Bob gave me go ahead to add more vegetarian dishes into the rotation after the falafel success and the butternut squash spring rolls. Poor man, doesn’t know exactly what he is in for. Such as … today’s experiment – a variation on a vegan dish from my vegan cookbook.

The original recipe calls for multiple red peppers and eggplant. I don’t happen to like eggplant and Bob does not like bell peppers of most varieties, so this proved challenge number one. Well, I had some leftover orange and yellow pepper and a little red pepper, so I just used those. (This is still clean out and use of what is in the fridge week since we leave next week meals.) I also used zucchini as I like zucchini in place of the eggplant. So I roasted those with some olive oil and roasted a few cloves of garlic. I admit to getting confused on the recipe – it told me to roast the whole bulb, but then only calls for three cloves. While that was roasting, I sautéed some onion in a little olive oil then added spices. I think I used thyme, oregano (from the garden) coriander and pepper. To that went some white wine to deglaze the pan and a can of peeled tomatoes (juice included) that I crushed up as I added them. Add two bay leaves, the chickpeas and the peppers, garlic and zucchini; let simmer for a while. Sorry, I didn’t time this, I really just added, stirred, tasted and added again over the course of an hour or so. I thought it needed more liquid at one point, so I added a half cup of veggie broth.

That did seem to work well and the result as pretty good. I still have an issue with the texture of chickpeas (and beans in general) but I swear I must be doing something wrong since they don’t have that texture in the dishes I eat out (mainly the Indian place that opened up here). But I’ll keep at it until I get it right.

I did make this a non-vegan (but totally vegetarian meal) as I added a goat cheese polenta to the dish. It worked pretty well and is a make again with a few tweaks.

… Oh – the library is done and it came out great!

I figure Bob will get a meat dish tomorrow. I’m cooking for our anniversary as we will celebrate while in Europe next week. (So excited!)

Gratuitous kitty picture ….

He is just too darn cute.