various items

I haven't posted in a few weeks and I think part of the reason why is that I really need to get up some photos of the food. This food blogging business really seems to work better with pictures.
Part of the problem is that our internet service here in Dushanbe isn't that great and we get nicked if we go over our 4gb a month limit, and I think the limit is even less for uploads.

Tonight Boulangerie Beans & Potatoes from Bittman's HTEV.

They are in the oven now and have to back for another hour and a half. Yesterday I made a big pot of red beans. We used them to make veggie burgers (onions, beans, rolled oats, chili powder, salt, & pepper) they came out a bit dry as I messed up the proportions, but all in all not too bad.

Day before I tried my hand at making homemade English Muffins... not perfect as I mis read the recipe and tried to correct for it, but on the whole they were amazing, a bit denser than I normally like. However, the nearest available English Muffin is probably somewhere West of Istanbul. They did come out looking like they should and we were pretty happy to have them.

Day before that I tried to recreate two recipes from our recent vacation in Turkey. One was simply fire roasted red peppers in vinegar with garlic, and the other was fire roasted/smoked eggplant with roasted garlic and lemon juice. We have a local (traditional?) Tajik barbecue that was looks a bit like rusty scrap metal and earlier this year we had to take down part of the Bay Leaf Tree (I think they are normally Bay Leaf Bushes) as some of it didn't survive the tremendously cold winter here last year. Turns out the wood is fantastic for smoking veggies.

Both of those dishes turned out better than what we'd had in Bodrum, Turkey on our vacation. At least Brandy was pretty pleased with them.

Oh and I made ketchup (Bittman's recipe). Who knew that you could make your own? I've grown up with always getting it in a bottle. Turned out pretty good, but its a bit odd. I've never had non-processed ketchup and our experience has been that making food at home will always beat the processed stuff, buts its almost as if it has too much flavor.... its going to be a great base for Barbecue Sauce.

good eating.