IKEA and Black-eyed Peas

This week has just been crazy.  I just realized I haven't posted anything since Tuesday and that I can't really remember Wednesday or yesterday.  I am so relieved it's Friday night that I could barely cook!  I have actually just barely reclaimed my ability to form sentences in English, so hopefully they're coherent.

Sometimes, dinner does come in a box.  Mister had a busy day yesterday, too, and ate lunch so late that he wasn't hungry for dinner.  I popped over to Essene because I absolutely had lost my ability to be creative by this time in the week.  Besides, the arrival of the new IKEA catalog is always a happy time of year for me.  I could think of no better way to spend last night than drinking a glass (or two...maybe three) of Chateau Ste Michelle Select Harvest Riesling while munching on tasty food prepared by someone else and perusing the 2011 IKEA catalog.  So that's what I did.

Spring mix greens, grilled eggplant, peppers, and summer squash, baked tofu, marinated/grilled seitan, harvard beets, and braised broccoli rabe.  Aside from one tofu that was a little too spicy (I probably should have stayed away from the one coated with a habanero-based sauce), it really hit the spot and allowed for super simple clean-up.  It also afforded me plenty of time to drool all over the IKEA catalog and employ my remaining brain cells in scheming about our future home and how it will be organized adorned.

Tonight, I made Satisfying Sleek from the latest issue of VegNews (Sept/Oct 2010), the first issue of my official subscription. 

I swear I have a hundred pictures that look like this - a dark, leafy green wilted with beans and a grain.  However, this Sleek was unlike anything I've made/eaten before for two reasons:

First, despite my inability to locate ground fenugreek, I mixed my own blend of Baharat.  I was a little nervous that the majority ingredient was black pepper but went ahead with it anyway.  It was an intriguing combination of pepper, cumin, coriander, ginger, cinnamon, and cardamom.  It certainly made the dish spicy-hot, but not unbearably so.

Second, this marks my first experience with black-eyed peas.  I'm not sure why they're called peas, other than that they are very small beans; smaller than I expected them to be.  They have a mild taste that went well with the kale as well as the bulghur, although they smelled a bit funny.

As much as I would love to regale you with tales of black-eyed peas and/or my unhealthy affection for IKEA, I'm going to leave you with a link to a giveaway instead.

Kind Boutique is giving away a beautiful vegan "leather" satchel worth over $80!  Visit their site and check out their other clothing, shoes, and accessories - some of it is on sale.