Bazu's Fesenjan and Caturday

A little while ago, one of my favourite bloggers, Bazu of Where's the Revolution, posted her grandmother's Fesenjan recipe. Apparently fesenjan is a delicious Iranian dish of protein (originally chicken, here tofu) in a walnut and pomegranate sauce. The traditional recipe uses pomegranate paste, but Bazu suggests that you could replace it with pomegranate juice and lemon juice, plus a reduction in other liquids. I used that option, along with her suggestion of adding eggplant (for more vegetables, always my preferred option).

I loved this dish. It was rich, tangy and delicious. As you can see, I served it with tabbouleh, pita bread, beetroot dip and olives. The tabbouleh was an especially good match, as its freshness offset the rich fesenjan well. Unfortunately, the rest of my family was not as impressed as me. I think that the flavour was too far outside their usual range of flavours. It may also be that I am the only eggplant lover in the house. Well, it was their loss, because it meant more leftovers for my work lunches. It froze and reheated beautifully, by the way.

Caturday

Tiger cat on the prowl:


Here is Berry in our backyard, checking out our pelargoniums. Our cats are mostly indoor cats. They grew up as indoor cats and don't have any road sense, so they can't safely roam. There are also a lot of aggressive cats and dogs in our area, that I would prefer to protect them from. However, they do come outside when we are in the backyard. Switch usually only comes out for a few minutes, but Berry enjoys keeping us company while we garden or hang out the washing. Ideally, I would like them to have a large cat enclosure, but that is not an option at the moment, so they just have to hang with us.