Eastern Inclinations

Johnnycakes is on quite a roll lately concocting various spice blends. Spice collection seems to be his new hobby. He lent his new talent for blending delicious flavors to our dinner this evening.
We had a few eggplants left over from a recent trip to the Baltimore City Farmers Market. We are sort of tired of eggplant Parmesan, despite having a good recipe for making the classic Italian fare, and decided to think of other recipes we could try.
We decided on Baba Ghanoush and an eastern rub on the chicken and began to compile the necessary ingredients. Johnnycakes grilled the eggplants (another new hobby) until they browned and softened. We then baked the eggplants until completely cooked and skinned the blackened vegetables. We mixed the eggplant with tahini paste, lemon, garlic and cumin until we liked the taste. A garnish of chopped flat leaf parsley and a sprinkle of olive oil completed the mixture.
We served the Baba Ghanoush with chicken, flavored with garlic, cardamom, ground coriander, cinnamon and cumin, and grilled onions and pepper, pita bread and basmati rice.
We generally have not been going to these great lengths on weeknights in the past several months but we seemed to have the motivation tonight. We didn't end up eating until after 8 p.m.! Well, at least we ate a great meal and have our lunches packed for tomorrow.

So Long Summer

I know that we haven't posted at all this summer, or this year for that matter, but I figured I'd post some photos of the cooking and feasting extravaganzas we've had this summer. I hope you enjoy the photos as much as we enjoyed eating all this great stuff!

I only wish I would have taken more photos this summer. Johnnycakes has become a barbecue master while I continue to eat and experiment with whatever comes to mind.

At First Sight

As promised, a Couple of Cooks blog has returned. We finally got our new camera after several long and undocumented months. I have to say that it feels a little strange to be posting and writing so I figured I'd just post some photos and let them speak for themselves until I get my bloglegs back:)

A Hiatus

A hiatus from the food blog has been forced upon us. Our camera is broken! We cannot photograph any of our culinary creations at the current time because our Nikon Cool Pix has gone black on us and a new camera just isn't in the budget this month.
Please know that we have gotten off our holiday induced bender of takeout and cookies and have returned to our semi-healthy home cooked meals. I'll try to post when I see something interesting or have a photo available to use but it's just not the same when you describe something without supplying a photo.
Hopefully we'll return re-energized and with a better camera for photographing food. Good eats!

Cookie Monster

That's what I am. A cookie monster. In fact, I'm more like a non-cooking, submarine eating, chocolate consuming monster. Help! Derailment isn't the word. I haven't even been working out this week! Tis the season...

Holiday Parties

There won't be any cooking in our household the next several days. First off, Johnnycakes is out of town for a few days for work. Secondly, tonight starts off the holiday season for me. I'm going to my first of four holiday parties this week which promise to be full of tasty holiday treats and beverages. I've been really good about diet and exercise the past month so I'm hoping to not get totally derailed this week. Wish me luck!

Monochromatic Meal

They say the more colors in the meal, the healthier. If that's true, then this meal is not very healthy. It's pretty much a monochromatic scale of yellow. Grilled chicken thigh, fried plantains, baked french fried potatoes and half an ear of yellow corn. Despite the shades of yellow, this meal was delicious.