eating: cafe medina inspired tagine

i love love love vancouver's cafe medina for brunch (if you haven't been you should, post haste!), and my favourite breakfast item has to be the tagine. it's a savory tomato & chickpea stew over merguez sausage and topped with poached eggs. this morning, too tempted by the overcast weather and cozy fireplace, we decided to stay in and try making this at home. oh my one word: delicious.

we just jotted down the recipe on our kitchen chalkboard as we went, improvising based on what we knew was in the dish, and general flavours of moroccan cuisine. everything was added rustic-style, in order, to a deep skillet:

2 tbsp olive oil
1 red bell pepper, slivered
1/2 red onion, slivered
1 tbsp garlic, chopped
1 can plum tomatoes
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp cumin
pinch of chili flakes
pinch of sea salt
freshly ground pepper
1/4 preserved lemon, slivered
1/4 cup sundried moroccan olives, pitted
1/2 can chickpeas, drained
2 merguez sausages
poached eggs
cilantro, for garnish

so - easy. you simply heat the olive oil. add the pepper, onion & garlic & sauté over medium high heat until tender. reduce heat to medium low and add tomatoes, including juice. break up the tomatoes a little with a spoon. add cilantro, seasonings, lemon and olives. simmer for 30-45 minutes.

meanwhile, cook sausages in a cast iron skillet. once your sausages are cooked through, remove from heat, slice on an angle and return to skillet. allow edges to crisp slightly. add stew to the cast iron skillet. leave on low heat while you make eggs.

softly poach eggs - two per person. i use this tried & true method from everybody likes sandwiches. meanwhile, plate stew, remove eggs with a slotted spoon. add on top of the stew and sprinkle with chopped cilantro, a few slivers of preserved lemon and freshly ground pepper.

you can serve with a side of warm flatbread or grilled focaccia. i might add a side of roasted zucchini as well, if i was trying to stretch this into a family-style meal for a large group. as this is, it serves 2-4 people, depending on how hungry they are.

yummy: abc cupcakes

you simply must check out the abc cupcakes by alicia of the red deer. she's going through the alphabet and making cupcakes featuring ingredients of each letter, one batch per week. get in on the weekly vote to help select which ingredient to feature, and touch back in every monday to see the result and the recipe with step-by-step instructions. seriously delicious and mouthwatering. i love that she picks unusual feature ingredients, things like guinness, irish whiskey and nougat.

my favourite so far? i love lemon, and these look like the best lemon cupcakes i've ever seen. now that it's getting cooler i'm going to have to find some folks to feed (so i don't eat them all myself) and get cracking.

weekend project: tea in a jar

ok, my weekend projects have gotten really, really easy lately. can you tell it's summer and it's hot and my time sitting at the computer is spread too thinly? well, worry not - i will pick up my s#%t soon but in the meantime why not make something cool to drink?

saw this post about tea in a jar over at amy karol's angry chicken blog the other day. i love real iced tea, unsweetened for me, and think this is a great idea. concentrated brewed tea that you can add to a glass with water and ice, stored in a small jar in the fridge. perfect! it would be great to have on hand when the urge to make tea-flavoured summer cocktails strikes too.