Copy Cat in the Kitchen: Shakshuka

I’d forgotten the book with the recipe I’d planned to use for this installment of Copy Cat in the Kitchen.

I loved this Israeli breakfast recipe when we tasted it at VT HQ last year. And I was pretty confident my Better Half (B1/2) would like it. It’s a colorful recipe, so no way Picky 2-Year-Old Girl (P2G) would clean her plate, but she likes eggs, so maybe.… R9B was the wild card. He’ll eat eggs if they’re scrambled or if he can skip the yolks, but he generally likes his tomatoes in sauce form.

You know, on pizza or spaghetti. Kid favorites. Making the recipe was no problem. I’d once edited it, so I had no trouble following the instructions. Cooking onions and garlic bring out the raves from B1/2 and R9B whenever the aroma reaches their nostrils. The recipe came out looking much like the image on the cover. Let’s eat!

P2G looked at it and scrunched her face. She turned to me: “I don’t like it. Eat it.” “Just eat the egg, sweetie.” (At least the whites, please.) “No!” She turned to B1/2: “Mommy, eat it.” B1/2 got up and rummaged through the pantry for something beige. P2G had cashews for dinner.

Better that than sour cream–flavored corn puffs. I looked at R9B. “This gets an A,” he said. The rate at which he ate it said he’d really give it a B, but he claimed he was full from inhaling sour cream–flavored corn puffs shortly before dinner. (Snacking on junk so close to dinner drives me crazy. One of these days, I’ll make some appetizers to test on the Cat Clan.)

He did, however, clean his plate. And he said he’d eat it again. B1/2’s review and recommendation was similar to those on the VT Web site: “This gets an A, but it would be an A+ if it were served over rice.” How we got to letter grades, I’m not certain. We were probably talking about school when dinner was served. Anyway, I cleaned my plate. There were some leftovers sans eggs when we finished. B1/2 finished the leftovers (over rice, with two eggs) the following day.

The Scorecard Three clean plates out of four.