Moroccan Eggplant Pizza

This is truly one of those "no recipe" recipes. It was inspired by a lone eggplant hanging out in the refrigerator and my desire for pizza. And it was delicious enough that it made it to this space!

While the suggestion below is for squeezing lemon juice over the finished pizza - trust me on that, you need to at least do that - if you have preserved lemon, mince it super fine and sprinkle it over the pizza before baking. That will probably be even more fantastic!

Although fresh mozzarella is not usually my choice, it works better here than regular mozzarella because the tomato sauce needs to be more of a dominant flavor than it tends to be when covered up with melted mozzarella. Think of this as more of a flat bread than a pizza and you will have a better understanding of the concept I was attempting to create.

Harissa - DIY Pantry

I don't know why or how I decided to make a Moroccan Feast one fateful night in January 2009, but it was love at first bite ever since.

At that point in time, Harissa was totally new to me and that version was made with hot pepper flakes. While it was perfect for that meal, this updated version blows my mind. It's made with whole dried peppers that are soaked and deseeded and then pureed with the remaining ingredients. The result is less fire and more flavor and we can't get enough of it!

And if you're at all interested in Moroccan, buy Mourad New Moroccan; not only is he the real deal, but he knows how to write about food preparation and in beautiful, image filled detail. Make your own couscous! Really! What you get in the store is like the couscous version of freeze-dried rice they use in rice-a-roni! Who knew! And as he writes, even if you never roll your own couscous, just reading about the process is fascinating!

A fun cooking tip from me to you:

In case you did not know, small mouth mason jars will fit your blender blade. In fact blenders used to be sold with a half pint mason jar as part of the standard equipment. My blender carafe broke years ago and I only use mason jars on my blender. It's great for making sauces like harissa. Try it, you'll love it!

Chermoula Roasted Eggplant with Coconut Cilantro Cream

Eggplant is one of those vegetables that can get a bad rap. Too many people have had it in mediocre dishes or think that the only way to eat it is parmesaned (delicious!) or in baba ghoush (scrumptious!)

But my friends, eggplant is so much more than those two standards. Inspired by Jotam Ottolenghi, my roasted eggplant included the chermoula plus some smoked paprika and an original creation of coconut cilantro cream sauce which is divine!

If you don't have preserved lemons you can substitute the zest of 2 lemons and 1 teaspoon of juice. But it's winter and citrus time, so make yourself some preserved lemons! They keep in the frig for a very long time!

Foul - Moroccan Fava Beans

Foul - pronounced like "fool" is a traditional fava bean dish of North Africa. Also called Ful, I've seen it in Moroccan restaurants and if you search the web you'll see it listed as Egyptian. No matter what country claims it, prepare yourself for a hearty, delicious dish made with those magical legumes, fava beans!

Foul is made with dried beans, not the fresh, so it's easy to make it year round. Like so many Mediterranean cuisines, this dish makes the most of basic ingredients and not too many: cumin, lemon, parsley, tomatoes and beans. It's a shockingly great combination. I simply gilded the lily with the feta and olives, but certainly not traditional.

We ate this along with some Swiss Chard sauteed with garlic, coriander and smoked paprika and a dash of balsamic vinegar, which was fantastically good but the photo was not, so it's not yet featured on the blog. But it will definitely be making a future appearance, so look for it. To round it all out, muhammara, some homemade naan, feta and olives completed our meal. It was a Moroccan tapas of sort, and made us pretty happy!

Moroccan Spiced Eggplant with Pomegranate Glaze

The first time I made this dish, I ate it all in one sitting, an entire eggplant, gone. Gulp! And there was no photo to share, because not only did I inhale it, but because the half moon slices of eggplant were exceptionally caramelized - delicious! - they were most unphotogenic.  So I had to make the dish again. Really, the sacrifices I make as a blogger!

Inspired by Sassy Radish's pomegranate glazed eggplant, my version added some spices and fresh herbs, rounding out the dish as more Moroccan than Middle Eastern. But as her post described, Olga had quite a feast the night she made her dish and I seriously wonder whether her slices of eggplant were indeed 1/8 of an inch and cooked for 45 minutes. For my first attempt, the slices were 1/4 of an inch and cooked a little under 40 minutes and some of them were charred, albeit, tasty bits of eggplant that needed to be scraped off the baking pan!

In my second attempt at this dish, I cubed the eggplant and tossed it with the glaze and lined the baking sheet with foil. I also doubled the proportions because this was so incredibly good that I hoped my personal restraint would allow there to be leftovers since this is just as good at room temperature as hot out of the oven.

Moroccan Carrot Salad with Cumin and Cilantro

My love for Mark Bittman has been acknowledged here, here, and here and here! And still he tosses out more new and easy ideas. This salad is just one of the 101 Salads he posted on the Minimalist in 2009. It was reposted this summer and instead of just reading them with delight, I copied a few to try.

"14. A classic Moroccan thing: Thinly slice carrots, or grate or shred them (the food processor makes quick work of this). Toss with toasted cumin seeds, olive oil, lemon juice and cilantro. Raisins are good in here, too. There is no better use of raw carrots."

Moroccan Meatballs with Preserved Lemon over Couscous

Looking for a way to enliven your meatballs but without going overboard? These Moroccan gems are just the ticket.

Don't be fooled by the Moroccan theme - these are most certainly not spicy. Instead, they are a savory version of Moroccan cuisine, preserved lemon, cumin, paprika and cilantro, gently introducing your to the tastes of that lovely place.

As befitting the cuisine, I served these over couscous, but of course! While the sauce and cooking of the meatballs takes about 45 minutes, the rapid preparation of couscous makes it seem so effortless!

Moroccan Meatballs with Preserved Lemon over Couscous (from Thyme for Cooking)

(serves 4)

Meatballs
1lb ground beef
2 tablespoons minced shallot
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tablespoons fresh parsley
2 tablespoons dried bread crumbs
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon cumin

Sauce
1 onion, chopped
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
2 teaspoons dried oregano
2 teaspoons fresh parsley, minced
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 preserved lemon, rinsed, pulp removed and rind cut into strips

To make meatballs, combine all of the ingredients for the meatballs and mix very well, kneading until it gets almost paste-like. Form into 1 1/2" balls. Set aside. To make sauce, heat olive oil over medium heat in deep skillet with a lid and large enough to hold all meatballs. Add onion and cook until soft,  6 - 7 minutes. Add paprika, cumin and sauté 1 minute longer. Add stock, oregano and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer, add meatballs, keeping them separate, cover and simmer 45 minutes. Add parsley, lemon juice and preserved lemons, simmer 2 minutes longer to combine flavors. Serve over couscous and garnish with additional parsley.

Hugs!

Recipes currently inspiring me:

Grilled Pork Chops with Balsamic Glazed Peaches at Garden of Eating
Black and Blue Steak Sandwich at Closet Cooking
Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries at Nutmeg Nanny

Spiced Eggplant and Patty Pan Squash - Maghreb Style

Eggplant is one of those vegetables that people too often say they do not like. Then they try my eggplant parmesan or fried eggplant slices or ratatouille and their response is, "well I like that, but not eggplant." Such a bad rep!

This is one eggplant preparation that will make believers out of everyone. Broiled eggplant, sauteed with fragrant spices and garlic transforms the misunderstood eggplant into food of the gods. Broiling it brings out its mellow sweetness and the spice combination - caraway, cumin, coriander, paprika and cinnamon - are straight out of the North African spice route. Add garlic and cilantro and this dish is pure flavor, no other way to describe it!

Fresh Fennel Salad, Moroccan Style

Ahhh fennel. I love its crunch, its slightly anise-y taste, its herb-green scent. But it rarely is the star of the dish, always the supporting player. Here it shines all on its own.

Add a few dashes of piquant flavor enhancers - lemon juice, salt, harissa (!), mint - and fennel glides to the forefront like a prima balleria who has been waiting for her chance to sparkle in the spotlight.

While the flavors are decidedly Moroccan, the preparation is based on a simple Italian (or French, depending on whom you ask) dish that uses salt to bring out the natural juice of the vegetable and adds lemon to spread it around. The most common version is with carrots, and a dash of olive oil helps the salt make its rounds and do its magic.

Sauteed Swiss Chard with Cumin and Paprika

I cook and eat greens several times a week, and mostly they are simply sauteed in garlic and olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper. Yum! But sometimes a girl wants a little excitement in her life, so she trolls the food blogs until she finds something like this recipe. Not too much work but oh so exciting!

The original recipe used kale and an herb paste with zingy spices like cumin and paprika to disguise the bitterness of kale. While I am a huge kale fan, I am not as high on Swiss Chard so I thought I would use this technique on some green chard waiting patiently to be used. Fantastic!

Capellini with Moroccan Style Sundried Tomato Pesto

Capellini (angel hair) pasta is one of my favorite types of pasta. I like its texture much better than spaghetti or linguini - there is less to it so I get more taste of the sauce.

This past weekend I bought a classic Moroccan cookbook, Paula Wolfert's Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco and have been devouring it as I do all great cookbooks. While there are plenty of recipes, she also gives tremendous details about the culture, history and markets of Morocco and I am eating it up!

Shredded Carrots with Harissa, Feta and Mint

As a child I ate tons of carrots, so much so that once I finished a 1 lb bag in one day and my mom called the doctor to ensure I wasn't going to get some sort of Vitamin A poisoning.

When I saw these gorgeous carrots at the farmers market, I knew this was a marriage made in heaven. These are Nantes carrots, which are not usually found in stores, and are especially sweet and crisp. A few years ago I grew them in my garden and have been hooked on them ever since.

I still love carrots and eat them raw whenever I want a good snack. But I also love to gussy them up once in a while and this recipe is fantastic. When I read this recipe and saw that Smitten Kitchen had made a carrot salad with harissa, I knew I would be, well, smitten.

Smitten Kitchen prepared the dressing a bit differently, sauteing all of the ingredients together at once. But I was inspired by the harissa to use more of a Maghreb/Moroccan style of preparation so I decided to mash garlic, cumin, caraway and sugar in a mortar and pestle before sauteing in oil. Add some lemon juice and you have an amazing dressing that sings with heat and savory-ness.

Homemade Merguez Sausage

In the last years of my 15 year stint as a vegetarian, two things conspired against my resolve to be meat free: work travel and sausages. Traveling every 2-3 weeks for a year on end meant eating in airports, hotels or grabbing food on the go in unfamiliar cities wreaked havoc on my vegetarian diet. I got pretty sick of cheese sandwiches and hummus (5 years ago, that was the standard fare; I'm guessing it hasn't changed much).

Sausage was another story, entirely my own failing.

I grew up on sausage - kielbasa, bratwurst, Italian, summer - you name it, our German heritage family ate it. With my DIY bent I tried several times to make my own veggie sausage, mainly because of the cost and my concerns about all of the ingredients in store-bought patties that did not look like edible food stuff. It never worked well. So I caved and started eating sausage on the sly - never bought it at the store - but did not refuse it when it was offered, especially homemade.

My sisters started calling me a "sausag-tarian." It was mortifying but too true!

Maghreb Style Pomegranates

As I've mentioned before, pomegranates have fascinated me ever since I was a child due to the fruit being a key player in the Greek myth of Persephone and Hades. When I finally tasted this quasi-mythical fruit I was tickled by its sweet tart flavor but somewhat at a loss as to how to use it as an ingredient. Then I found 64 sq ft kitchen, which I have raved about in many posts, but for which I am most grateful for introducing me to this simple pomegranate recipe

Warda, author of 64 sq ft kitchen, is Algerian but describes her home cuisine as from the Maghreb, which encompasses the North African countries of Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Libya, all bordering  the Mediterranean to the North and the Atlas Mountains to the South. With my love of Moroccan cuisine still strong, I have mined her blog for lots of inspiration!

Persimmon and Pomegranate Salad

I had never eaten (let alone heard of) persimmons until I arrived in the land of California. They're an interesting looking orange orb, with a green "cap" on top. My last roommate froze them and then scooped out the flesh like ice cream. I decided to find another way to eat them as that sounded too cold and too sweet.

After peeling them and taking a nibble I knew they'd go well with a squeeze of lime, more so than lemon. When I realized I had some prepared pomegranate seeds (made the Magreb style with sugar and orange blossom water) I knew they would be a match made in heaven. How right I was!

Persimmons have the texture of not quite ripe cantaloupe melon and a somewhat similar flavor, but not nearly as sweet. I'm eager to try them out in other ways, so let me know if you have suggestion!

Persimmon and Pomegranate Salad

3 persimmons, peeled, cored and cut in slices
1/2 lime, juiced
2 tablespoons prepared pomegranate seeds (recipe here)

Mix all and serve chilled.

Hugs!

Recipes currently inspiring me:

Sausage Bread at The Perfect Pantry
Roasted Grapes with Shallots and Thyme at An Edible Mosiac
Pear and Cranberry Rustic Tart at Simply Recipes

Roasted Butternut Squash with Pomegranate Molasses and Smoked Paprika

Next to acorn squash, butternut is my favorite hard squash; it's so versatile. Like so many hard squash, it soaks up flavors and is so hearty and filling.

I was going through a real block as a cook - I'm sure it happens to most cooks - and in looking for inspiration to get back my umpf, I spent several hours reading 64 sq ft kitchen's blog posts. I learned that The Maghreb - those countries in northern Africa that were colonized by the French, including Morocco, Algeria and Tunisa - while similar, have some differences. Pomegranates, dried fruits like dates, figs and apricots figure in their cuisine and I remembered that I had some pomegranate molasses and decided to try it out on this squash. Excellent inspiration!

If you don't have an ethnic grocer (Middle Eastern, Eastern European, or African) near by, you can make your own pomegranate molasses fairly easily. Simply combine 3 cups fresh pomegranate juice (the freshest you can find), add 2 tablespoons sugar and 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and cook on high heat until reduced by half. Allow to cool, and voila, zee pomegranate molasses!

Sauteed Zucchini with Garlic, Mint and Lemon

I am always on the look out for new ways to cook zucchini even though I don't have a garden overgrown with them (rural joke: why is summer the only time that country folk lock their cars - to keep out unwanted zucchini from their neighbors!)

One of my favorite ways to make zucchini is a simple saute of garlic in olive oil and then adding grated zucchini. The squash soaks up the garlicky olive oil and takes on a crispiness the longer you saute it. It's savory and yet a quick vegetable dish, delectable!

Roasted Red Pepper Hummus

When you're a poor student AND a vegetarian you eat a lot of hummus, I mean tons. Dried chick peas are cheap and a jar of tahini will last you a long time. So I quickly learned to vary my hummus so as not to lose my mind with boredom.

I've added carrots, parsley, beets and spinach to hummus. I even recently tried a version with avocado (wasn't a huge fan, too much avocado and not enough hummus for me). But my favorite flavored version is roasted red peppers, particularly if they're fresh roasted. And when I was watching my pennies, buying a jar of peppers wasn't the best investment. When the summer abundance of red peppers arrived, I would roast up a bunch and keep them in a jar under a layer of olive oil.

Chicken and Green Olive Tagine

Eons ago (or maybe is was just last Christmas!) I received The Tagine Deck as a gift, one I had pleaded to receive. While I have only made one other recipe from the Deck - Fish Stew with Chermoula - they have both been superb and I highly recommend the Deck if you're interested in some variety with your slow cooker or just delving into another Mediterranean cuisine.

This was a spectacular tagine, easy to make with lots of complex chicken flavor. Very savory compared to some other tagines in the Deck, and being a huge olive fan, I loved how the olives stewed in the chicken broth.

Chick Pea and Tomato Tagine

I am fascinated by chick peas/garbanzos/ceci, whatever you want to call them. Not because I love them so much but because they are the most unusual looking bean. They don't really look like a bean to me, more like a little yellow brain or a scrunched up face like those dolls made with shriveled apples for heads. I'm also intrigued by them since they are one of only three legumes that are indigenous to Europe and the Mediterranean in particular.

Although I was a vegetarian for 15 years yet I didn't progress beyond using chick peas in hummus or in green salads. But recently after exploring The Tagine Deck I realized that they would make an amazing base for a vegetarian tagine. While I didn't end up using a specific recipe I did get a sense of what is needed to make a balanced tagine, ingredient wise.