Bulgarian Pepper and Cheese, a la Moosewood

So, just a heads-up before I get started: I did in fact take pictures along the way, but my phone is dying and apparently decided not to save any of the photos I took. That's okay, though: I've set about drawing some re-creations of them. Quite frankly, between my poor photographic skills and my almost other-worldly talent for drawing with computer programs I kind of don't you'll be able to tell the difference.

Okay, with that out of the way, let's talk about dinner! I picked this recipe because the last time I was home I stole (with permission?) Mom's copy of the Moosewood Cookbook, and since then I've been honestly intending to cook something out of it "sometime next week" or "as soon as I remember to get the necessary groceries." Obviously that strategy failed for many consecutive months, so this first new blog post seemed like an ideal way to get on track.

First things first: chop/semi-mince 2 medium-large onions and 3 green peppers and saute in about 2 T butter... the recipe calls for 1.5 c chopped mushrooms as well, but (a) I forgot to buy them, (b) wasn't all that sad about that fact, and (c) decided not to let (a) stop me. Anyway, remove from heat when the peppers are becoming tender but are still a bit crunchy (moral/aesthetic consideration: crunchy vegetables are always Better. Discuss.) To the sauteed veggies add the following mixture: 1.5 T soy sauce, 1.5 T cheap cooking sherry, 1 t marjoram, 0.75 t salt, and some indeterminate amount of ground black pepper. To really get the full "Dinner Blog" experience, try to break your pepper grinder during this step. This has the bonus off adding in some unknown/unknownable number of whole peppercorns; they will be a treat to discover while eating the finished dish later on.

Sweet, with that done it's time to start assembling the dish. Soak 1 c raw bulgar (I used grind #2, as it was all my supermarket carried) in some water for 15ish minutes, after which it'll be a bit less crunchy. Spread it out in an even layer in a buttered 9x13 baking pan (which I didn't have, so I substituted a maybe 8x11 glass baking dish), and then pour the veggie/sauce mix and spread out into an even layer on top of that. For layer #3 combined 12 oz cottage cheese with 1 c crumbled feta. Finally, pour 3 lightly beaten eggs on top of everything, and dust with feta. I don't know about you, but there's something I find oddly fun about making layered dinners like this. Anyway, here's the result:

Remember: this is not a photo, just a photorealistic drawing

Turn the oven up to 11 (in this case, "11" = 350 degrees) and bake for 40 minutes. Let it rest for 10 minutes after taking it out and then serve/enjoy!
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Well, this week has felt kind of ridiculous. The first few days (from the start of the long weekend, essentially) I came down with some kind of cold, and just when I was starting to feel like I was on the upswing I managed to sneeze violently enough that I missed the stair I was aiming for and turn my ankle as badly as anything that's happened to me since my soccer days. Fortunately I'm up and walking again (although I think I'll take a few more days off from running), but that meant during the second half of the week I worked from home instead of walking to work.

It turns out that I really don't like working from home, although maybe that's a reflection of the work I had to do... I'm, of course, quite excited that I can see the end of grad school off on the horizon, but getting together application materials for postdoctoral positions and fellowships turns out to be much, much less fun than doing research. Oh well, has to be done I guess (must. not. stay in grad school. forever.)
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Figure 1. Cross-sectional view of dinner

Verdict:
Pretty good, I think; probably it'll be added to the semi-regular-but-not-super-often rotation, so all in all I'll call it a success for the Dinner Blog's first attempt. The one problem, though, was that with using the smaller-than-suggested baking dish the layer of bulgar ended up being too thick (see Fig. 1) -- in the future I think I'll either use less or see what happens if I try multiple layers, bulgar-veggie-bulgar-veggie-cheese or something.

Next week:
I don't know...