Foodie food nerd

April 1, 2008 at 8:42 pm · Filed under Stuff

I like to cook. A lot. It’s something I’ve always liked to do, and it makes me happy. This semester I’ve pretty much taken over kitchen duties for my family, because I enjoy it and I’ve got the time. A few days ago I started keeping track of menus & recipes. I have discovered that it is ridiculously difficult to quantify things I’ve never thought about or measured. So because I’m putting so much effort into writing these down, I reserve the right to post them here as well — starting with tonight’s dinner.

Continuing the theme of Norouz (Persian New Year) — tonight we had traditional New Year’s food. Yay, quick & easy! The salad and kuku combine with hot bread to make “pita pockets”. As with most Persian food, each family has their own recipes, and regional differences abound. The following are my versions of my mom’s versions of my grandmother’s original recipes. Enjoy.

Kuku Sabzi (”Green kuku”)
- 2 cans spinach, drained
- 5 eggs
- 1 TBSP dried parsley
- 1/2 TBSP dried fenugreek
- 1/2 TBSP cilantro
- sea salt

Drain the spinach well - use a strainer (or your hands!) and some effort to get all the water out. Beat the eggs in a seperate bowl with the salt, then combine all ingredients. Mix until smooth.

Heat melted butter (or olive oil) in skillet. Drop spoonfuls of the spinach mixture, cover, cook on medium heat. Turn once, allow second side to cook uncovered. Serve hot.

Shirazi Salad
- 2 cucumbers
- 1 large tomato
- 1/2 onion
- 1 C lemon juice
- 2 TBSP dried mint
- sea salt

Dice the cucumbers, tomatoes, and onion. Put into one bowl & salt liberally. Crush dried mint over the top (again, you get to use your hands: crush between your palms into fine powder). Add lemon juice and stir. Taste & re-season if neccessary… it usually is.

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A new thing

March 31, 2008 at 7:57 pm · Filed under Stuff

Continuing with the theme of photographic improvement, I’m going to start this new…thing. For the next month or two (possibly all the way until June 7th, probably just until I get tired of it) I’m going to make a point of taking & posting new photos. It’s easy for me to only take pictures at specific events or places, but being deliberate about shooting the “boring” everyday world around me will, I hope, help me improve. Stuff like cute kids and exotic locations shoots itself, so by saying I’ll semi-regularly be posting new stuff here I’m hoping to make myself work harder at this …thing.

Tomorrow is Sizdah bedar, the end of the Persian New Years’ celebration. It’s the 13th day of the year’s largest holiday, an auspicious day, the end of one era and the beginning of a new one. My family is pretty Americanized, but we still go through the motions of Norouz. An important aspect of the holiday is the Haftsin table, symbolically similar to the Christmas Tree. Every Haftsin table has some type of Sabzeh - growing green stuff - and ours is usually a tray of wheat grass. This morning I was watering that bit of grass when I decided to grab my camera & mess with DOF. This was the result.

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