Household Blog

This dish is so good I made it two nights in a row, the first night with just eggplant, then again last night I used eggplant, zucchini, sweet bell pepper and onions. I could easily see this being adapted for fall and winter veggies too. So easy. Just chop, stir bake, and serve over rice, millet, quinoa—your grain of choice.

You can substitute your favorite hot sauce for sriracha or use honey instead of agave nectar, just do so to taste as they have different potency.

Spicy Summer Vegetables

• 1.5 pounds vegetables, chopped into largeish bite-sized pieces
• 6 oz. (3/4 cup) tomato paste
• 1 to 2 Tbsp. Sriracha (depending on your heat tolerance)
• 2 Tbsp. agave nectar
• 2 Tbsp. oil
• 1 heaping Tbsp. dried oregano, or 3 Tbsp. minced fresh oregano

Preheat oven to 400. In the bottom of a large bowl, combine everything but the veggies. Add vegetables and mix well. Spread mixture onto a cookie sheet and bake until fork tender. Serve over your grain of choice—rice, millet, quinoa, buckwheat, etc. Garnish with sesame seeds. Rub your belly for joy.

Serves 4 as a main course, 6—8 as a side dish.

A friend of mine recently asked me how I cook amaranth that I don’t burn it. Oddly, I’ve never had this problem, but when a complication threw itself into my schedule recently, I figured out a solution for her.

Having just put a pot of quinoa on to cook, I received a call demanding a needs-your-immediate-attention Web site update. The quinoa had just started to boil, so I turned off the heat and left it to do the update, thinking I would just come back later and finish cooking it.

Well, it might sound like the most obvious thing in the world, but when I returned to the quinoa about thirty or forty minutes later, it was *perfectly* cooked. So my conversation with my friend came back to mind and within that week tried doing amaranth and rice and hulled oats the same way: bring it to a boil, then cut the heat off and let it cook the rest of the way passively. LIKE A CHARM it worked. Perfectly tender grains, sometimes a little leftover water to drain off even (I often have to add more), energy saved, and my kitchen doesn’t get so goshdurn hot – a consideration because I try not to run the AC until it’s sweltering. And I’m pitta, so that’s saying something.

So I had to share. Have you tried cooking things passively? I’m wanting to try this with pasta and potatoes and such – has anyone tried this already?

Love from foodie land – Anna