New Year's Resolution + Honeycomb Pancakes - 4 stars

i'm trying a different new year's resolution this year. last year, i vowed to go to the optometrist and the dentist. i did both, though we won't talk about how many of the previous years i didn't do either! :)

this year, i decided i would pick out a type of cuisine, buy a cookbook, and cook my way through it. outside of excessively cheesy recipes, i MUST cook every recipe from the book by the end of this year. i vacillated between lebanese cuisine and moroccan cuisine, and settled on moroccan. i then had to decide between two different moroccan cookbooks:

Made in Morocco
by Julie LeClerc and John Bougeno


Couscous and Other Good Food From Morocco
by Paula Wolfert

the reviews for Made in Morocco said it was a good cookbook, but not as authentic as Paula Wolfert's. i decided to try out Paula's. um... not the best idea. it's TOO authentic. i am not ready for that kind of authenticity. the "meat salad" recipes call for animal brains. the tangine recipes called for at least three whole chickens, or ten pounds of lamb. all of the recipes from Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco make massive amounts of food, look quite complicated and often require ingredients that would be extremely difficult for me to obtain.

i want to actually be successful with my new year's resolution, so i took another look at Made in Morocco. it seemed more appropriate for me, so i ordered it. it's fantastic! it has a ton of history and cultural information, and the recipes are much more practical. i'm really excited about working my way through it.

so... i made my first meal on saturday morning from this cookbook. the name of the recipe is honeycomb pancakes. to make them, i dissolved a packet of yeast in warm water, added a teaspoon of sugar, and then combined it with semolina flour, regular flour, one egg, salt, a bit of vanilla extract, and some tepid water. i was supposed to let the batter sit for at least an hour, but i was hungry. i only waited a half hour. bad idea - i'll explain why later.

to cook these pancakes, i warmed a nonstick pan over medium heat, brushed some vegetable oil on the bottom, and put a scoop of the batter in the pan. i did not flip the pancakes; instead, i let them cook until the bottom was golden brown and the top was solid and fluffy and full of holes. well - i got small holes in them, but they didn't end up nearly as fluffy as they should have because i didn't wait the full hour before cooking. i hate when i'm impatient! :)

they were really good though. they had a grittier texture than regular pancakes because of the semolina flour, and they were not sweet either. i served them with honey and butter, and they were just fantastic. i also had some amazing uli's fresh andouille sausage on the side. how un-moroccan of me! :-)

please email me if you would like the recipe - it's at home in my cookbook, so i can't add it right now.





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Redefining Breakfast: Beef Taco Omelette & Chicken Quesadilla - 4 stars

yes, you read that correctly - beef taco omelette! it's on the right - i made it for tony. he said it was really, really good, but the meat was from the overly spicy batch of beef taco meat, so he wasn't able to finish it. :-( always a sad occasion. and, the pepper grinder sort of fell apart when he was using it, and a bunch of whole peppercorns dumped out onto his sour cream! sad. i've since learned how to tighten the grinder so that it has a finer grind and doesn't fall apart. :-)

i had some leftover grilled chicken in the fridge, and my tummy wasn't up for the spice of the beef taco meat, so i thought hey, why not have a quesadilla for breakfast? it was really good! just grilled chicken and mozzarella - i cooked in the oven wrapped in foil for awhile. i topped it with fresh cilantro, sour cream, and some pico de gallo. perfect.

Bagels with Smoked Steelhead + Dill + Cream Cheese - 5 stars

this is one of my all time favorite breakfasts! SO easy to make, but it always feels really indulgent and satisfying.

for this batch, i bought some fresh smoked steelhead from the town & country grocery store on bainbridge island by my work. i have to be honest - i just researched on wikipedia to figure out exactly what steelhead is! when i bought it, i thought it might be some type of salmon. it was pink, you know, like salmon. :)

anyway, come to found out, it's the ocean-dwelling version of rainbow trout! i had no idea. i ate lots of trout when i was a kid, but i haven't really had much as an adult. steelhead is pinker than trout - like salmon - and tends to be more flavorful (according to wikipedia, at least - i can't personally attest to this, since it's been too long since i've had rainbow trout). compared to salmon, i thought it had a sweeter taste - though that could be attributed to the way it was smoked. whatever it was that made it so good, however, made this the best "smoked salmon" bagel breakfast i've made.

i used thomas' NY style everything bagels - toasted them, smothered cream cheese on each half (soy "it's better than cream cheese!" for me, regular plain cream cheese for tony), put a bunch of fresh dill on them, and topped them with the smoked steelhead. YUMMY! we had awesome bloody mary's with them as well - if you can ever get your hands on Stirrings Bloody Mary Mix, buy it. spend the money on it. it's super, super expensive, but was better than any mix i've ever had or made. YUM!