radfrac_archive_full: (And you wonder...)
I need to find my mother a 60th birthday gift on behalf of the immediate family (dad, brother, me, brother's partner).

She's a businesswoman, an aspiring politician, and an experienced public speaker. She's also artistic -- has taken art classes, done some painting, done singing/piano off and on. She likes to decorate. She likes to travel. She's very stylish and loves beautiful things. She likes jewellery and Lovely Things, but her taste can be pretty specific and I'm not sure I can judge what she'd be Into right now. She likes musicals, big productions, fancy restaurants, the Good Things in a mainstream sort of way.

She's a Pisces, and man, is she, except she's also stubborn like a Taurus.

My brother's girlfriend suggested a fancy scarf, but I feel underwhelmed by this notion. The symbolism of gifts is pretty important to her and she tends to feel a little underappreciated in general.

What says "You're a wildly successful creative stylish adventurous yet level-headed striving piscean"?

Lessons of some kind? Tickets to... something?

{rf}
radfrac_archive_full: (hunnybear)
Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant calls this a soup, but that's madness. It is delicious sludge. They also put spinach first in the name, but it's all about the lentils.

Thus I justify my wanton copyright infringement.

This was the glue that held the visit together. It was something my brother's girlfriend and I could both eat, and it was good, and there was a lot of it. She could heat it up when everyone else was piling up the dairy-meat-wheat fest, and when even I had abandoned her to consume whatever non-dairy heart damage was available (and there was a lot.)

As soon as I got home, I made a giant pot of this, and I plan to make it again on Friday for Z. when she comes to visit. And I'm not even a big lentil guy.

Lentil and Spinach Stew-not-Soup


1c lentils
5c vegetable stock (sale on at Thrifty's right now)
salt
1/4c chopped fresh parsley
2c chopped tomatoes
1/4 c tomato paste (clever thing: freeze remaining paste in spoonfuls)
dried rosemary, salt, pepper to taste
1/4c olive oil
2c chopped onions
3 garlic cloves (I used 5)
1/4 tsp cayenne
2 bay leaves (Which Leirdal will get)
1/2 c raw bulghur
2 c steamed chopped spinach

Cook up lentils in vegetable stock. (Wash lentils, add to stock, bring to boil, reduce, simmer 40 min)

In a heavy stock pot, saute chopped onions in olive oil until translucent. Add garlic, cayenne, bay leaves, and bulghur.

Stir until onions & bulghur lightly browned (I mostly guessed at this)
add parsley, tomatoes. "When the tomatoes begin to give up their juice" (another mystery state) add tomato paste.

Pour lentils and their liquid in with the onion mixture. Simmer 15 min. Add rosemary, salt, pepper. Remove bay leaves.

Add spinach. (They say to do this just before serving. I say, eh, it's going in the fridge.)

Awesome for days.

{rf}

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