Today I would like to take you on a trip to the Middle East. Somehow, lots of vegan dishes come from the Middle East: tabbouleh, fresh fruit salads, falafel... and mujadara. Mujadara, also spelled as mujaddara or m'judhara, is also known as the "poor mans meal", and dates back to medieval times in Arab history. First mentions of mujaddara can be found in a 1226 cookbook "Kitab al-Tabikh" but its history dates back to the biblical times of the great hunger of Esau:

32 “Look, I’m dying of hunger,” Esau said. “What good are those rights to me?”33 But Jacob said, “First promise to sell me your rights.” So Esau promised to do it. He sold Jacob all the rights that belonged to him as the oldest son.34 Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and some lentil stew. Esau ate and drank. Then he got up and left.

 Genesis 25:32-34 New International Reader's Version (NIRV)
Salloum H. and Peters J. From the lands of figs and olives: over 300 delicious and unusual recipes from the Middle East and North Africa, p. 199.

I first heard about mujadara from my local little Middle Eastern store where I used to stock up on falafel and pickled peppers. One day, the nice lady suggested that I try mujadara which I eagerly did. I had it cold - as a salad - and I loved it immediately. I remember reading somewhere that it took many centuries for mujaddara to be introduced to the Western world because the native cultivators of its tradition did not see it as something that might be exciting to the Western man, and just a type of cheap eats. So, is it yet another type of rice and beans? Let's find out!

The original mujaddara has twice as much rice as lentils and used to be "dressed up" with meat for celebrations - but for obvious reasons we are not going to investigate that version. Although we will "dress it up" with more veggies, and use a 1:1 proportion of lentils to rice, to balance our macronutrients better. As we know, lentils are a great source of vegetarian protein, especially paired with rice. The poor man's stew originally consisted of cooked rice and lentils, and was topped with fried onions, served hot or cold as a salad. We are going to make it in a way simpler way: as a one-pot dish, which will save us a lot of time.



Ingredients:
For mujaddara:
1 cup rice
1 cup green lentils
1 large white onion, finely chopped
2 tablespoons of oil of your choice
(I used grapeseed)
3 cups of water

Also:
2-3 red peppers
vegan cheese (optional)

1. Do you know one of these jokes that every recipe starts with "grab a clean pot"? Well, here we go again. Grab a clean pot, but you're gonna need only one. Drizzle some oil on the bottom and let it heat up while you chop your onions finely. 
2. Fry your onions until beautifully golden brown. Mix them carefully every now and then not to burn them like I did! 
3. Carefully add 3 cups of water, then rice and lentils. Cook for about 8-10 minutes or until rice and lentils are soft. They may have a different cooking time depending on their kind, so make sure by checking the packaging that you get rice and lentils with similar cook time. Start preheating your oven to 350 F - it's gonna take a while.
4. Mix it every now and then to avoid sticking. When water evaporates completely and the stew has thick consistency, remove it from the stove. 
5. Cut the seeds out of your peppers and stuff them with mujadara. You can leave them open or keep the cap to cover them. 
6. Bake until the peppers become beautifully soft. 
7. Top with vegan cheese (optional).

It was a tough week and the Friday night was calling for comfort food... And then I saw a sign on my way home, which I will show you later in this post. But first things first: have you heard of gumbo? It's a traditional Creole dish which became popular thanks to the Creole inhabitants of New Orleans, Louisiana. Apparently, the word gumbo originated from Africa, and means okra, which is exactly why I decided to use okra in this recipe. 

I also decided we are going to be traveling around the world in these cooking series. I really want to explore more foreign cuisines. So far, we've been to Poland where we had vegan gluten-free spinach pierogi and buckwheat bread, so considering that I'm Polish, we didn't go far! Fasten your seatbelts dear and let's try this Creole goodness in a version from the beautiful state of Lousiana!

So let's do some engineering. 

What makes gumbo - gumbo?

A densifying agent. 

I used both roux (made with a tablespoon of grapeseed oil and a tablespoon of buckwheat flour) and okra, which is known for being a little slimy. The dish started from preparing the roux.

Vegetables. 

Traditional Creole flavor composition includes parsley, bay leaf, green onions, dried cayenne pepper and dried black pepper. Tomatoes are commonly used in both versions of gumbo. However, we are aiming at a more New-Orleans-inspired version. Louisiana's native Cajun chefs use the Cajun cuisine's "holy trinity" in Creole dishes. The "holy trinity" consists of diced onion, green bell pepper and celery. I used a green bell pepper instead and I didn't have selery so I diced an onion, a red pepper, some cherry tomatoes and a small potato. We should try to make the original Creole gumbo one day tho!

Meat and/or seafood. 

Creole gumbo consists of just one of these, while the New Orleans kind allows to mix them. We are going to make ours with vegan sausages and dry soy patties which my mom sent me from Poland. I soaked the patties in soy sauce and water. Note: a vegetable-only gumbo z'herbes exists too. But first, we wanna taste the 'real deal'.

Rice. 

The dish is traditionally served over rice but in my twisted recipe we're going to eat it over buckwheat and millet.

Alright, let's go!

Ingredients for 5 portions:

"Meats":
2 spicy vegan sausages
4-5 dry soy patties
1 tablespoon of soy sauce
half a cup of water

Roux:
2 tablespoons of buckwheat flour*
you can use any savory flour you like
2 tablespoons of grapeseed oil*
you can use any oil you like

Veggies:
1 red bell pepper
1 baking potato
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 onion
150g fresh okra
10 cherry tomatoes
5 cups of water

Spices:
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon paprika
1 teaspoon nutritional yeast (optional)
1 tablespoon marjoram

Preparation:

1. Start by chopping your base veggies: potato, onion, pepper and tomatoes into small cubes. 
2. In the meantime, make the roux by mixing the oil and flour of your choice together at the bottom of a large pot. Let it thicken and become brown in color. 
3. Then, add your chopped veggies to the roux and fry until the base releases the aroma. You may want to add two more tablespoons of oil. 
4. In the meantime, lay out your dry soy patties on a plate or in a bowl and pour water with soy sauce over them, then press. You will need to turn them upside down at some point so they soak the soy sauce evenly. 
5. When your onions are translucent and very aromatic, it's time to add spices, okra and 4 cups of water. 
6. Cook for about 7-8 minutes until the okra is soft and releases its slimy texture. For a little less slime, you can add a dash of apple cider vinegar, but that's optional. 
7. At the end, cut your soy patties into chicken-like stripes and slice your sausages, then add them to your gumbo. Voila!

Here is the nutritional value of this gumbo:

One portion (out of 5):

Protein	Fat	Carbs	Calories
13,6	10,8	17,6	228,8

One portion (out of 5) plus 50g millet and 50g buckwheat:

Protein	Fat	Carbs	Calories
19,6	12,3	52,6	408,8

Vegan gumbo is also very transformative. It took me exactly 5 mins to put some gumbo in the wrap and heat it up while I chopped some greens and popped a half of avo out of the shell. Delicious! And also good if you want to cut down on carbs but eat something tasty. I used a wrap that's higher in protein because it uses chickpea flour. Yum! 



Have you ever had gumbo? Let me know!

Oh, and one more thing. This is what made me think of the dish on Friday night. Thanks for the inspiration, Toronto!

Beautiful inertia. Is it just me, or do you also sometimes feel like you are being carried by open water. Some of us develop the strength to drift in our own direction and some of us just follow the stream.





guesses of the unreal

i don’t like when what’s mine is in fashion.
especially painful is my love
for bialoszewski,
although we have latvia, sartre, radom,
the language of cats and a mast in the forest
in common.

i am surprised, that poetic monoamory
and emotional hipsterhood
have not yet been called lack of erudition.
and – there we go: a kid with bialoszewski's “memoir…” says hi –
an epiphony of alienness in espadrilles clicks,
a magnetic card, banancino with whipped cream, colored charts
twitched and it is already clear what he’s spending on.

i'm surprised again: someone chose classes
just like me. I think, somewhere, someone has his
dental x-ray, and some priest remembers his sins.
did you see the google map boy in the window?
he has a blurry face
to me but someone likes to watch
him sleep. truth is the subject of interpretation.

we have nothing of our own.



 A friend of mine visited me in Toronto and we decided to pay the Toronto Ripley's Aquarium a visit. And then I made this.

1. Work efficiently, not just a lot.

2. Ask for help.

Photo by Victor Freitas from Pexels

3. Take care of yourself first. 

4. Choose your boosters wisely. 

5. Try light therapy.