Thursday, September 29, 2011

Ethiopian Food!

A couple of nights ago I finally had most of the ingredients to make some Ethiopian food. We had to get red lentils at Whole Foods, couldn't find them at our usual grocery store. We also bought a bag of frozen chopped collards, thanks to a tip from a friend. This definitely makes a weeknight dinner more doable!

For the red lentil stew recipe, we turned to vegweb.com, and it's entitled Mesir W'et. Amazing amount of spices!  For our greens, I found a recipe here (http://www.ourlifeupstate.com/) that was entitled Ethiopian greens. Very easy with the frozen greens.

We didn't have time to make injera (the bread), so we had the stew over brown rice and split a piece of pita. It rocked! I really loved the flavors, and it just felt healthy! My body was very happy afterwards. I enjoyed using the pieces of pita to pick up the stew, too. It reminded me of time in Honduras, using tortillas to smush the beans and then pick them up.

The stew recipe called for berbere, an Ethiopian spice mix.  I couldn't think of where to get this.... an African market? I imagine there are some around here, but I hadn't ever noticed one. I used the alternate (one *teaspoon* of cayenne. Can't imagine a tablespoon!).  But then yesterday hit up Whole Foods for something else and found it!  So - for next time we will have the real thing!

I'll have to see if there are any other veganizable Ethiopian dishes to add to our repertoire.

Just as a note, last night we had the spicy tempeh sushi from Veganomicon! Yum! And tonight we are making broccoli and spinach fajitas, and having my FIL over again. :)  This weekend is our 1 year wedding anniversary and we'll be eating out a lot (staying out of town), so this week we had to cook!

Buen provecho everyone!

3 comments:

  1. You have to check out Kittee's zine "Papa Tofu Loves Ethiopian Food" I just got it a month ago and it is amazing. I haven't made injera yet but I really want to because I end up using tortillas or pita too :)

    http://kitteekake.blogspot.com/2011/07/papa-tofu-loves-ethiopian-food.html

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  2. Hey! Thanks for the heads up! I will check that out.

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  3. I love Ethiopian food! Yum! Tracy- I found your blog through Triangle Meatless Mondays. We have met before at TVS events. :-) Glad to know you have a blog and to follow you. Amanda

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