Tonight I made a bookmarked recipe from Vegan Eats World, Eggplant Shakshuka. Now if you don't already have a favorite foreign(to you) word to say, Shakshuka is definitely your new favorite. For many years I thought my favorite foreign word was "grapadoras" but then decided it was "albondigas." Shakshuka is clearly better than both of those, so sorry spanish, but Hebrew has you by a nose on this one. Shakshuka is a Tunisian dish dating back as far as the Ottoman empire, traditionally served with poached eggs on top. But instead of eggs, Terry puts green tahini sauce, the best condiment I've ever tasted, all over the top, to compensate. It's really a big bowl of vegetables. She mentiones that she likes to serve it with pita or crusty bread, but I had neither of those tonight, and so I served it over brown rice. It rocked the house. Obviously.

I had planned to make this tonight, and picked up the necessary produce for it at the market this weekend, but after a long day at work, then a long wait in nasty traffic, I arrived home with a case of the Mondays. All I really wanted was another bowl of mac and cheeze, which I made and ate over and over again last week. I was skeptical of making too healthy a dish, afraid it wouldn't appease my irritable mood and craving for comfort food. But I decided to roll with it anyways, since my beautiful japanese eggplants were fading fast and because green tahini sauce sounded promising. The results were everything but boring, and completely packed with warming, winter-blues-curing, heat and tanginess. It's comfort food at its best, and all it is, is a bowl full of vegetables. So that means it's totally fine to smother it in tahini. You earned it, right?

I would roll with brown rice again, even though it says to mop it up with crusty bread. Truth be told, I'm not a mopper. I don't like to dip bread in stuff. Soggy bread ensues, and it's not really a good time for me. Plus, bread fills me up too fast and a food coma will surely follow. So brown rice is a great alternative to bread for the faint of starchy hearts.

I am heading home (far away from my home) to visit family and friends this weekend and shall remain there until the first week of January ends. A nice hiatus from New Jersey and from my life here. While I'm home, I will cook more from Vegan Eats World, especially for Wigilia, our Polish Xmas Eve celebration, for which I will make the spanakopita, pierogis, and a soynog cake! We will also take shots of Wisniowka, my favorite part of xmas eve. Okay, maybe it will be just my mom and I taking the shots, but whatever. My aunt cranks out some mean polish lakes that she both deglutenizes and veganizes to please both our dietary restrictions. Everyone should have a Polish aunt like my aunt. She rocks the house.

Is anyone else Polish? What are you bringing to Wigilia?