I am in Sweden visiting my daughter and her family. We were invited to their Persian friends house for a cookout challenge – her khoresh bademjun v. my khoresh bademjun. Unfortunately, on the day of the challenge, their family was sick, so it was cancelled. Since I had already roasted 6 medium eggplants, it would…
Category: Persian
Lamb and Butternut Squash Stew
We are very lucky to have access to local, pasture-raised lamb, which is a more sustainable red meat option. Although we eat very little red meat, when we do, it is usually in a stew. So I am trying to switch my beef stews to lamb wherever it makes sense. One I have been working…
Lentil Fesenjan
I have been creating so many new recipes, and vegan ones, for my next cookbook, that I needed a break. I made my own vegan version of fesenjan, so I decided to simply try someone else’s. I am writing this as I try it, so, come along with me as I make The Minimalist Baker’s…
Roasted Vegetable Kookoo
I included a good number of kookoos, or Persian omelets, on this blog and in my first cookbook. For the most part, they are very traditional kookoos. For my next cookbook, I decided to create a mash-up of one of our go-to dinners – roasted vegetables and eggs – as a kookoo. Oh wow! It…
Winter Squash Polo
It is the time of year when I start to use winter squash a lot. I used kabocha squash tonight, but you could use butternut or other easily peeled squash. Like many of my polos (rice dishes), this was made with what I had in the house. So, in addition to the kabocha squash, I…
Dark Chocolate Pomegranate Molasses Bark
I love pomegranate molasses. I love dark chocolate. And I love pistachios. But I really love putting the three together in my new creation – dark chocolate bark with pomegranate molasses and pistachios. It is delicious with just the chocolate and pomegranate molasses, but the pistachios add saltiness and texture that just takes it up…
Chicken and Fava Bean Polo
How to turn a fail into a success… I had planned to make chicken tinga for dinner, when I realized that I had defrosted the wrong chicken, had no tomatoes, no chipotle peppers, and no corn tortillas 🤦♀️. So I explored my options knowing that I needed to use the chicken tonight. We had broccoli,…
Cumin Chicken & Rice (Morgh Zereh ba Berenj)
Talk about comfort food! And memories of my mother! Another mash-up of my husband’s and my backgrounds. I set out to make a chicken and rice dish with a bit more flavor by adding a good bit of cumin along with turmeric, and bay leaves. When I went to the store today, I was able…
Baklava experiment
In my quest to combine Pacific Northwest foods with Persian foods, I decided to jump into making one of the foods that has always intimidated me – baklava. Not just any baklava, but I wanted to experiment with using hazelnuts and walnuts. Not only that, but I decided to bring my love for orange juice-based…
Persian Rice with Cabbage and Lentils (Kalam Polo ba Adas)
Cabbage, lentils and tomato lie at the heart of vegetarian comfort food. And I do love cabbage. It gets a bad rap, but it is so versatile. Cabbage can be stir fried, braised, stuffed, pickled, or, as I even like to munch on it, eaten raw. And lentils, I hated lentils as a child. They…
Andrea's Garden Cooking 