baby, posh, ginger, scary, sporty, and SNEAKY spice?

I guess harissa is not so much a spice as it is a paste made of a spice blend and other flavor-contributors.  Nevertheless, it has a heat that sneaks up on you and suddenly, out of "nowhere," kicks you in the throat.

I know, I'll wait while you all run out to find this magical condiment.  I know, it's too tempting to resist with a review like that.  It might take you a while to find it, though.

Tonight, I made Cauliflower-Chickpea Tagine from The Urban Vegan.  Funny story.  I made this because Mister wasn't feeling terribly hungry, which I thought gave me a little liberty to spend more time making dinner.  If I knew he had something to do, I would have made my other quick-cooking dinner.  In fact, I almost did, but I though Mister would enjoy the tagine.  I hadn't even added the cauliflower to the simmering carrots, tomatoes, and garlic when Mister came in and started to set up the table. 

Anyway, the end of the story is that I did my best to speed-simmer and help the rice finish absorbing all the water, while Mister stalled his plans a little so we could have at least a little time for dinner.  I got a few bites into my bowl and felt justified in my initial reaction to the recipe's prescribed half-teaspoon of harissa: entirely too little.  I got about halfway through my dinner thinking that next time I would add a whole teaspoon (even though the 1/2 teaspoon was definitely heaping).  All of a sudden, I got a swift kick to the back of my throat and realized I had completely underestimated that building heat of harissa.  I took a short water and olive break and then got back to my tagine, recognizing that it was actually sneaky spicy and it would get me again if I wasn't vigilant.

Overall, it was a very good tagine.  Although the recipe suggests salting to taste at the end of the cooking process, I did not find salt necessary at all - the spices and vegetable broth did quite a good job of flavoring the dish without added salt.  I enjoyed the kick of harissa, and despite its assault on my esophagus, I probably will increase the amount in the future.  All that said, there was nothing terribly outstanding about this tagine - nothing that made it stand apart from a dozen other Moroccan-inspired recipes I have.  Perhaps with some tweaking it could turn into something a little more memorable, but not every dinner has to be life-changing, so maybe I'll just let it go.

Speaking of letting go, the poor cat continues to be plagued by his tail.  Damn thing follows him everywhere, taunting, haunting, just waiting for the chance to be seen and chased.  It followed him all the way from the old apartment and won't even give him a moment's peace to relax on the couch.

Fortunately, it's an exceptionally long tail, which makes it pretty easy to get a hold of.  As long as he doesn't let go, he should be able to get some sleep tonight...

goes 60 to 0 in 24 hours

One of the best phrases for laissez-faire I-don't-care attitudes toward anything is,

You win some, you lose some.

While I don't like to overuse that phrase and I certainly wouldn't want to be accused of cliche, it's probably the best way to summarize the last two nights of dinners.  I'm noticing a theme - first I did my curry dinners back to back, and now I've done my brothy dinners right in a row - both times with mixed reviews.

Last night, well yesterday in general, was kind of cold and miserable.  Although it seems to me that just about every Winter evening is the perfect one for a soup/stew dinner, in the Spring one must really grasp for justification.  Most of the time this involves cold rain, but yesterday I pulled it off with just wind.  I made Classic Lentil Stew and it was hearty and warm and just what I wanted after an afternoon of clothes-shopping-failure.

{Quick aside: Does anyone remember that horrid Britney Spears song, "Not a Girl"?  That's kind of how clothes shopping makes me feel, despite my age and growing smushiness proving I am very much a woman.  When I go to Macy's, the size 4 pants are just a little too big for me, but when I go to H&M I can't even pull the "same" size over my womanly hips.  Talk about knocking the wind out of your thirtysomething sails...by the way, I never looked like Britney does in that video, and if I did, I still would have worn more clothing.}  

Back to the soup/stew.  It was delightful!  The potatoes made it nice and hearty = substantial and the herbs added a nice earthiness to the French lentils I used (I actually didn't have any of the $.79/lb brown lentils you can get at SuperFresh).  I think the two bay leaves also added a depth of flavor that might have otherwise been missing.

That was 60.  Now for the Zero.

This is one of those times you really can judge a "book" by it's "cover" (or a star by her implants) - the Quick Moroccan Tagine was exactly as bland as it looked.  I had no idea you could actually simmer all of the excitement out of kalamata olives and nothing else tasted like anything either.  This is the first time in a long time (that I can remember with my old lady brain, anyway) that I actually added salt at table.  I had to - it didn't taste like anything!  That was really disappointing.  It smelled so good when it was cooking, but it was really not very good.  Fortunately for Vegetarian Times I have two cookbooks that prove they do actually know their stuff.

Who knows?  Maybe my tastebuds are still burnt out. Stay tuned, kids - this old dog has some new tricks coming soon.