Food of Life food: kuku, and chicken with rice and apricots

Circling back to my previous post about the marvelous coincidence in being given two versions of the same cookbook, Food of Life, I wanted to share some photos of the vibrant, flavorful kuku and my second attempted dish, chicken with rice and apricots. 

Both are really delicious, and I'd say my first efforts were resounding successes except that the kuku fell apart (it's supposed to hold firm so that you can slice it, rather like a frittata) and I could not dislodge 75% of the prized, golden shell layer of the rice dish (the tah-dig, a crust that forms as the rice sort of caramelizes in the pot).

So be it. We still enjoyed these meals and in fact have enjoyed them for days as Food of Life's "serves 6" appears to actually mean "serves 6 with ample leftovers." This is all good because we are a leftovers-loving family.

While the colors of the kuku are magnificent, and the zucchini and parsley tasted as bright as they look, you can see that what was supposed to be a slice is little more than a spooned slop atop some crisped pita.

Whatever. It's like when I'm teaching a canning class and we're making anything with strawberries, I always say "Listen, if your jam doesn't set perfectly, just call it sauce and move on. Who's going to be like, 'Strawberry sauce? No good!' Exactly. No one."

So anyway, back to the food. I really liked the kuku and would definitely make it again. It was fresh, light and yet hearty, and healthy.

Two nights later, I ventured into a more time-intensive recipe, the chicken with rice and apricots. I do not mind putting in effort, but I'll tell y'all that this dish takes a long time. Like three hours long. Let's all give it up for Persian mamas and all other cooks who daily craft such layered meals. Mahgah.

First you prepare the chicken by cubing it and cooking it -for nearly an hour!- with onions and turmeric and other lovely things. Meanwhile, you will optimally soak the rice for two hours and also prepare the onion, apricot, date and golden raisin part of the dish. 

The spices are divine: cinnamon, nutmeg, coriander, cumin, saffron, rose water, advieh (a Persian blend of many of the spices I just mentioned plus dried and ground rose petals), and turmeric.  

I would like to take this moment to give a shout-out to turmeric. It makes everything such a smashing shade of orange-yellow and its purported health benefits, including being an effective anti-inflammatory and powerful antioxidant, are fantastic. 

Not only do both dishes make excellent leftovers, the chicken and rice dish actually improves after a day or two! And, I got to use up the bottle of rose water I've had on hand for a while now. 

Sloth on a couch

The sloth

That would be me. I am sorry to report in a fairly self-pitying tone that I feel a bit like ass today. Did I usher this in by going ahead and making chicken noodle soup last night? No, I didn't. In fact, that was fortuitous because when T got home, looking rather like the wrath himself, he complained of a sore throat and basically jumped into the pot of soup with glee. I ate with one hand propping up my head, he supped (souped; hah!) in front of the TV, laughing wanly though sincerely at John Oliver's Last Week Tonight which is a really clever show.

The couch

That's where I have been for most of the past seven hours. I am still there, as it turns out. A soup lunch seemed very necessary a few hours back, yet reheating chicken soup seemed too onerous. So, I dusted off my blender and made some cold saffron-tomato soup. No cooking, no real chopping, just into the blender and vroom. Often, this lovely soup is pink, but today, because I used a Mr. Stripey tomato (which is primarily yellow) and the saffron, the mixture turned out to be a stunning shade of coral. Not unlike cooked shrimp, really. Some chopped avocado here, a drizzle of oil there. Solid.

One can do many things while on a couch if a computer is close at hand.

Glum over having had to cancel lunch with a friend (because she is one of my favorite people AND we were going to get Ethiopian food; grr; a double loss), I put my energies into a project I pretty much never want to do unless I'm sick or desperate for a holiday gift for hard-to-give-to family members: making a photo book. Jesus h, the captions alone could drive the sanest of us into a vortex of madness, but I persevered -for THREE straight hours because what do I have but time in prostrate form- and successfully completed this scrapbook of sorts. I know I will be exceedingly glad to have it.

Because my camera was also near, I snapped some pics of Nutmeg because I am that person. Isn't he handsome? Outrageously so? If he were human, he'd wear tuxedos all day long just because he'd feel it was the right way to live life. Of this I am certain.