Moroccan Spiced Carrots

I felt like doing something new with carrots. These past three weeks of eating "clean" have been challenging, but actually rewarding. I can fit into my 4's again! I haven't lost much weight but I'm assuming my "fat" (what little there is of it) is being shifted to "muscle" (which I already had). I've been steaming the hell out of broccoli, cauliflower and carrots and have not been seasoning them (at least not with salt) so my taste buds have been begging for something new.

So without further ado...Moroccan Spiced Carrots
(bastardized adapted from a recipe I found on the internet - forgot the site)

Ingredients:

2 tbsp pine nuts (I didn't have any so I skipped this step)
1 tbsp cumin seeds (I didn't have any so I just used cumin POWDER)
1/4 olive oil (seemed like a lot so I reduced it a tiny bit)
12 medium carrots, trimmed, peeled, and cut on the bias into 1/8 thick slices (I used about 1 1/2 lbs)
1/2 tsp kosher salt (I didn't have any so I used TJ's Himalayan Pink Salt Crystals)
1 tbsp honey
4 tsp fresh lemon juice

12 Moroccan or other black oil-cured olives, pitted and chopped (I omitted this as well but will include it next time I make it)
1 tbsp chopped cilantro
2 tsp chopped fresh mint

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350.
Place the pine nuts on a small sheet pan and toast for 9 - 10 minutes or until golden brown.
Set aside

Meanwhile, put the cumin seeds in a heavy skillet over medium heat and toast for 4 minutes, stirring a few times.
Grind in a mortar and pestle or spice grinder.
Set aside.

[Note - I skipped the 2 steps above because I had no pine nuts or cumin seeds. Plus I like taking short cuts]

Cook the carrots with the olive oil over high heat for about 3 minutes.
Lower the heat to medium and cook for 2 minutes. (I ended up doing a little longer because my carrot slices weren't as thin as 1/8")
Cook until the carrots are tender and golden brown.
Add the salt.

Put the carrots in a colander to drain (unless you want them to be really oily)
Transfer carrots to a mxing bowl.
Add the honey, lemon nuice, olives, and cumin and mix together.
Cool to room temperature and mix in the cilantro, mint, and pine nuts.
To serve, place in a large decorative bowl.

And there you have it. Some nicely seasoned carrots with a bit of sweetness. The mint and cilantro also make it look quite pretty. No photo of that though.

Upcomings posts:
The South Bay Food Crawl

Kous Kous

A few weekend ago we finally used the first Groupon I ever bought. It was going to expire in a few weeks so we had to use it. We've had Moroccan before (at Marrakesh years ago) and I've made a few Morroccan style dishes so we were looking forward to this dinner outing.

It was a Saturday night in Hillcrest. I was so not looking forward to finding parking which is ALWAYS shiteous.  But, luckily for us, a space opened up right in front of Tapas Picasso (ate there this sumer for TORC's birthday) which is diagonally across the street from Kous Kous. The restaurant is on the lower floor (the basement) of a building which houses Martinis. In the daytime, it would be easy to miss.

Fellow SD Foodblogger Kirbie of Kirbie's Cravings ate here twice: Post 1 (August 2010) and Post 2 (December 2010)

Their menu:

Loved their decor. They made this basement space look quite exotic. These are just some lamps but the foyer was quite spectacular (no photo of that unfortunately).

We got the feast for 2 even though there were three of us. Here is the marinated olives and carrots along with Bert's beer. Moroccan beers would have been nice but this is just Red Trolley Ale. Loved the flavor of the marinated olives and carrots.
 
The sampler feast included the appetizer above along with a vegetarian plate which consisted of three different dips with sliced pitas. At the lower right was roasted eggplant flavored with olive oil, preserved lemon and cumin(zaalouk); at 7 o'clock was the roasted tomato with marinated bell pepper (shak-shouka),  and lastly, at 1 o'clock were the lovely  caramelized carrots  roasted with garlic and ginger (khizzou). Of the three dips, TC loved the carrots the best while I enjoyed the eggplant mostly to myself. Bert liked both the carrot and the roasted tomato.

Next came the B'stila, a flaky phyllo pastry rolled around curried chicken and almonds, topped with powdered sugar. I wish they'd given us a bigger portion. I could have eaten two of these on my own!

Along with the other main courses, we were served the restaurant's namesake, cous cous with vegetables. The vegetables and their sauce made this kind of too wet for my tastes. After seeing Kirbie's first post, I thought we'd be getting a bigger plate of this, so when I saw the small bowl I was thinking to myself that it wasn't going to be enough. It turned out to be just right, but I was expecting more.

In addition to cous cous, we were served Moroccan bread (liked the crust) and harissa (red chili sauce). There was another sauce in the breadbasket but I forgot what it was made of.

One of the main dishes was the slow cooked beef tagine with peas, carrots, and lemon preserves. Loved the carrots and olives in here. The beef was really tender and I enjoyed this more than the vegetarian tagine. The flavors were due to the "ras el hanout" spices. Here's the recipe I used 2 Christmas dinners ago (here's the post too).

In fact, here it is...the Veggie Berber Tagine; the sauce was slighly different (tomato paprika and ginger) than the beef. The vegetables were mainly carrots, beans, and garbanzos.

Lastly, the dessert, which were sliced oranges and strawberries in a honey and orange blossom water sauce. The fruits were nice and ripe and tasted absolutely refreshing after such a flavorful meal.

Can't have one of my posts without a bathroom shot either. Cool lamps!

Looks like the Hillcrest sign needs some new lights!

We took the surface streets to get to the freeway.  Here's Glenn's Market somewhere along University

The service was great at Kous Kous. The waitress was so helpful with all of her explanations whenever I asked her about specifics (ingredients for example). There was a large dinner party next to us - they got to sit in these cool pillowed ottomans. The seating is really nice here. Our table was near a billowy curtained divided and had a small couch for seating on one side of the table. I really liked both the food and the atmosphere. It was also great that I had the Groupon as well because we saed some $$$ on our dinner, so yay.

Moroccan & Filipino

I think we've started a new tradition. We are good friends with the parents of two of our daughter's classmates. Last year we did a holiday dinner rotation. This year, we were the first to host, and so we did...I didn't want to serve the same thing I did last year which was a Korean food theme. This year, I decided to make my friends and family my trusty guineau pigs for my Moroccan experiment. I also made two Filipino dishes, one which is my tried and true Adobong Manok (Chicken Adobo) recipe and the other, a brand new one that I lifted from the new issue of Saveur (thanks to Marvin from Burnt Lumpia for his post on that), which was "Ulang sa Gata" (Shrimp in Coconut Milk). Here's my cheese less salad. Just open up a bag of Spring Greens as well as dried cranberries and candied walnuts and you're good to go. Oh yeah, plus a bottle of Balsamic Vinagrette which I put in our nice wedding china gravy server. Looks classier that way. Ha. I normally serve this with bleu cheese crumbles for my cheese loving friends. I hate bleu cheese.

You can't go wrong with Cous Cous if you are making Moroccan (or Moroccan like, in my case) food. Basically, boil your liquid - chicken broth, water & a tiny bit of olive oil, pour over your dry ingredients (cous cous, raisins - because I couldn't find dried currants, damn you Henry's!), and cover it for five minutes. Fluff (ha ha, fluffer!) with a fork. Add in chopped cilantro leaves and season with additional salt and/or pepper.Here's the premier of my "Ulang sa Gata". This recipe is so fkn easy. It's on p.84 of the December 2008 issue of Saveur. Yeah, I was surprised but also happy that the food of the Philippines got some exposure in a mainstream foodie mag, especially one so chi-chi as Saveur.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup canola oil
10 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
1 small white onion, thinly sliced
2 tbsp patis (fish sauce), plus more to taste
1 tbsp plam, coconut, or white wine vinegar ( I used nipa palm vinegar)
1 tbsp sugar
2 lbs of head-on shell-on shrimp (medium to large)
*Important to have the head on - they add mega flavor dudes
**Trim the shrimp antennas off ahead of time
1 1/2 cups canned coconut milk. Hell I used the whole can
6 whole green Thai chilis

• Heat canola oil in a wok, add garlic s for 2-3 minutes until golden brown.
• Add onion and cook until lightly browned - about 5 - 6 minutes.
• Stir in patis, vinegar, and sugar and season with black pepper.
• Add de-antenna'd shrimp (those are my words, not Saveur's) to the wok along with the coconut milk and chilis; stir briefly to combine, cover wok tightly and reduce heat to medium-low.
• Simmer until shrimp are cooked through - about 6 minutes
• The rest of the recipe says to uncover the wok and baste the shrimp, blah blah. But I didn't. Just leave the shrimp in there for a few more minutes. Remove from heat. Taste it and season it more if you want. Transfer to a nicer container and serve with white rice. Not that Uncle Ben's shit though.

Oh, look at their beady little eyes...Yummy. This is a dish you need to touch with your fingers. Rip that shrimp's head off and suck out the brainy juices. Oh yeah...I must say this came out pretty good considering that was the first time I've made it. I'll make this again really soon. Thank goodness for Seafood City having head-on shrimp for $2.99!!! Most places carry headless shrimp. The heads and the shells are the key to this dish's flavor! Watch out for those peppers! They are hot! Next time I make this, I'm going to make a slit in each pepper so the dish can be hotter. Here's my standard "make ahead of time and warm it up the next day" "Adobong Manok" (Chicken Adobo). Recipe is here from one of my previous posts in my now defunct old recipe blog. Wait, here is a better link with pictures here. Technically, this dish doesn't even have to be refrigerated, if you want to be old school. The vinegar acts as a preservative. Anyhow, I made this the night before the party and just threw it in a crockpot to warm for the next day. I also garnished it with sliced green onion tops. Okay, scallions!

Here is one of the Moroccan dishes I made, "Ras Al-Hanout Spiced Chicken". I'm not sure how authentic it is, but it sure used up a lot of spices which I had to hunt for at North Park Produce (it's so cheap there! yay!). Here is the recipe here, courtesy of Recipezaar. I simmered it for more than one hour; the meat was falling off the bone. This dish was a hit. Well, either that or my husband and guests were being polite to my face while surreptitiously spitting out the offending food in a napkin and hiding it from me.

This next one is "Slow Cooker Moroccan Brisket (I used Chuck Roast) with Red Onions and Apricots". See the recipe here (courtesy of Food Network). Let me tell you that this was the second time I've ever cooked parsnips. I added carrots to add color in here as well. I couldn't find brisket so I just used Chuck Roast. The meat was so so soft! It made the house smell good too!

I figured this dish would be a "can't fail" recipe. Just stick it in the crock pot and leave it alone. Done in 3-4 hours (if you use the high setting). Everyone seemed to like this dish. Note to self - make it again for a future dinner party. It's made out of WIN.

The desserts: Chocolate Chip Cookies (thank you fundraising cookie dough tub), my Lemon Cheesecake Bars (recipe here) and some baklava I bought at a bakery. Unfortunately, the baklava sucked.

The other desserts: Holiday Oreos (hello red dye no. 5), Ube flavored Polvorone (from Seafood City - it's not by Goldilocks though), and Dark Chocolate Shortbread Stars (Trader Joe's!).

One of the husbands made a Rum Bundt Cake. Kind of strong! But good!

My friend brought some Pan de Coco (Coconut filled bread) for us. Goes well with Bert's coffee...

This tree is supposed to look purple but it looks bluish purple with the flash. I got it last year at Borders for 75% off, plus the black disco ball ornaments. The other ornaments are Star Wars. Can you see Darth Vader at the top? And his ship in the middle? There's R2 and C3P0 in there, as well as Boba Fett.

And yes, the Yoda musical snow globe. "Oh the weather outside is frightful...". This cracked me up plus it was on sale last year the day after Christmas.

I'll be hosting my side of the family's get together next week. I'm going to make it really easy - Chicken Adobo, my deluxe Spam fried rice (because my nephews really like that), and that shrimp dish you saw earlier in this post. My mom will be making Pancit Bihon (noodles) and my bro and sis will be bringing some sort of dessert.