There's No Place Like Home

After a great trip to Arizona and many highlights, it was good to return to Pennsylvania. Because of the time change, we ended up getting to bed at 3 AM and sleeping deep into Sunday morning. But after we got up and moving, we made it out for one of our favorite walks, the Reservoir Loop!

Critter bones. Not sure what kind of critter, though. 

For dinner, we tried our hand at putting together a platter. This kind of presentation seems common with Ethiopian cooking. So we put together a menu of lentils, potatoes and carrots, tomato salad, collards, and cheese made from curdling milk.

Ethiopian Cooking Update

Two weeks ago, I had a Sunday evening work obligation, so we pushed the Ethiopian cooking to Monday. Injera, of course, was on the menu, along with a main dish of chicken in a tumeric sauce and spicy collard greens.

This past Sunday it was back to injera, but this time accompanied by a beef and collard green stew. 

The unique spice combination for this one is called mitmita. It's hard to describe, but it gave a nice kick and a unique flavor profile to compliment the beef and injera. 

More Skiing and More Ethiopian Cooking

Even though it's been sunny and pleasant the past couple of days, the weekend gave us a nice covering of snow. On Saturday, we were able to make our way around the fairgrounds before heading back to the Lemon House on Sunday.

Then it was back to our Ethiopian cookbook for "shiro salad."

This one begins with chickpea flour, which you make into a paste and let it cool. 

Then, we rolled them into small balls and fried them. So something like croutons, but better.

And then there was the injera, which is getting progressively better each week.

Sunday Skiing and Ethiopian Cooking

While we have been getting snow, we haven't been getting too much accumulation. So on Sunday afternoon, we gave the Lemon House a try, gambling that the extra elevation would give us some more snow cover. Indeed, there were only a couple of patches of ground, so we had a very nice afternoon to be outside testing our ski skills.

After that, we came back home for some Sunday Ethiopian cooking. This time, we had a "spicy pumpkin stew" along with "Lenten lentil salad."

We tried to arrange the meal on our injera--and this time, everyone made their own injera. I currently have a fresh batch of batter fermenting for next week, so we'll see how it turns out the second time. But overall, we have very much enjoyed this addition to our food experience.

A chocolate dessert was a perfect way to finish this spicy dish.

Random pictures and Ethiopia Update

A few pictures from the last few days, to include a Shoes 'n Brews run with Ruth (only one of us could do the "brews"part, though)!

Resting beagle...

Scene from the Magic the Gathering tournament!

Wonder beagle!

One ingredient in last week's Ethiopian dish was sprouted fenugreek seeds. Step 1 was to purchase some fenugreek seeds, via Amazon of course. Step 2 was to water some of these seeds and let them sprout, leading to the final product...

We picked a pasta recipe, but the pasta was made with teff flour. Here is one of my favorite helpers kneading the dough.

And here is another favorite helper cutting the dough into pasta.

The creamy pasta sauce, with the sprouts, carrots, and black olives.

Bubbling Injera

I put last week's remaining injera batter in the refrigerator with the intention of using it again for this week's menu. I wasn't expecting more fermentation to happen, but when I took the batter out and let it warm to room temperature, I saw bubbles.

Indeed, this week's injera looked slightly more like what you might see from people who actually know what they are doing. 

For this week, we topped our injera with a chicken and onion sauce recipe.

Making the onion sauce had similarities to French onion soup. You start with a huge batch of onions and cook them for a very long time. The difference is that with this, you add the Ethiopian spice blends, which give it a distinctive flavor as well as a spicy kick.

For the rest of the meal, we had a tomato salad and a desert of stewed pears. I have already picked next week's menu, which will include--interestingly enough--sprouted fenugreek seeds!