and have it on for at least half an hour.

The oven wound up being on for damn near an hour. Thirty minutes after putting my pie in the oven, the bread-to-be was still gooey and doughy. Three to five minutes after that, the bread-to-be had started to look a bit more like dough. Five minutes after that, the crust was starting to turn golden. Three to five minutes after that, the bread-to-be in the body of the pie was starting to turn golden. Finally, five minutes after that, the damn thing was ready to come out of the oven.

Can I interest you in something warm from the oven?

By the time the pie was ready (and I knew going in that additional baking time was needed, for several recipe reviewers noted as much), I'd already had a good helping of lightly sauted leftover zucchs and white squash. But here's the thing, Gentle Reader: The smell of the hot-from-the-oven baking mix along with the smell of the onions and tomatoes took me back to the pizzas Mum would make some Friday nights using Bisquick for the crust and browned Potter sausage and tomato sauce for the topping (along with some garlic and onion powders, oregano and shredded cheese) that we'd enjoy with a small glass of Coke poured from a glass deposit-required bottle.

Okay, so the pie tasted nothing like the pizzas of yore, but, damn those memories, my pie was wonderfully comforting and warming in ways that anything else from the oven on this chilly, windy evening could ever be. I'm further ashamed to admit that I wound up eating the whole damn thing. I just couldn't imagine trying to reheat the leftovers, and I couldn't resist those feelings of warmth and comfort the pie evoked.

Pathetic, non? But, hey, I guess that's why pies are so popular this time of year. Waaaay back when, women in household kitchens made pies as a special treat for a holiday. The baking and eating of those pies instilled cherished memories that have been recreated to be shared from generation to generation. So what if my pie memories focus more on Bisquick than sweet, gooey fillings and crusts painstakingly rolled out with rolling pins that served both as kitchen utensils and sabers for the proverbial saber-rattling! It's all good.

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!

Recipe Makeover

My folder of bookmarks in Firefox is getting once again stuffed to the gills with recipe links I'd like to try when the time is right. The time, right now, is not right for most of them because it's damn hot and turning on the oven for any length of time or doing a lot of work with the stove is just not appealing. So as the bookmarks build up, some of the recipes that would be suitable for this appalling time of year (which lasts here in Central Texas well into October) get lost in the shuffle until I get ambitious and try to sort them out.

Take this recipe for vegan fajitas, Gentle Reader. It probably sat amongst dozens of other bookmarked links for half a dozen or more weeks until I rediscovered it late last week. (Yes, Gentle Reader, here's my mea culpa: I'm just now getting around to posting about this culinary misadventure. So sue me. It'll be like getting blood from a turnip.) Or, I suppose, another way of looking at this situation is this: It was just waiting for me for when I had all the ingredients I needed, particularly the yellow horn squash and zuccs, along with the red bell pepper.

Well, however you want to view this opportunity, last Friday I decided the husband and I would have fish tacos, and I wanted some veggies to go along with. The vegan fajitas recipe could finally make its debut...sort of.

Vegan Fajitas1/4 C olive oil
1/4 C red wine vinegar
1 t dried oregano
1 t chili powder
1 t white sugar
Garlic salt to taste
Salt and pepper to taste
2 small zucchini squash, julienned
2 medium small yellow squash, julienned
1 large onion, sliced
1 green bell pepper, cut into thin strips
1 red bell pepper, cut into thin strips
2 T olive oil
1 8.75-oz. can whole kernel corn, drained
1 15-oz. can black beans, drained

1. In a large bowl, combine the quarter-cup of olive oil, vinegar, oregano, chili powder, garlic salt, salt, pepper and sugar.
   
2. To the marinade add the zucchini, yellow squash, onion, green pepper and red pepper.
   
3. Marinate the vegetables in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes, but not more than 24 hours.
   
4. Heat the 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.
5. Drain the marinating vegetables, and saute them until tender, about 10-15 min.
   
6. Stir in the corn and beans.
   
7. Increase the heat to high for 5 min. to brown vegetables.

Yield: 6 servings of undetermined size/quantity

Nutritional Info
Calories: 262
Fat: 14.6g
Sodium: 544 mg
Carbs: 29.5 g
Fiber: 8.6 g
Protein: 7.2 g

The Faudie's Futzings
Here's the thing about the recipes posted to AllRecipes.com: I don't trust them completely at first glance. Since anyone can upload recipes, as evidenced by the angel food cupcakes recipe, a person never knows if a recipe is going to turn out well or if it's utter shit.

That's why, Gentle Reader, I take a few moments to browse the comments and reviews. Granted, most of them are very unhelpful notes such as "Wow, this was great! We'll definitely have it again!" or "My husband ate every bite--and he's a picky eater!" (with assorted misspellings and grammar errors, of course). Other reviewers have noted how they plan to change the recipe "next time" or note how they did change the recipe when they prepared it. I pay particular attention to those reviews because they'll often note why the changes were made, such as not enough of a particular expected flavor or too much of a flavor; complaints about overly dense, oily or other final textures that challenged the food item's palatability, along with the occasional out-of-left field futzings note, such as this one:

just made this for supper -it was so easy. i did make quite a few changes, mrs dash instead of the oregano, added some leftover chicken, served it in tortillas with sliced avocado and dressing inside (mayo, ketchup,chili powder & garlic powder).

Hey, let's take a vegan recipe and add some chicken! That's really priceless, but what makes this review even more precious is the parenthetical explanation of the dressing used. Mmmm...mayo and ketchup. Nothing says authentic Tex-Mex like two of the four primary components of Thousand Island dressing, aka McD's "secret sauce"! (Sugar and relish are, in my book, the other two primary ingredients.)

As f'in hilarious as this particular review is, I did take a few hints from some of the more helpful ones and made over the recipe to some degree. Here it is:

The Faudie's Futzed Vegan Fajitas
or
The Faudie's Marinated Veggies for Fajitas, Tacos or Whatever1 T olive oil
Juice of half of a large lemon
1/2 t dried oregano
1/2 t red chili powder
1/2 t cinnamon
1/2 t cumin
1/2 t garlic paste
3/4 t minced fresh cilantro
1 packet PureVida stevia (equal to 2 t of sugar)
1 red bell pepper, cored, seeded and sliced into strips*
1 yellow horn squash, sliced*

1. In a large bowl, combine the olive oil, spices, garlic paste, stevia, lemon juice and cilantro, whisking lightly.
   
2. To the marinade add the yellow squash and red bell pepper, tossing lightly to coat.
   
3. Marinate the vegetables in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes, but not more than 24 hours.
   
4. Fifteen to 20 minutes before mealtime, heat a skillet or wok over medium-high heat.
   
5. Pour the contents of the large bowl carefully into the wok or skillet, then saute until all the veggies are tender.
   
6. Turn off the heat and allow the diners to serve themselves from the skillet or wok using tongs, a slotted serving spoon or their fingers (at their own peril).

The serving yield will depend on how thinly or thickly you slice your veggies and, of course, the size of those veggies to start and, naturally, how piggie your diners are. I'm lucky because the squash slices are all mine! The husband and I shared the bell pepper slices.

I will say this, Gentle Reader, about my made-over recipe: I'd probably reduce the cinnamon to a quarter-teaspoon next time. But if you really like cinnamon (as the husband did), you can keep it at a half-teaspoon, but then I'd recommend increasing the amount of heat-giving spices or replacing the red chili powder with cayenne. Just a thought.

Oh, here's another note: If you don't have garlic paste, just throw in a teaspoon or two cloves' worth of minced garlic. I just happen to have garlic paste that I wanted to use, and I thought it might combine better into the marinade than minced garlic.

*You could also include green bell peppers--or bell peppers of any color--as well as a zucchini, as the original recipe does. Since just the husband and I were dining on fish tacos and veggies that night, I only used a yellow horn and a red bell.

Penne for Your Thoughts

I suppose this is my time to be racked with indecision, Gentle Reader. For several days, I was angsty over whether to quit my one freelance gig, which brings more anxiety into my daily life than I think it's worth, to have more brain span (and more patience) for everyone and everything here at Chez Boeckman-Walker or whether I should just suck it up and keep plodding (and truly what I've been producing is plodding, turgid work) so I don't become the thing I've long dreaded most--being a stay-at-home mom--or whether I should pursue my interest and accumulated experience with pharmaceuticals and health care into a new career. (This situation has since resolved itself, but the angst lingers.) Perhaps because of that indecision and lack of direction, I've had a helluva time for the past several days figuring out what to make for supper each night.

The jerk-seasoned spicy chicken couscous was a tremendous success the other night, but it just didn't set me to rights in the kitchen. So back into my digital folders of recipe links I dove, searching for something different and something that would perhaps inspire me and my taste buds to be more decisive. I don't know if the recipe I selected has accomplished that, but my taste buds are certainly happy.

Penne With Red Pepper Sauce and Broccoli4 T olive oil
1 1/2 C chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 red bell peppers, chopped
1/4 C almonds
2 t balsamic vinegar
1/2 t salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1/8 t cayenne pepper
4 C broccoli florets
1 lb. penne pasta
1/3 C grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 C fresh basil leaves, cut into thin strips

1. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat in a large skillet.
   
2. Add the onions and saute them for about 5 min. or until they soften, stirring occasionally.
   
3. Lower the heat a bit, add the garlic and red pepper and continue to cook the vegetables, stirring often, for 15 min.
   
4. In a food processor or blender, finely chop the almonds.
   
5. Add the pepper-onion mixture, the vinegar and the remaining olive oil to the almonds, then blend all to a puree.
   
6. Add the salt, black pepper and cayenne to the puree, then blend briefly to incorporate them.
   
7. Arrange a vegetable steamer over water in a saucepan. Bring the water to a boil, add the broccoli, cover and cook over medium heat for 5 min. or until the broccoli is tender. Keep it warm.
   
8. Cook the pasta in a large pot of salted boiling water until just tender.
   
9. Drain the pasta, then return it to the pot.
   
10. Pour the red pepper sauce, Parmesan cheese, broccoli and basil into the pot of penne.
    
11. Heat the contents over medium heat until the pasta is very hot, stirring carefully to mix well. Add more salt and pepper to taste if necessary.

Yield: 5 servings of unknown size

Nutritional Info
Just a note about the following numbers: I don't put too much faith in the nutritional info available on AllRecipes.com. I've never followed the links available to learn how they're tabulated, but some recipes I've looked at had some awfully suspect numbers.

Calories: 551
Fat: 18.7 g
Carbs: 80.8 g
Protein: 19.2 g
Fiber: 7.7 g
Cholesterol: 5 mg (See what I mean about suspect numbers!)
Sodium: 358 mg

The Faudie's Futzings
I consider this dish to be one of the most experimental I've ever done in my time as a faudie. I've never consumed a pasta dish with a sauce that wasn't based on either tomatoes or on a form of dairy. I was a bit nervous about the result--the flavor and how edible it would be. I browsed the reviews available, gleaning what I could from other users 'o this recipe, and compared what I learned from them to what I'd learned through my various adventures with red bell peppers, particularly a certain roasted red bell pepper soup.

Without further ado, here is my version of the recipe:

The Faudie's Futzed Penne With Red Pepper Sauce and Broccoli1 T and 1/2 t olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 red bell peppers
2 t balsamic vinegar
1/4 t salt
1/2 t (approx.) freshly ground black pepper
1/8 t cayenne pepper
2 to C broccoli pieces
1 C penne (uncooked)

1. Line a 9" x 13" cake pan or broiler pan with foil.
   
2. Prepare your oven's broiler for roasting veggies according to the manufacturer's suggestion. If you don't have the manual, the Hi setting should work fine.
   
3. Halve the red bell peppers, remove the seeds and ribs, place in foiled pan, then smash them as flat as you can.
   
4. Broil the peppers until as much of their skins have blackened.
   
5. Remove the blackened peppers from the pan and into a Ziplock or other container you can seal to let set for a few minutes (5 min. should be good).
   
6. One by one, remove the blackened pepper halves from the bag, peel off the blackened skin, then chop.
   
7. Place the chopped red peppers into the canister for your food processor or blender.
   
8. Heat 1/2 teaspoon (approx.) of olive oil over medium heat in a medium skillet.
   
9. Add the onions and saute them until they soften.
   
10. Add the garlic, then saute another 30 seconds to 1 min.
    
11. Clear some space in the center of the skillet, then place the 1/8 teaspoon of cayenne into that space. Let the spice toast, stirring a little, until fragrant (30 seconds to 1 min.).
    
12. Add the onion-garlic mixture, the vinegar and 1 tablespoon of olive oil to the red peppers waiting in the blender, then blend all to a puree.
    
13. Add the salt and black pepper to the puree, then blend briefly to incorporate them.
    
14. Prepare the broccoli so it is tender, then drain and keep warm.
    
15. In a large pot, prepare the pasta until just tender per package directions.
    
16. Drain the pasta, return it to its pot, then add the broccoli.
    
17. Pour the red pepper sauce over the penne and broccoli, gently tossing to combine.
    
18. Serve immediately, or otherwise keep warm on the stove.

Suggested toppings: Grated Parmesan, mozzarella or cheddar cheeses (although I like mine without such intruders)

So why did I roast my bell peppers? Because I was concerned about the texture of the sauce if I left them on. I don't think sauteeing the peppers to the point of tenderness then pureeing them would make the sauce as smooth as I know pureed and skinless red peppers can be. Plus I just kinda enjoy roasting and skinning red bell peppers now that I know how to do it right!

If you like pasta dishes but are in the mood for something different, I highly recommend this recipe. You don't have to roast your peppers (though please do tell me how your sauce turns out if you don't), and you could probably add a myriad of spices to the sauce to suit your tastes. Me, I like the relatively unaltered taste of red bell peppers, thus I didn't add anything not given in the original recipe.

Beating Post-Holiday Feast Blahs

Gentle Reader, do you ever find yourself a bit depressed when considering what to eat or prepare to eat following some big celebration, such as a holiday feast or special birthday meal? I'm not sure if the depression stems from the prospect of going back to the "usual" meals and foods or if it stems more from the realization that some special time has come and gone and you're back to the hum-drum of life.

Anywho, I found myself yesterday trying to figure out what to have for supper for a Friday night after a week of out-of-the-ordinary mealtimes. (For example, we had burritos on Monday, not on Wednesday, which is a huge change for us here at Chez Boeckman-Walker. And we went out to eat in the middle of the week. In the middle of the week!) I wasn't keen on making some chicken dish, and I wasn't ready to do leftovers. I wanted to make something, but I wasn't ready to commit to a huge production. After all, we had a run to HPB (20% Off Sale!) and HEB planned for the late afternoon, and those trips would cut into my prep and cooking time.

I then opened the spice/drug cabinet, and my eyes fell upon the cannister of Potlatch Seasoning the husband and I bought...gads, three or four years ago at Williams-Sonoma. I'd never opened it and distinctly recall shoving it in a bowl along with some other spice cabinet items we never used that I then shoved in a cabinet under the microwave where I store things I rarely use. I only rediscovered that bowl and the fish rub, and yesterday I thought to myself, Hell, I have all those basa fillets in the freezer, and I'm sure they're good for more than just fish tacos. And voila! I had the protein portion of Friday night's meal chosen.

But what to accompany the fish? The Potlatch Seasoning is a bit spicy with its crushed red pepper and chili pepper, but that wasn't inspiring me terribly. I didn't want to do rice because, quite frankly, I was all riced out after eating it three out of the four weekdays that had passed thus far. My thoughts turned to veggies, but I have to be careful when it comes to veggies or else I'll wind up with something neither of the boys will eat.

So what's a faudie to do? She opens up a cookbook or four and looks for inspiration.

Broccoli on the Brain
As I hunkered down in front of my cookbook shelf in the kitchen, I eyeballed Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian. Ms. Jaffrey had been on my mind because my 'rents-in-law had kindly given me her memoir for Christmas (and plan to start on it once I finish Something from the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America, which is a great book I'll post about at some point, I'm sure). So off the shelf came World Vegetarian.

Why I had a desire to make something with broccoli I'm not sure. Perhaps because HEB's running it on sale this week. Perhaps because I'm fairly sure the boys will eat a decently sized portion of it when I prepare it. Of course, I've only prepared it with giant pasta shells, chicken, some ricotta and some spices, so how could I know that they'd eat it prepared a different way? Moreover, I didn't even have any brocc on hand, and I'm not keen on making a recipe these days if I don't already have the ingredients.

In the pages of World Vegetarian, I found a recipe for broccoli with potatoes. "How pedestrian and...American!" you might be saying to yourself right about now, Gentle Reader, right? Well, you'd be wrong. Jaffrey's recipe calls for two small potatoes or one waxy potato, asafetida, brown or yellow mustard seeds, a hot green chile, fresh curry leaves and amchar masala. Not exactly typical American fare, wouldn't you agree? And aside from not having brocc and fresh curry leaves (I have dry ones), I had everything I needed for this recipe and was entirely intrigued to know what the final product tasted like. So onto the HEB list went broccoli.

Broccoli With Potatoes6 C broccoli florets
NaCl
1 waxy potato (8 oz.) or 2 smaller ones, boiled, drained and cooled
3 T peanut or canola oil
Generous pinch of ground asafetida
1/2 t whole brown or yellow mustard seeds
1 fresh hot green chile, its tip cut off
10 fresh curry leaves (use fresh basil leaves as a different but interesting substitute)
1 t amchar masala

1. Blanch the broccoli florets in salted water. Drain and refresh under cold water if not cooking immediately. Leave in colander.
   
2. Peel the potato and cut into chunky dice about the same size as the florets.
   
3. Just before eating, put the oil in a large, preferably nonstick frying pan or saute pan and set over medium-high heat. When hot, add the asafetida and, a second later, the mustard seeds.
   
4. As soon as the mustard seeds begin to pop [And get all over the frickin' place! -Ed.], put in the green chile and curry leaves. Stir once then put in the potatoes. Stir and fry for about 4 min. or until the potatoes are very lightly browned.
   
5. Sprinkle the pan's contents with a scant 1/2 teaspoon of salt, then toss to mix.
   
6. Add the broccoli and amchar masala, turn the heat to medium and stir 1-2 min. or until the broccoli has heated through.
   
7. Turn off the heat and serve.

Yield: 4 servings of indeterminate size

Nutritional Info
Ms. Jaffrey doesn't include nutritional info for her recipes. Ah well.

The Faudie's Futzings

• I used two smallish red potatoes that were about a month old. They were a little soft and sprouting, but I think they did just fine.
  
• I used olive oil instead of canola oil, and I didn't use anywhere close to 3 tablespoons. Maybe a tablespoon, but no more than that.
  
• Even though I had dried curry leaves and could have bought fresh basil at HEB beforehand, I didn't add this ingredient. Did that screw me over in the flavor department? I don't know. I've never worked with fresh curry leaves before, and I'm not a big fan of basil. Guess I'll have to make the recipe again with some sort of fresh leaf ingredient and find out!

I think I might have screwed up minorly by peeling and cubing the potatoes before boiling them, but they didn't exactly turn to mush either then or when I put them in the pan to stir fry. But that might be the reason why they didn't exactly brown when they were in my stir-fry pan. They just...got a little greasy. But they were tasty!

Speaking of tasty, the dish went over really well with the boys. And I didn't have to spend too much time cleaning popped-out mustard seeds out of all of Lumpy's crevices and crannies. Woohoo!