Chow Down!

I had to make one of those regrettable sometimes-necessary gas-wasting only-a-couple-items grocery runs a while back. Mercifully, the store is less than two miles away - and I drove slowly. We needed sirloin and shallots for beef kebabs for Boys Night In. This may not be quite as fire-breathing as we should have attempted with the capsaicin-challenged out partying, but it still seemed a good exercise. And maybe a bit more practical in terms of future Cooking for Others. The recipe has origins in Morocco, part of a regional cuisine we will be exploring more in the near future via the tagine Marg purchased a while back. The beef is marinated in a mix of onion, parsley, paprika (we went with the smoky Hungarian I procured from World Spice), salt, cumin, pepper, and oil. Since it is not in the fully incendiary category, with care, it might be adaptable to the timid.

Per the recipe, these are meat-only 'babs, served with salt and cumin on the side and (tangy!)shallot relish and harissa atop the beef. The latter can be quite the spicy number - we're working from dry World Spice mix as a starter, and Eric had the inspiration that we also have some Ras el Hanout as a possible amendment, similarly-sourced spice mix with ethnic origins also in North Africa (as I recall, in the original it can include dried beetles!). We found some (actually mild) masochistic pleasure with both, leaving future presentation to a broader audience negotiable.

Meanwhile, other recent indulgences have included quite a range of dishes. Eric assembled some amazing basil-leaf-wraps a while back. These are seemingly simple, but do call for a bit of hands-on. I believe he made these first for his sister and brother-in-law on some occasion when we strayed from the flock. So he's now a "seasoned" pro on the recipe. Oh so delectable.

And Marg came upon a beef stew recipe involving squash, of all things, which she wanted to try. That would not have been my first choice of amendments, seeming on the brink of quirky even, but it was surprisingly scrumptious.

Left to our own devices again, Eric and I conspired a while back on a batch of Texas (Brazos) Red chili: beef and chilis being the only major ingredients (no beans or tomatoes). You had to be there. The chili powder was home-made from dried chilis and amendments, in fact the recipe I came upon for home-made chili powder was the source of the Brazos Chili recipe. I'm not sure most would even be able to connect the dots between this dish and the classic mid-American canned beans/ground beef/canned tomatoes/onion stew I grew up on. I still savor that too, but I find this Texas Red (Brazos, in this case) to be pretty dang special. A classic.