Sometimes I don't even make it all the way through the first read of a recipe before I'm starting to make changes. "Blanching the root vegetables shortens the stew's cooking time." Um... right. Because the blanching doesn't take any time, and another pot? And I'm not making a special trip to some other store in hopes they have harissa when the recipe only wants a teaspoon.
See the recipe here
Those quibbles aside, we stay vegetarian on Fridays in Lent (mind you, we generally have at least a couple of meatless meals per week for no particular reason), and this recipe came in a recent magazine, and seemed ideal for a day I'd be working at home and had some time to fuss around.
This, in fact, turned out to be the case. A bit of chopping, a bit of simmering, and there was an appallingly healthy dinner. It was perfectly okay, but I'm not sure it's worthy of becoming a regular dish. I'll have to give it a bit of thought.
The most astonishing thing about the meal was that L did not have hysterics when faced with her bowl of "carrot stew." Instead she delicately removed and dissected a chickpea, ate it, then pushed her bowl away (she ended up eating raw baby carrots for dinner; at least she's getting a vegetable...). JJ, on the other hand, spent most of the time trying to unplug the telephone until finally I put him in the playpen, which he hates. He has a cold and is generally being a grumpy little guy in the evenings this week.
Trying to get back into the blogging thing....
My mother recently sent me a Moroccan recipe that calls for 1 tsp of cumin. I try to avoid cumin; any suggestions for a less pungent and less lingering spice?
ReplyDeleteCumin is practically my favorite spice, so I'm kind of at a loss here. You can leave it out, I suppose, or substitute ground red pepper (in a much smaller amount) to get a different flavor with some heat.
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