In the past I’ve made up my own Berbere spice mix but this time I used a premade Berbere spice mix. I liked my own better. I was not very happy with it this time. Next time I want to do a curry I’ll just use my favorite curry powder.
The Roasted Cauliflower Date Salad was really good. I roasted the cauliflower and a can of chickpeas in the regular oven. The chickpeas got roasted but were not very crispy. Maybe would be better to use the air fryer. The dates and other vegetables were sauteed. Then all mixed together. I made a tahini dressing to go with it.
The recipe said to zest a lemon before adding the juice to the dressing. But it never said what to do with the zest. So I put all of it in the tahini dressing. Bad idea. It was too much. It made it bitter. I didn’t like it at all. It would have been much better to sprinkle it over the cauliflower mixture instead. Since I didn’t like it at all I put the dressing in a bowl on the table and suggested that we dab it on the salad “to taste”. I didn’t try it but the others said it was okay, they liked it.
Michelle made the chopped salad earlier in the day. Lots of fresh cucumber and tomatoes from the garden. It rounded out the meal nicely.
Making rice in the rice cooker is so normal for us. I first began using a rice cooker when I married Matsu, who was an immigrant from Japan. I used that same rice cooker for at least 35 years, maybe more. Still worked perfectly. Wish I could remember what brand it was. I’m sure Matsu purchased it at Uwajimaya in Seattle before we were married in 1972.
The one the family uses now is also excellent but it’s not the same one. Theirs is bigger than my old one. Don’t remember what I did with my old one. I must have given it away when I sold my house in 2007. I miss it, I was fond of it.
The family is going through a HUGE adjustment now that Sasha has gone to college in California. She is so greatly missed. Not only does her absence make a huge vacancy in our lives, it also means we have to adjust cooking quantities. Of all things, I never considered this before. She not only was a fifth person at the dinner table, she always took leftovers every school day for her lunch. It will take a while to get used to. I no longer need to double recipes. Too many leftovers getting thrown away. I do not like waste, really work to not let that happen.
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