La Nuit de Legumes

Everything just sounds better in French, non?

Anyway, another post about food is in order. But before I start, a quick note about a friend's wonderful food blog that you can find here.

Right. So today's post is about food, food and more food. That's right. I made three dishes tonight, albeit simple ones. With massive amounts of reading and work to do this semester (more than I had last year), I've been finding new ways to procrastinate. Housekeeping - like cleaning the bathroom - isn't as interesting as it was last year, although I did spend a couple hours yesterday cleaning things (the bathtub, disinfecting the kitchen, organizing things that didn't need to be organized). This year, because of my limited budget and my new-found-pickyness when it comes to what quality of foodstuff I'm putting in my mouth (I've become opposed to the eating out multiple times a week routine. I want to know that the ingredients I'm consuming are of good quality), I've been eating at home a lot. I even come home from school for lunch!

Having eaten a wonderful bagel + Tofutti for lunch today, I wanted to eat dinner at home. I wasn't in the mood for pasta, or rice and couldn't figure out what to make. I looked in the fridge, kept on looking...and then it hit me. I'm a vegetarian! I should eat vegetables!


I've been reading a book by Alice Waters that talks about bringing out the natural tastes of vegetables, so, I thought, why not try? Out came the tomatoes, cauliflower, broccoli, carrots and yukon gold potatoes from the fridge. But what to do with them? Not a soup. I didn't want to put them all into one pan and sautee them. And then I realized that, to bring out their natural flavours, I would have to divide them into families and cook them separately.

The carrots. This one seemed easy at first. I cut them into thin rounds, put some olive oil in the pan, fried some garlic and tossed the carrots in. Added some salt and pepper and started to sautee them. But something was missing. And then I had a brainwave. Balsamic vinegar. That went in, and the carrots started getting a deep orange colour. But there was still something missing when I tasted them. And then I remembered - sugar! So I added some cane sugar and glazed the carrots. Ahh...I devoured them as soon as they came out of the pan and while I was finishing up my other veggies...

Now for the cauliflower and broccoli. Instead of doing something special with them, I just sauteed them in olive oil with some salt and pepper. To give them some more taste, I made a quick tomato salsa - roma tomatoes, salt, pepper, garlic, olive oil, oregano and a touch of a beautiful white Bordeaux that I bought a couple days ago - and cooked it for a little bit.

My favourites were the potatoes though. I have a weakness for anything fried/sauteed and potato-y. Par-boiled them first, cut them up and put them in ice water for a bit to cool them down/get rid of some excess starch. Put them in a pan with some olive oil and coated with zaatar (yummy!!), salt and pepper. Then I ate them with the most amazing hummus ever (I love you Sabra - even if you are owned by colonizers).

All in all. One of the best meals I've had in a while. There's nothing like fresh food. There's nothing like simple food. And, for us veggies who became veggies because we don't like the taste of meat/chicken etcetera...there's nothing like an unadulterated, fresh vegetable.