lamb tagine

After what I feel was a pretty damn decent representation of Ethiopian food, here we have what I think is maybe a bit of a misnomer. Not that this isn’t good, of course. It’s just…that there is no tagine involved. Like tandoori chicken with no tandoori. What other foods are named after their cooking vessel? Casserole. I don’t know. Aside from that, and maybe aside from the sweet potato, this is still a nice, long-cooked dish with lovely spices and tender meat. I didn’t take a lot of liberties. Though, I had also told myself that the next time I was to make Moroccan food I was going to have made preserved lemon. I didn’t. And I made this anyway. I’m such a let down. Lamb tagine…Moroccan lamb? Sure, whatever. Just make it.
I just realized that I thought I had only posted two African recipes in my blog’s existence. How incredibly embarrassing to admit that it was because I sometimes forget to think of Morocco when I think of Africa. I’m a bad person. Egypt, too. I don’t even know much how to differentiate Egyptian food from other Middle Eastern cuisines. I would like to be more cultured! Maybe that area should get their shit together so I can go visit and eat their food. Idiots. Oh and visit the Egyptian pyramids. Ohhhhh man do I want to do that. I used to be obsessed with Ancient Egypt. I had a Learn to Write in Hieroglyphics! set when I was in elementary school. Pretty, pretty, prettyyyyy cool.

doro wot

I hurt my wrist again. The other one. Double gimp. I am so mad about it I don’t even want to talk about it. I relive the moment and my head tightens up and I want so bad to redo it. Not be such a total spaz. I slipped off a pull up bar. At a competition. That I should have kicked butt at. I’m giving up on fitness. Resorting to the safe, comfy couch. Injuries SUCK. They’re so frustrating and my right wrist still isn’t fine from last year’s stupid fall. I don’t want to deal with this stufffff. GAH. Hey look, the last time I hurt my wrist I posted about African food. My only two African posts. I should stop planning on making anything from that continent. Is that racist? Prob.
So Denver doesn’t have quite the amount of ethnic diversity pockets as other cities might have, but the amount of Ethiopian restaurants here surpasses Boston by about a ton, so that’s good enough for me. I first had Ethiopian food my first year in Boston at this funny little hole in the wall near my apartment called Fasika. I’d just tell them to give me a sampling of all of their veggie dishes. Those are still all my favorite. I like the meat dishes, but oh man the vegetables. And the lentils. But for some reason I chose to make this for my first foray into Ethiopian food. I really should have made gomen, using the never ending amount of swiss chard I have in the garden. But I couldn’t muster the thought of prepping all of those leaves with one hand. Plus I was still so crabby about it. I’m still crabby about it. And the stupid splint I’m wearing.

chili con carne

I don’t have a lot of strong opinions about chili, not having grown up in a chili-centric place at all. We had white hots, garbage plates, and custard. And my favorite pizza, which I haven’t had in many years and probably wouldn’t be my favorite pizza anymore. Then on to Boston, which yeah, not much chili. Still, I am, after all, a food snob. Pretty snooty in general, but for sure a snoot about food. And you don’t have to have chili running through your veins since childhood to be able to appreciate good chili. Any other snobs wanting to debate that with me? Well you’re wrong.
While the dearth of things like fresh seafood and upstate apples here get me down sometimes, I feel pretty happy to be readily, abundantly, and perhaps bludgeonly able to buy whatever kind of chile I want. They really are a pretty magical ingredient, and apparently a rather large segment of the population here agrees. I also can get bulk dried hibiscus flowers. (What do you do with those besides steep them, anything interesting??) I feel like anything with ancho peppers in it has got to be wonderful (better do them justice). Joe made an ancho pepper and pumpkin mole the other day. The pumpkin had been sitting on the counter for probably since like Thanksgiving. I have no idea. Good thing they’re hardy. Mole was sweet.

coda alla vaccinara

Okay, when does it start to get obnoxious with my foreign language recipe titles. But I feel like this one is warranted, as it’s supposedly some sort of time-honored Roman stew. In case you’re wondering and haven’t translate-widgeted it yet, it’s oxtail. My first time making something with an oxtail! I’d seen it fresh before at my little meat market that I go to to get my kitties’ food, but didn’t have anything in mind for it at the time. So I went back this past weekend to get it – never a good idea there, because their stock of odd bits is seemingly unpredictable – but only found it in the freezer. No big deal, except I was a little impatient in letting it defrost fully before starting this recipe. Hey, I’ve got limited daylight hours to get some somewhat decent pictures. The stinkin’ oxtails defrosted quick enough in the pot.
Oxtail is a strange cut of meat. It’s mostly bone and some weird collagen, but it becomes super wonderful and fun to eat after simmering for hours. The end of the tail was my most favorite. The texture is hard to describe, but the bit of collagenmeat on them was delicious, and since the pieces are small you can pick them up with your fingers and they don’t go flying across the table, like some of the larger pieces did a couple times. Whether you try to use just your hands or a fork, those larger pieces are a little unwieldy no matter what.

tinga de pollo y chorizo

I’m so ethnic. Fresh off some tacos de buche from Friday night, I was still in the mood for Mexican the next couple days. Since I don’t know where to get pig stomach, I settled for making the lowly chicken thigh. Kind of a sorry follow up. Fortunately, this dish turned out really good and if I do decide to venture down Federal Boulevard someday to find some pigs’ stomachs in some terrifying meat market, I think they will work well with this tinga.
This dish is also for my lovely friend Rachel, who was looking for some one-pot chicken dishes. I used two, but you could do it with one…and a bowl. She also wanted vegetables in it, and there aren’t a ton in here (sorry I’m falling short), but you could add green or red peppers, summer squash, winter squash, or whatever. I probably should have used pumpkin instead of potatoes because I have two sugar pumpkins sitting on my kitchen table, one of which is looking like it wants to get squishy kind of soon. I also have a Cinderella pumpkin on my front porch that I bought on super sale from Whole Foods that I should try roasting. It’s really, really big so it might be stringy? I don’t know, has anyone eaten one before?? What are they like?

Lentil and Veggie Stew

Yup. It’s fall. It’s been raining and cloudy for the past couple days and I’ve been craving New England-y kinds of foods. A stew with a generous proportion of butternut squash is just the thing to go along with this weather and my newly purchased seasonal gourds! This stew is really, really basic and a cinch to make. The squash is really the only hassle; made me realize how dull my vegetable peeler is. Once you’ve peeled and chopped all the veggies, you just throw them in the pot and you’re done!