A Typical Meal Chez Eleanor

I love Ethiopian food, and really anything spicy, so when I found this recipe for miser wat from Utopian Kitchen a few years ago, it quickly became a dinner staple.   The trick to making it is to either find or make the berbere spice blend.  I generally buy it, because there are so many spices involved, but sometimes I cheat and use an Americanized blend of cumin, coriander, turmeric, fenugreek, paprika, and cloves .  You can get berbere online at World Spice Merchants, or I am lucky that a local St. Louis company makes it (that’s the packaging you see in the picture), and I can purchase it at the excellent Local Harvest Grocery.

Anyway, once you have the berbere, the recipe comes together in a flash, and it is excellent left over for lunches.  It is foolproof, too – I never measure the ingredients, I’ve used many different types of onions and tomatoes, and it always tastes slightly different, but always delish.

Tipsy Potatoes

So, since this is my first solo post on Scrumptious Gruel, I’d like to take a moment to explain that I am NOT the sort of person who goes out drinking, cooks potatoes tipsy, and then eats them in a stupor while watching Rocky Horror.  Not at all.  And, yet, that’s exactly what I did tonight.

Granted, I probably didn’t do the recipe justice, but tonight, inspired by Ellen’s potato dish from last night, I cooked Skillet Turnips with Potatoes and Bacon from Bon Appetit.

The recipe was easy enough, and all the fresh ingredients could be found at the farmers’ market this time of year – bacon, potatoes, turnips.  I didn’t measure the ingredients, but I hardly ever do, even when I am 100% sober.  And the result?   Although the food didn’t so much “crisp” as stick to the pan, and although it didn’t look appetizing at all (sorry…I can’t bear to post a photo), it was very tasty.  Pure comfort food.  I recommend that you try it for yourself!