Borani recipe

Per The Bath Fairy's request, here is a recipe for Badenjan Borani (which is how The Afghan Horsemen spells it). This one is from a book called Afghani Cooking. It has a different spelling, and, I'm pretty sure, varies from the one at the Horsement:

Bahnjean Bouranee
2 medium eggplants
2 tomatoes, sliced
1 green bell pepper, sliced
Tomato sauce:
1/2 cup tomato paste
1/2 cup water
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon freshly ground coriander seeds
Yogurt sauce:
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1/4 teaspoon crushed garlic
1/4 teaspoon salt
Garnish:
1 teaspoon dry mint leaves, crushed

Preheat oven to 400 degrees
1. Peel eggplant and slice into 1/2 inch round pieces.
2. Spray a large frying pan with cooking spray and brown eggplant over medium heat.
3. Spray a 9x13" baking dish with cooking spray and layer with eggplant, sliced tomatoes, and green peppers.
4. Mix together all ingredients for tomato sauce. Pour sauce on top of eggplant in baking dish, cover and bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes.

I think my sister forgot to give me the second page of this recipe, since it doesn't have the "To serve" section. But, to serve, spoon out portions of the dish and top with a dollop of yogurt sauce and sprinkle with crushed mint leaves.

A note about the spraying with cooking spray, I think the Afghan Horsemen version is the regular, full fat version since you can see the tasty olive oil in the dish. If I were cooking this, I'd brown the eggplant in real olive oil, not the spray stuff.

The Bath Fairy requested the recipe for aaush soup as well, but I don't have a recipe for that. The manager at Afghan Horsemen told dh how to make it one time, and now dh wings it, but it always turns out pretty authentic tasting. I'll have to ask him for his version when he gets home from work. In the meantime, here's one quick version that sounds interesting, but not the same as the one we order or make ourselves.

"To accomplish great things, we must dream as well as act." ~ Anatole France (1844 - 1924)

Where Four Art Thou?

So I'm a punny sort of gal, so sue me. ;)

Diane at Much of a Muchness tagged me with the Four Meme, so here goes nuthin' -

Four jobs I have had
Research Associate - psychology, Indiana University
Office Assistant - undergrad library at University of British Columbia
Docent - Dr. Sun Yat Sen Chinese Classical Garden in Vancouver, BC (check out the photo gallery at the link)
Research assistant - biopsychology, UBC

Four movies I could watch over and over
Roman Holiday - *sigh* Could Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn be any cuter??Alien - could Sigourney Weaver and the cat be any cuter??
Star Wars, Episode IV - could Harrison Ford and Alec Guiness be any cuter??
Chicken Run - no, honestly, could Ginger, Rocky and all the chickens be any cuter?? (I have a soft spot for Mac.)
Four TV shows I love (or loved...)
X-Files - creepy with some real science thrown in at times, like Star Trek, but on Earth, no transporter, and, uh, did I say creepy already?Firefly - Joss and Nathan: what a combination
Twilight Zone - Oh Rod Serling, how I miss your warped sense of entertainment
House - so the main character is obnoxious, but Hugh Laurie does an American accent better than some Americans! Plus, everything I know about medical jargon, I learned from House.
Four places I’ve vacationed
Greece
England
Austria
Italy
(sorry, no photos; you'll have to use your imagination. Actually, if you want to see Italy photos, check out Diane's!)

Four of my favourite dishes
Badenjan borani - recipe to come in another post
roast duck - Chinese style (see photo in previous blog post)
tiramisu - is that a dish?
seafood anything - well, maybe not so much geoducks or sea urchins or sea cucumbers

Four blogs I visit every day
Now that Blogger has this nifty feature which show which blogs have been updated recently, I no longer have to play favorites. ;)

I won't tag four people, but please do play if you have time! I'll be watching my "updated blogs" list....

"To accomplish great things, we must dream as well as act." ~ Anatole France (1844 - 1924)

The Trip, Part 2: The Food, the Bad, and the Ugly

Let's start with the Good stuff, and go down hill from there.

My sister treated us to a lovely lunch at Salmon House on the Hill in West Vancouver. Ds#2's mushroom ravioli was to die for (don't ask how I know, but let's just say that I'm not above shoving a child out of the way to get to good food), but the dessert was equally amazing. Here it is, the tiramisu of your dreams:
Because there is a huge Italian population in Vancouver (this is especially for Diane), we can get some great Italian food. If you think this looks great, you should see the duck prociutto. Mmmm.

The guys walked nearly every day to a gelato place, Dolce Amore, which is about 15 minutes from my parents' place where we stayed. Here's the sampling from one evening: blackberry/cherry, menta, and passionfruit.Aside from the lamb kebabs we ordered at the Afghan Horsemen, ds#2 ordered an appetizer sampler which included hummus and sabzi mast (a spinach dip):Other good things to have in Vancouver are seafood. One night we went to Monk's Upstairs for dinner, and I ordered sole, which came with roasted purple potatoes, beets, and sea asparagus:Ds#1 ordered mussels:Ds#2 ordered oysters:A visit to see my parents would not be complete without some roast meats, the most popular of which is roast duck (the top hanging carcass; the bottom ones are chicken):Also a must have is dimsum. I believe outside of Hong Kong, the best HK-style dimsum is to be found in Vancouver.
And now for the Bad (I apologize in advance for grossing out the vegetarians in our midst). 3 guesses as to what this is:
Anyone who's seen Bizarre Foods on the Travel Channel will recognize it as swallow's nest, or as I like to call it, bird spit. Talk about gross and not environmentally friendly.

Other weird things that Chinese/Asian people eat? How about boneless chicken feet? As if regular chicken feet isn't strange enough. Chicken feet not your thing? How about pig feet, then? We had this pig feet dish at a Shanghai-style dimsum place:If animal extremeties don't appeal to you, then they've got internal parts to offer. How about tripe? It's just offal! (Sorry, bad pun!)
Lastly, we have the Ugly category. At the Granville Island market, ds#1 took some photos of things that aren't very attractive. I'll only share one here:

Speaking of ugly, although we didn't eat it, here's a leopard slug we came upon on one of our hikes to Lynn Headwaters:To finish up on a "happy" note, here's one of the interesting signs at the food court at Crystal Mall in Burnaby, a suburb of Vancouver:
"To accomplish great things, we must dream as well as act." ~ Anatole France (1844 - 1924)

The Trip, part 1: The Views

Egads, where does my time go? Hm, weeding, taking the kids to swim lessons, library activities, trip to the IN State Museum, harvesting 10 pounds of beans, etc, etc. So I'm finally getting part of the trip photos up. My sister beat me to posting a bit about the trip. But then again, she doesn't have kids or a garden. ;>

I debated putting photos in chronological order, but then decided to post our trip by themes instead because, really, you don't want to hear about every boring detail, and the chronological order has no meaning even to us.

There's a rose garden at the west end of the University of British Columbia, our (mine, dh's, and my sister's) alma mater. I used to eat lunch here a lot with a friend of mine. It's really gorgeous and peaceful. The weather in Vancouver mimics that of England so the roses grow very well there. If my parents can grow beautiful roses, anyone can. Here's the Rose Garden:And the mountains and English Bay beyond the Rose Garden:The trees and forests in British Columbia, and around Vancouver, are simply amazing. (Trivia: Did you know that there are rainforests in British Columbia?)


The above photo and this next one was taken at Lynn Headwaters in North Vancouver:On a separate day, the guys took a hike at Lynn Headwaters again, but this time, scaling Lynn Peak, a rocky and steep climb (this was the hike my sister said she was happy not to take part in). Supposed to take 4.5 hrs but the guys did it in a little over 3 hrs.At the top of Lynn Peak - enough to give an acrophobe a heart attack:Heading back towards East Vancouver from Surrey after visiting my sister and her hubby, the clouds were low and looked cool. Here's my blurry capture from the car: A view of downtown Vancouver from the Point Grey area near the University of British Columbia:
The guys took a bike ride along the dikes at Steveston, south of Vancouver, while I had my hair done: On one of our many long hikes, we trekked all around Buntzen Lake (east of Vancouver). At the top of Mount Cypress, north of Vancouver (sort of in West Vancouver, actually)...You have to take a walk around the famous Stanley Park (we like to go to Third Beach). While at Granville Island one day, the guys took a walk around False Creek while my sister and I window shopped. Here the boys are in front of Science World: Next post, the food!

"To accomplish great things, we must dream as well as act." ~ Anatole France (1844 - 1924)

Home, sweet home

Be it ever so humble, as the saying goes. It was a wonderful trip to Vancouver, but it's also good to be home, as overwhelming as the weeds and all the other home tasks that await us seem. It'll probably take me a few days to get settled back in and to find time to write a real entry and visit everyone's blogs. In the meantime, I would like to thank and hug Spotted Cow for the award she gave me!

As well, I'd like to leave you drooling over one of my favorite meals (lamb kebabs with pakawra) at one of my favorite restaurants in Vancouver, The Afghan Horsemen.
"To accomplish great things, we must dream as well as act." ~ Anatole France (1844 - 1924)