The saga of leek soufflé

Before we go shopping, we like to plan at least four or five dinners, assuming we’ll just wing some or carry/dine out.  In the old days, we did this by arduously scouring our cook books, often resorting to just blindly opening a book to a random page and hoping the recipes thereat would tickle our curiosity.  Happily that process has now been replaced with fervent blog browsing wherefrom we pilfer recipes from the amazing, creative internet denizens. 

 The choices are generally chosen as the result of a fabulous photo, a bloggers blandishing blurb or because a recipe calls for ingredients we have or want. 

 Occasionally, whether because of the complexity of the recipe, lack of interest or momentum, one of these selections will not only be pushed back during the week but also to the next week or later.  We very strongly cling to our picks, so even when this occurs, we generally, finally, force ourselves to make the meal – if with a bit of resignation. 

 Years ago, one such sort – leek soufflé – stayed on the schedule for literally months!  As a name it is not so offensive, though it does sound a little bland and perhaps potentially time consuming, thus, maybe these factors combined grew our mammoth lack of enthusiasm. 

 Several leeks rotted in our bin and at last we determined to not just remove it from our list but forever scrub from any future consideration.  Now, when a meal resides on our manifest more than a couple weeks, one of us will often say, “Looks like we might have another leek soufflé!”

 Jen made just that remark toward planned Aloo Gobi – Aloo.  Gobi!!!  It had been pushed back at least two weeks, probably because we have eaten a lot of Indian-like food recently and also because we’ve had so many delicious meals, planned and spontaneous. 

 I nearly agreed before realizing, we love Aloo Gobi and it was decreed meal of the day. 

 Then, we ran into some problems. 

 The link to the recipe was emailed home but had been there so long (other recipes were included as well), it was deleted.  The recipe came from a site visited infrequently – it has nice bold colors and the text if framed by bold black lines (and I think it has a rather amusing name) – which neither of us could (still can’t..) remember.

 We yahoo’d once our brains were fully wracked but the returns were not what we wanted.  So we searched some of the usual suspects, only one of which had anything close:  Gobi Matar Masala. 

 Figuring the sauce was close enough and since none of her recipes have ever disappointed this was what we ran with except there was another problem:  We already ate the cauliflower.

 *

 Thus begat a very lovely Indian style curry with garbanzos, potatoes, peas and mystery can.

 I doubled the amount of water she calls for so it could simmer longer (It’s Indian, it should cook all day!); also diced and browned the potato so they held shape better.

 The stately result was very Christmas-y with the bright red tomatoes and glimmering green peas but I can’t show you that because my camera iq is solidly two standard deviations below the norm.  In fact, of about 12 shots, this was the best I could do:

 It really was very attractive and very delicious and, since we pilfer so much from her site, (and Jen, since you and I are the only ones that read this blog, this means us..  Ha, ha!) she has book full of delicious concoctions:  Vegan Yum Yum, Decadent (but doable).

 You can’t beat that.

-D