What happens when I go to the movies.

So I just saw Julie & Julia. Can I just say: it made me hopeful for this little blog we've got here. I mean, I don't know if it has quite the potential of The Julie/Julia Project, for lack of originality alone, but still.

Also, I felt decidedly shitty eating my gigantanormous bag 'o popcorn and watching such amazing food on the screen. There's just something so... plastic about all that fake butter when there's a six-foot picture of a chocolate cream pie right in front of your face.

Not that I didn't devour the popcorn, of course.

But anyway. Now, I'm faced with a dilemma. See, I'd been thinking about doing something akin to the Julie/Julia project for a while. Since before the movie came out, I swear it. I think I got the idea from projects like The Daring Bakers and Tuesdays with Dorie. And my question is this: would I be the most terrible blogger ever if I went ahead with that idea?

It wouldn't be a whole blog, mind you. Just an every-now-and-then kind of thing on this one. It would get me to cook more often (as you can see from my spotty contributions here, I tend to sort of drift away in the middle of projects that I start), and it would provide me with a good plan of recipes.

So these are the questions I pose to you, dear imaginary readers:

1) Should I do it?

and

2) What book should I use?


A bientot,
Kristina

cous cous and mixed summer vegetables with a honey balsamic drizzle

if you're a cincinnatian, there's one place everyone knows is great for getting fresh farm grown produce: findlay market

the market is primarily busiest on sundays, when a large array of local farmers bring their harvests to sell at the farmers market. I hadn't gone to findlay for the past few weekends, so i was ready for a good trip down. i ended up buying a lot of produce, some of which included some sweet red onions, yellow bell peppers, and this crazy giant zucchini....like...this think was the length and width of at least 3/4 of my arm.anyways, it provided for a good deal of recipes. i'll post this one first though....

this recipe turned out great! it was very light and summery, and paired well with the balsamic drizzle i added in at the end (a stroke of brilliance, if i dont say so myself)

ingredients are as follows:

1 box cous cous, or i would say 1.5 cups dry
2 cups water
1 yellow bell pepper, diced
1 cup zucchini diced
1 medium sweet red onion diced
1/2 cup olive oil
1 tsp marjoram
1 tsp oregano
1 tblspn ground black pepper
1 tblspn sea salt
1 tsp coriander


for the balsamic honey drizzle:

1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup honey
1 tsp olive oil



so first things first, prepare the cous cous- 2 cups water in a saucepan with 1 tsp salt and 1 tblspn olive oil. bring to a boil, add in the cous cous, stir, cover, and let sit for about 5 minutes. the cous cous should absorb the water. take off the heat after about 5 minutes, fluff and let sit.

put the chopped vegetables in an aluminum pan with some salt- toss and put into the oven on broil to let roast for about 5 minutes, don't completely roast, but let the vegetables wilt a bit

after taking out of the oven, add the vegetables,herbs, and spices in a pan with 1/4 cup olive oil on high heat. saute for about 5-7 minutes. i didn't add much as far as herbs went in this recipe, the vegetables had such a nice sweet flavor of their own i wanted to keep it more pure.

toss in the vegetables with the cous cous, add in the remaining olive oil, and fluff a bit

now, for the balsamic drizzle, it's super easy:

in a pan, add in your balsamic vinegar on high heat. stir a bit for about 30 seconds, and then add in the honey. stir well for about 3 minutes or so or until the mixture starts to become thicker like a syrup, then remove from heat. i just poured the syrup-y reduction on the cous cous vegetable mixture. it soaked in pretty well, but was a very subtle flavor.

i was really proud of how this turned out! i hope you enjoy it

with love,
sheida