Maxi for a day..

 

Remember when I said I needed a tripod?  Well I still do.  J graciously took pictures for me tonight but I'm the first to admit that they need serious work.  Regardless, I promised my friend Caitlin, who has a fabulous blog that I am forever impressed with, that I would wear my maxi skirt today and post pictures as proof.   So, however less than excellent these pictures are, I give you my Fisherman's maxi.  Most comfortable outfit ever. 

B couldn't help but jump in as much as possible, in fact, he attacked me at one point!

 

Skirt: Zara,  Sweater: Goodwill,  Boots: Steve Madden,  Bracelet:  Jewelmint

Do you ever look at new fads and swear that they arn't for you?  That's how I used to feel about maxis.  And then bam, this year I LOVE them. Even though most of the time they're the wrong shape, length, fabric, everything than what actually works with my body type.  I just stopped caring. Much like I've grown to love the mess that my hair is after showering at night and sleeping with a puppy on my head to dry it.   Sometimes that bohemian, carefree whatever is just as glorious as it sounds.  Coincidentally, leggings have rapidly followed suit.  I do not have model legs, in fact, they more resemble elephant trunks, if muscular ones.  But leggings are my new favorite work outfit, weekend outfit, sleeping outfit.  I blame my friend Hanna from Ireland.  She started it all years before anyone else did.  Long story short, this is my year of accepting my body and pushing past what I think I "should or should not wear" and learning to just go with it.  I haven't yet figured out how that works into my husband's idea of proper "lawyerly wife-ware" but I'm working on it.  And damn if I'll not be comfortable while I do so.  

I'd like to end with a shoutout to Brutus, my friend's plant that's survived since sophomore year of college and almost a full year in my care - Thank you for not dying on me!

Chicken Pilaf (as promised)

It sounded soo easy, boil a chicken, add rice and viola! tasty new dish for dinner.   Hah. Two and a half hours later, I did indeed have a tasty dinner but whoosh I did not plan to spend quite so much time working on it.  To make matters worse, boy liked it.  So it's on the re-make list - for a weekend. 

Tavuklu Pilav, broccoli and "Bloomin' Herb Bread"

Tavuklu Pilav

recipe from The New Book of Middle Eastern Food by Claudia Roden (again, I know! They're all so tasty I just can't help it!)

Ingredients:

3 1/2 - 4 pound chicken

Salt and Pepper 

2 Bay leaves

1 sprig thyme or oregano

2 cups long grain rice

Like I said, sounds easy right?  And most of all there isn't any cumin or cinnamon, those wonderful spices that the hubby is soo sick of.   I didn't have a whole chicken handy so I just used a whole bone-in chicken breast. 

 Place the whole chicken in a pot of water and cover completely. Season with salt and pepper, 2 bay leaves and the sprig, I used thyme. 

There really is a chicken in there! Bring water to a boil and simmer, covered for about an hour and the chicken is tender.  While my chicken was cooking I made some "bloomin' Herb Bread"  that I found here.  I was worried that my bread wasn't going to be done in time to eat with dinner.   It wasn't a problem. 

 Once your chicken is tender, remove from the pan and let cool until you can handle it.  If you used a whole chicken, cut it into pieces to serve.  Feel free to remove skin and bones.  I removed the skin before I put it in to boil.  Cut small pieces to be added into the rice.  Since I used a breast instead of a whole chicken, I roughly chopped and removed all the meat from the bones.  Keep the chicken in broth to keep moist.  

  This step is what took forever.  Measure the remaining broth.  You need 4 1/2 cups.  I had about 10 cups and had to "reduce by vigorous boiling."  Roden adds that if you have less than 4 1/2 cups, add water - how can you boil a whole chicken with less than 4 1/2 cups??  I don't get it.   It took me about an hour to get close to 4 1/2 cups.  I gave up when I had about 5 1/2 and dumped a cup into the sink.  We were hungry!  

  See my broth-marks?  Once you have 4 1/2 cups, remove 1 1/2 and set aside.  Add the chicken pieces, or in my case all the chicken back to the broth and add the rice.  Bring to a boil and simmer, covered and undisturbed, for 20 minutes.  J was super hungry by now and went to stir/check on my progress when there was about 5 minutes left.  It was nice to yell at him to leave it "undisturbed!"  Sometimes, its the little things :)

 Remember my bread?  It turned out great!

After 20 minutes my rice was done, but it was also really sticking to the pan.  Not sure what happened.  Regardless, it was time to eat! 

Doesn't that look tasty? and worth all that trouble?  

To serve, (if you used the whole chicken), reheat the large pieces and pile on top of rice.  Use the reserved broth as a sauce. 

Mishmishiya

The boy is tired of tagines.  Makes sense I guess, I've been kinda shoving them down his throat lately.  So this might be last one for a while.  At least I ended with a bang - lamb and apricots :)

Mishmishiya

Tagine of Lamb with Apricots

recipe from The New Book of Middle Eastern Food by Claudia Roden

Ingredients: 

2 large onions, chopped

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon cumin

Good pinch of chili pepper, to taste (I used Aleppo chili)

2 pounds leg or shoulder of lamb, trimmed of excess fat

Salt and plenty of pepper

1 1/2 inches fresh gingerroot, cut into slices

3 cloves garlic, crushed

1 pound dried Apricots

14-ounce can of Chickpeas, drained

My lovely cookbook also tells me that this dish gets its fabulous name from the Arabic word for Apricot - mishmish.  Sometimes things just sound so much better in another language.

I had originally planned to make this dish on Friday when my little sister was staying over for the night.  She started Spring Break, its her first year of college, and my poor dad accidentally booked her a flight home for the wrong day! But, as per usual, the boy calls me last minute to tell me of plans he's made so instead of my tagine, then homemade cinnamon rolls with sister plan I ran home to shower (like my friend who blogs here, I rarely shower daily and NEED a little notice for going out events that require me to look more than just "ugh its friday") and delegated my poor sister to puppy sitting and walking. and THEN, boy remembers to tell me that his parents want to take us out to dinner Saturday night which really means 4PM so there goes my other plans of hanging out with my sister because I then had to clean like a crazy lady all morning to make sure things were looking their best for his parents.  Hectic but good, if slightly not what I had planned weekend. Long story short, I finally made my tagine on Sunday, but I had a sore throat and was tired and boy was complaining that it was another tagine so the pictures are slightly lacking. My apologies. 

Whew. 

First, you'll need 2 large onions, chopped. 

 

Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium-low heat and add onions. 

Once the onions are soft, add the spices:

1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon cumin

and a Good pinch of chili pepper, to taste (I used Aleppo chili)

Side note:  I think the boy is tired of all the cinnamon and cumin and that's why he's complaining, so tonight (hopefully) I'm planning to make a Chicken Pilaf with DIFFERENT spices - We'll see how it goes. 

Mix well and add the meat.  The recipe calls for 2 pounds leg or shoulder of lamb - I found lamb cut into chunks at Trader Joes but I forgot to look if it was leg or shoulder or what, nor do I remember how much it was - J had a bad meat experience at Joes once and has forever shunned it so as soon as I got the lamb home it came out of the distinctive Joes case and into a plastic bag for freezing.  

Mix in the meat and then add:

Salt and pepper

1 1/2 inches fresh gingerroot, sliced - I completely estimated here, its my first time using fresh ginger and they're such funky shapes I had no idea how to effectively measure. 

and 3 crushed garlic cloves.

Add about 2 1/4 cups of water and simmer, covered for 1 1/2 hours. 

After the hour and a half add 1 pound of dried apricots - make sure they're un-sweetened - and cook for another 30 minutes.  I only had about a 1/2 pound of apricots, and even that was ALOT in the dish.  J is not a fan of dried fruit so this was pushing things.  

Add the chickpeas to cook for the last 10 minutes. 

One of the things I really like about Roden's cookbook is all the extra information she tucks into the sides.  For example, the next time I make this recipe I want to try the Ancient Egyptian method of soaking the dried apricots, then boiling them and straining out the juice and only adding the juice to the tagine.  I would also add less water, or try to boil the liquid down into more of a gravy than a broth.  

All said and done, J thought it tasted pretty good and I have to agree, definately a keeper.

Red Wine-Braised Short Ribs

I am a Williams-Sonoma addict.  It's one of those stores that is made for browsing.  You're bound to find something that you have to have.  lately, I've been ogle-ing their spices and according to the helpful store associate last Sunday - they're expanding!

I also love that their catalogs have recipes, and when I found this recipe for use in a tagine, I of course had to make it.  Especially because, unlike most of my tagine recipes, this one is a bit more country-style comfort food not Moroccan.  Its nice to change things up. 

Red Wine-Braised Short Ribs

adapted from Williams-Sonoma

Ingredients:

• 3 Tbs. olive oil
• 2 Ib. bone-in beef short ribs (original recipe calls for 3 3/4 lb.)
• Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 celery stalks, cut into 1/4-inch dice (original recipe calls for 1 stalk)
• 4 carrots, cut into 1/4-inch dice (original recipe calls for 2 carrots)
• 3/4 cup finely diced shallot(I used 2 medium shallots)
• 1 Tbs. minced garlic
• 3 Tbs. tomato paste
• 3/4 tsp. crushed Aleppo chili
• 1 bay leaf  This was left out of my catalog recipe
• 1 tsp. chopped fresh thyme
• 1/2 cup beef broth
• 3/4 cup red wine
• 1 Tbs. finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley as was this

It was cold on Sunday and I was not in the mood to hike all over town on my normal grocery shopping circuit of Whole Foods, Trader Joes and Shaws, so I skipped the WF thinking that the ribs there would be more than I wanted to pay anyways, and instead headed right to Joes, grabbed what I needed and then hit Shaws.  They were out of ribs.  Luckily a nice man behind the seafood counter found a guy in the back to cut me some special :)  Ditto at Williams-Sonoma - I figured the easiest way to get the Aleppo Chili that I needed was to just stop in, but it was nowhere to be found and I had to again wait for the nice salesman to run and find it in the back.   He also helped me out by mentioning that the pizza cutter I've been eyeing is catalog only.  (blah).  Anywho, eventually I had all I needed and I headed home. 

I got right to work, flouring the ribs and browning them on all sides.

 To make things easier, I added salt and pepper right into the flour and made sure the ribs were coated before transferring them to the pan. 

Each batch took about 10 minutes to brown all sides.

Once the meat is seared, set aside and start chopping!

Heat the tagine over medium-low and add the olive oil, chopped celery, shallots and carrots.  

Add the garlic and tomato paste and cook for about a minute. Guess what, I was out of tomato paste! Annoying but that did seem to be the style of the day. I went ahead and added the Aleppo chili, thyme, salt pepper, broth and wine and had the hubby monitor things while I ran to the corner store and bought a can of tomato paste.  

So this is everything minus the paste, but you get the idea.  Once this starts to simmer, add the meat. 

Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 4 1/2 to 5 hours, or until the meat is tender. Stir often - it likes to stick!

Mine at about an hour. 

Close to three hours. 

After about 4 hours and 45 minutes I called it done. 

Serve with mashed potatoes, and some sort of warm bread.  I heated up some of Trader Joes peasant bread and it was wonderful, very molasses-y. Next time I make this I'll also make some spinach or another green veggie.  All said and done, it was worth all the trouble.  Definitely a keeper. 

p.s.  Williams-Sonoma's tagine is back in stock and soo cute!