Are you ready to hear about my super productive weekend?
Well, it started off super productively. It quickly devolved into napping, watching two movies and, of course, sitting on my butt in front of the TV writing this blog post. But first, I woke up at 6:30 on Saturday morning and cleaned out the fridge and freezer before Nate even woke up. What! So impressed with myself.
The cup of decaf coffee I had after dinner on Friday night? Yeah… that may have had something to do with it.
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Here in Utah, when people learn I’m from Boston, they often ask me why I don’t have a Boston accent. The truth is that neither of my parents grew up in New England, so the chances of me developing a Boston accent were pretty slim. Nate likes to tell me that my accent comes out after a few beers (bee-ahs!), but I say, psh. It’s probably just a mirroring thing. These days I probably have more of a Utah accent than anything – no big dill. (And for those of you wondering what a Utah accent is, that’s it right there.)
Well, I learned on Friday that I do have an accent, and it’s, um, not what I thought. My co-worker informed me, after much prefacing about how he liked the way I spoke, that my accent is Harvard valley girl. Oh, and that he’s mentioned this to other people we work with and they’ve confirmed it. What!
Well, I did not go to Harvard, nor did I grow up in any valley. I’m not exactly legally blond over here. I am forced to interpret the Harvard valley girl thing as something along the lines of “well brought-up but dumb” or “you say smart things but sound dumb saying them.” And they let me talk to clients… why? My mom was kind enough to offer her take as “smart but unpretentious.” But now I’m realizing “pretentious and dumb” is probably closer to a direct translation. Groan. Suffice it to say I will be speaking in a monotone at work for a few days! Like, totally.
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So much for seasonally-appropriate meals.
Maybe I should be posting light dishes filled with tender spring vegetables, but this right here is called a chili craving that doesn’t care about the temperature. And I have to share it with you because it’s just so tasty! Plus I’m sure there’s still a spring chill in the air for some of you out there.
For some reason, I had the intense desire to make chili last week. Or maybe it was the intense desire to eat chocolate for dinner? Either way, this chili was born. And as luck would have it, the skies really clouded up before I had the chance to take these pictures. Sigh. Well, I guess you weren’t going to eat chili on a sunny day anyway, were you?
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So I have kind of been holding onto this recipe for a while. Well, “recipe” is maybe a bit of a stretch – this is really just another of my favorite ways to serve that delicious muhammara. But you see, I didn’t want to overwhelm you with muhammara recipes, so I paced myself. Kinda.
In case you missed it a few weeks ago, muhammara is a Syrian red pepper and walnut dip. It’s super flavorful and guaranteed to jazz up anything you use it in. This flatbread is a prime example!
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It’s all about the first impression.
A while ago, I tried out a (bad) lentil taco recipe, and forever dismissed lentils and tacos as being all wrong for each other in terms of flavor and texture.
WRONG. (That’s me making the buzzer sound. Sometimes I get frustrated with how many sounds I apparently use to communicate that just don’t come across when typed.)
Anyway, it turns out that lentils and tacos are so totally RIGHT for each other. It just took me far too long to discover it because of the rude first impression lentil tacos made on me. I don’t know what got me thinking about them again, but I recently gave them another shot, and discovered there are a few secrets to making my ideal lentil taco:
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