”Wait, you mean I actually have to post to that thing?”
”If you want readers, then yeah.”
”Well, shit.”
It’s the nineteenth, and you know what that means, ladies and germs: it’s time for another monthly roundup.
On my plate
A recipe I’ve made four or five times by now, for a plate of vegan food that is as tasty as it is pretty.
This dish started out life loosely based upon a lentils and rice recipe that I found somewhere on the internet. It’s largely an excuse for me to eat saffron rice, eggplant, kale, and ample amounts of za’atar, a wonderful seasoning consisting of thyme, oregano, sumac, and toasted sesame seeds. I love the riot of colors in my bowl when I bring it to the office to eat it, and the Levantine spice profile is a nice counterpoint to how I usually eat. Here’s how I make it.
Ingredients:
- 2 bell peppers (I like red and orange for color)
- 9-10 stalks of kale
- 1 medium eggplant
- 1 medium to large onion
- 2-3 scallops (optional)
- 2-3 tablespoons of za’atar
- 1-2 tablespoons of sesame seeds (optional)
- 1/8 to 1/4 cup of slivered almonds (optional)
- 1 cup of rice or quinoa (I prefer quinoa)
- 3-4 habanero peppers (optional).
- 1/4 teaspoon of saffron
- 1/4 teaspoon of turmeric
- 1 cup of your preferred beans or other legumes (I’ve used lentils, which are my preference, as well as purple hull peas)
- 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil
- 1 cup of sliced Kalamata olives
- 2-3 tablespoons of nonpareil capers
- 8 oz firm or extra-firm tofu (optional)
- 4 cups vegetable broth, divided
Potential allergens: soy, tree nuts, sesame, olives, capsaicin.
This dish is vegan and should conform to the dietary restrictions of Kosher and Halal cuisines. Those in doubt should refer this recipe to the relevant religious authorities.
You’ll want to start by cooking the beans and rice/quinoa. The stovetop is sufficient for this, but I like to cook my rice in an Instant Pot. Even brown rice takes the yellow color of the turmeric, as you can see in the above photograph. Grind up your saffron and let it bloom in warm to hot water (about 140º Fahrenheit) for several minutes while you set up the Instant Pot. I cook brown rice in the Instant Pot for 15 minutes at high pressure, followed by 5 minutes of natural pressure release to finish cooking and then quickly releasing the remaining pressure. Add the rice, saffron water, and turmeric to the Instant Pot and follow those instructions. If you’re cooking quinoa, this is easy enough to cook on the stove while you cook your chosen legume in another pot.
To roast the eggplant, you’ll want to cut it into roughly 1/2-inch cubes (or 1 cm cubes if you use sensible measurements) and toss them in olive oil and za’atar. Then arrange it in a single layer on a baking sheet and roast in the oven at 425ºF for 25 minutes, followed by a brief cycle under the broiler for 4 to 6 minutes at 525ºF. Eggplant has a ton of water in it, so the longer cooking time and high temperature will help remove some of the water.
Dice your vegetables (onion, peppers, and anything else you want to add) and if you choose to include it, your tofu. When you cut up your chili pepper, be sure to wear gloves – if you don’t, you will have capsaicin on your fingertips for days even if you wash your hands very well. When you put it in the frying pan to sauté, you’re aiming for whatever level of doneness you desire – I like just a bit of crunch in mine, and I use the wilting of the kale as a guide for the doneness level of the other vegetables. I season the veg with about a tablespoon of za’atar while cooking and add more when I’m done.
Once you’ve gotten everything cooked, you’re ready to combine it all together: in a large bowl, mix the rice/quinoa, lentils/beans, vegetables, sesame seeds, almonds, and a little extra olive oil (about 1 tbsp) and za’atar (again, about 1 tbsp), then mix until evenly coated. Then, add the olives and capers, and you’re ready to eat. This should make anywhere from 5 to 8 servings depending on how much you eat at a go, and it should last about 4 or 5 days in the refrigerator. This is my meal-prep go-to for a remarkably tasty, healthy combination of flavors and textures that I like, and it’s quite versatile in that you can flavor it pretty much however you want; I can imagine this being quite good with Herbes de Provence (the lavender would pair quite nicely with the bite of the capers and with roasting all of the veg, not just the eggplant – basically it’s pasta primavera but without the pasta), Italian-style seasonings with plenty of oregano and rosemary, or even a Chinese-inspired flavor profile with star anise, allspice, and a little Sichuan peppercorn if you’re feeling brave. I bet that an African-inspired spice profile (like you’d find in, say, Ghana or Benin), complete with some harissa for heat instead of the habaneros, would be very good too.
On my mind
I’ve started studying Spanish seriously, and all I can say is this: what an amazing language!
As a fluent French speaker, Spanish is well and truly a breath of fresh air after two years of slogging through Mandarin and having relatively little to show for it. I’m studying Spanish via Duolingo for simple, gamified reinforcement and via Oakford International Language Academy, a sister institution to the European Business School of Barcelona (ENEB), which is where I did my MBA. I’m taking the Oakford proficiency exam this coming weekend, and I’m expecting to be at a low B1 level of proficiency (i.e., a starting intermediate).
I’m also reading more deeply and using notebooks like I’ve always wanted to do. Ralph Ellison’s lengthy essay “The World and the Jug” and Thomas Hardy’s novel The Return of the Native are the first two works I’m reading through in this fashion, along with the Discourse on the Method and Meditations on First Philosophy by Descartes.
I ordered some cheap kraft paper notebooks as well as some Moleskine knockoffs from Amazon so I could do this. I like the small kraft paper notebooks because they fit pretty much anywhere – I even use these to take notes at work since they fit well on my desk while I am on Teams calls. I prefer using pencils in my notebooks instead of ink, and for the job, I keep Dixon Ticonderoga or Staedtler Norica pencils on my desk at all times, alongside an electric pencil sharpener. I prefer the classic look and more tactile feel of writing with wooden pencils versus writing with mechanical pencils, although when I am practicing Chinese, I find mechanical pencils advantageous for writing characters.
Now, granted, the mechanical pencils do nothing to fix my atrocious penmanship in Chinese, but they do at least make practicing less obnoxious.
Parting Thoughts: One last trend hopped, and future steps
I’m starting on my second master’s at ENEB, this one in Big Data and AI. I feel like it’s going to be a lot more compelling than my MBA in finance.
I’ve tried one last food item heavily promoted on social media, in particular the Alani Nu energy drink. I’ve been something of an energy drink aficionado for most of my adult life (Red Bull Sugar Free is still my favorite), and after trying two cans of the Cosmic Stardust flavor, I can definitely say that Alani is one of the energy drinks of all time. The primary fault is that it has too much caffeine. 200 mg in a drink this easy to slam is absolutely criminal – in that way, it’s like a Vietnamese iced coffee (another shockingly easy beverage to drink too quickly). I have a rather strong tolerance to caffeine, but even in view of that tolerance, I found Alani unpleasant in terms of how it made me feel.
I’ve been working on unrelated jobs for the first few weeks of 2026, but those projects are drawing to a close and as such, I’ll have the time to dedicate to blogging again, as I have wanted since the start of the year. That means you’ll be getting more than these monthly roundups at this domain.
As always, esteemed readers, remember to feed your mind and mind your feeds, and always look both ways before trusting an opinion. Call your mom, thank a First Responder, hydrate yourself and your plants, get plenty of sleep, and never let the sun set on an argument.
This feature will return in 28 days’ time on March 19.