Follow Through...Not So Much

If you know me at all, you know that I really suck at following through with stuff. This did not prove untrue in my recent foray into being vegetarian. Truthfully, I never made it past pescetarian and honestly, I just can't give up fish. I super, triple, over the top love seafood. Anyway, I went home for Thanksgiving and fell off the wagon...badly. I started eating any and all meat in mass quantities and realized that I'd missed it. And then, I started feeling badly about it again and remembered how gross it is and now I'm back onto select meat. In an attempt to remove as much meat as possible from the dinner diet, I have asked some friends for recipes and just purchased Mark Bitman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian book. It should arrive Monday or Tuesday!

In the interim, my childhood (and current!) friend Sara, who doesn't just dabble in being a vegetarian but actually IS one gave me the most amazing recipe that I'm going to share with you good people now (because she said I could). Her mother has been a vegetarian for a long time and in the 80s had a cookbook with this recipe in it. Sara has apparently loved it since then and makes it for her family. I made it last night and we all agreed that it has officially made it into the menu rotation around here. (Well, the adults agreed...Eve ate something less nutritional.)

I have no idea what to call this...Adzuki Yumminess seems appropriate.

Put 2Tbsp of olive oil in a large-ish pan on the stove. Dice a medium onion, dice a medium potato, and slice a medium zucchini and cook in the oil for 3-4 minutes. Then add a cup of adzuki beans. I used drained can, but you can use dried ones that you have soaked. I'm not the patient. Cook for another 5 minutes. Add 1 1/4 cup of good veggie stock (I made mine using a recipe on all recipes...my first stock ever!) and 2 whole cloves (to be removed later). Then add in 3Tbsp of tomato paste, 3Tbsp of red wine, and 3Tbsp of cognac (a mini bottle is more than enough) and bring to a boil. Simmer, covered for 20-30 minutes until thickened. I simmered for about 30 and then CRH decided he wanted crescent rolls with it, so it continued to simmer while those cooked. Season to taste with salt and pepper!!

This was FANTASTIC!! Thank you for the recipe, Sara!