Mexican Vegetable Stew

The recipe for this that I (loosley) followed on allrecipes.com called for garbanzo beans and parsley, neither of which could be located in my house. Instead, I used black beans and cilantro, giving this vegetable concoction a decidedly south-of-the-border flair. I should have added corn to take it the whole nine yards!

Either way, I’d say my first foray into cooking eggplant was a smashing success according to all involved (myself and my father). Since I halved the recipe I still have half an eggplant left over! I think I’m going to try to go Asian with my next experiment.

bell peppers, eggplant, black beans, tomatoes, garlic, and cilantro
bell peppers, eggplant, black beans, tomatoes, garlic, and cilantro

I have got to get some nice serving plates and bowls so that my food staging is more… er… attractive. Yay look at my stove!

Settling In

As I laid on Angela’s bed for the first time since before this summer’s many adventures even started, I sighed and said, “I just want to stay in one place for more than three days.” Although this is kind of an exaggeration [before the Colorado trip I was in CA for a full week before the family road trip commenced], I really feel ready to rest my bones for a while. This coming weekend there will be day trips to LA and such but no real travel plans until December (okay, that’s a lie; something’s in the works but I don’t want to talk about in case it falls through).

Also, are day trips interesting enough to put here? I think they are; what do you think? I find that several day trips to a nearby place can actually tell you more than even going on vacation there. Example: if someone goes on vacation to LA, they see Hollywood, they see the beaches, but do they see where people actually live? Do they see the garment district? Do they drive through sketchy neighborhoods?

That said, since this is more or less (hopefully more) of a travel-themed blog obviously my posts are going to be more sparse than they were this summer and I don’t like this prospect! I hope you guys can help me out with travel-y things to write about while I’m not actully going anywhere. Maybe enough ideas to the tune of one or two posts a week? Ideas? Please put them here! I have a few things I’m planning on writing about but they are quickly running out.

Edit: some more road trip pictures are now up here.