Super Natural Cooking

Good news and bad news. Let’s do the bad news first: I wish this cookbook would lie flat when open. I always have to pin the edges under whatever random heavy things are on my counter. Spiral-bound recipes books are very nice for this reason. Now, the good news: I highly recommend this cookbook for the following recipe alone. It was amazing!! The recipe is for the Muhammara sauce as well as the kabobs. I was trying to imagine how to serve it and decided something bready was needed and going along with the Middle Eastern theme, I decided to make pita bread. I found a recipe in The Joy of Cooking and boy was it easy! You make a basic yeasty dough, let it rise for a while then split it into eight little balls which rest under a towel while one by one, they are rolled out into a flat circle and baked. I used my pizza stoneware and could only cook one at a time, but at 3 minutes each, it didn’t take long. They are perfect! Just like what you’d buy in the store, but warm, soft and fresh. Mmm.

Now back to the main recipe. While the pita dough was rising I got to work roasting a couple red peppers for the sauce. You can use bottled roasted red peppers, but I wanted to roast them from scratch. While the peppers were roasting I assembled all the remaining ingredients for the sauce: red pepper flakes, cumin, toasted walnuts, bread crumbs, olive oil, agave syrup, and tomato paste. The recipe called for pomegranate molasses in place of the agave syrup, but I didn’t have any, and couldn’t find any in the store. Heidi does suggest using pomegranate juice instead, but I didn’t have that either and so for a bit of sweetness I opted for the agave syrup. I will definitely keep my eyes open for pomegranate molasses though… sounds delicious! Once the peppers were roasted and skinned I added them to the rest of the ingredients and pureed it all with a bit of salt. The recipe also suggests adding water to bring the sauce to the right consistency, but mine was fine without. I stuck it in the fridge and starting getting the kabobs assembled.

When I was buying the ingredients for this recipe, I had my doubts about putting lemons on the skewers and barbecuing them along with the other vegetables, but on they went, along with red onion wedges, tofu cubes and whole cremini mushrooms. I brushed the kabobs with olive oil and salt and then let The Man take over the barbecuing duties. As he barbecued, I baked the pitas. It all came together in an amazingly delicious-smelling and eye-catching ensemble.

To eat, I laid down a pita and removed the veggies from the skewers, the softened lemons squeezed themselves and soon there was warm lemon juice coating the rest of the veggies and dripping down my arm. I ignored it, slathered on some Muhammara and dug in. It was heaven. The spicy, roasted dip was amazing and was livened up with the barbecued lemon juice. The red onions were deliciously tender and slightly charred at the edges as were the mushrooms and tofu. There was silence around the table as we devoured the kabobs wrapped with pitas and covered with Muhammara. Wow. I wouldn’t change anything in this recipe. If you are a meat eater, you could easily substitute the tofu with cubes of meat. The end result was quite visually appealing as well – the red onions, yellow lemons, neutral mushrooms and tofu and red-brown sauce. My mouth is watering thinking about it all.

So go! Buy this book and try it for yourself!! You will not be disappointed. And with that, I’m off to snack on the leftover pitas and sauce – yes the sauce recipe makes enough for leftovers… perfect!

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