mmm, delicious!
Don't know what to cook for dinner?
Get yourself some carrots. Peel or scrub as preferred. Cut them into quarters lengthwise (skinny carrots you can halve) and cut across into lengths about 1 1/2 inches long, maybe short. Toss with oil, cumin, ginger, coriander, black pepper, cayenne if desired, and salt. Roast for about 35 minutes at 425 degrees. If desired, add green beans (mine were blanched, but I think raw should be fine) halfway through the cooking process.
Serve with whole wheat couscous and a yogurt-mint sauce. Make the couscous according to directions; the sauce is just chopped up mint stirred into plain yogurt. If you have tsatsiki that would also be delicious.
I don't know what vegan/vegetarian protein goes with this yet, but for meat eaters, either make lula* (Armenian sausage/meatballs/kebab) or seared meat cubes. I need a pretty name for it; here's the procedure: ake a paste of salt, oil, black pepper, cumin, coriander, ginger, and garlic, rub onto cubed raw lamb or beef**, brown in very small batches in a wok or frying pan, and finish in the oven. I browned mine while the vegetables were roasting, then finished them in the last five minutes while the couscous was steaming. I think you could do something like this with seitan, or could you make a sausage out of TVP with tofu binder? If you could do that, you could make a lula type device. It could be delicious! It would also be good with a dahl dish, but that would be rather different texturally and in terms of how you eat it.
Speaking of lamb: I get my lamb at Costco. When I bring it home, I take off its net wrap and unfold the muscle structure. The largest part of it is removed and cooked as a roast, with garlic and rosemary generally. The other pieces go in the freezer until such time as they are needed for curry or for whatever I'm calling this. This way I have an easier time carving the roast and I'm much less likely to have lamb go to waste. In fact, if I have leftovers from the cubed lamb dish I made tonight, I could make them into a saucy curry dish easily, just by cooking up some onions and curry spices, warming up the leftover lamb in the pan, and stirring in some yogurt or coconut milk. This makes lamb a lot more affordable, happily! I know when we had the lamb-as-roast, I had enough leftovers for a lunch for me and a dinner curry for everybody. There's potential for 4-6 meals for several people out of just one purchase!
In conclusion, cumin and dry heat will make things delicious.
*I use the recipe at http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1916214 but I use fresh garlic and often omit the onion. With both the onion and the tomato paste, I find the flavor can get too sweet. I make it with a mix of ground lamb and ground beef, although when I run out of frozen ground lamb I'll have to switch to beef only, or do it with beef and pork- less traditional I guess, but delicious!
**Pork or chicken would probably work too, but unless you're doing chicken thighs or heirloom (read:fatty in the good way) pork, I'd marinate those longer so the oil is more likely to soak in.
Get yourself some carrots. Peel or scrub as preferred. Cut them into quarters lengthwise (skinny carrots you can halve) and cut across into lengths about 1 1/2 inches long, maybe short. Toss with oil, cumin, ginger, coriander, black pepper, cayenne if desired, and salt. Roast for about 35 minutes at 425 degrees. If desired, add green beans (mine were blanched, but I think raw should be fine) halfway through the cooking process.
Serve with whole wheat couscous and a yogurt-mint sauce. Make the couscous according to directions; the sauce is just chopped up mint stirred into plain yogurt. If you have tsatsiki that would also be delicious.
I don't know what vegan/vegetarian protein goes with this yet, but for meat eaters, either make lula* (Armenian sausage/meatballs/kebab) or seared meat cubes. I need a pretty name for it; here's the procedure: ake a paste of salt, oil, black pepper, cumin, coriander, ginger, and garlic, rub onto cubed raw lamb or beef**, brown in very small batches in a wok or frying pan, and finish in the oven. I browned mine while the vegetables were roasting, then finished them in the last five minutes while the couscous was steaming. I think you could do something like this with seitan, or could you make a sausage out of TVP with tofu binder? If you could do that, you could make a lula type device. It could be delicious! It would also be good with a dahl dish, but that would be rather different texturally and in terms of how you eat it.
Speaking of lamb: I get my lamb at Costco. When I bring it home, I take off its net wrap and unfold the muscle structure. The largest part of it is removed and cooked as a roast, with garlic and rosemary generally. The other pieces go in the freezer until such time as they are needed for curry or for whatever I'm calling this. This way I have an easier time carving the roast and I'm much less likely to have lamb go to waste. In fact, if I have leftovers from the cubed lamb dish I made tonight, I could make them into a saucy curry dish easily, just by cooking up some onions and curry spices, warming up the leftover lamb in the pan, and stirring in some yogurt or coconut milk. This makes lamb a lot more affordable, happily! I know when we had the lamb-as-roast, I had enough leftovers for a lunch for me and a dinner curry for everybody. There's potential for 4-6 meals for several people out of just one purchase!
In conclusion, cumin and dry heat will make things delicious.
*I use the recipe at http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1916214 but I use fresh garlic and often omit the onion. With both the onion and the tomato paste, I find the flavor can get too sweet. I make it with a mix of ground lamb and ground beef, although when I run out of frozen ground lamb I'll have to switch to beef only, or do it with beef and pork- less traditional I guess, but delicious!
**Pork or chicken would probably work too, but unless you're doing chicken thighs or heirloom (read:fatty in the good way) pork, I'd marinate those longer so the oil is more likely to soak in.