Meatless March

I had to smile when I saw that Epicurious called for one "small leek" in its recipe for " Israeli Couscous, Peas, Preserved Lemons, Mint & Goat's Cheese ," because the leeks I had on hand were not small. They were humongous. All the better for fighting climate change, which we're doing when we prioritize plant-based foods. P lant-based agriculture contributes a lot less to air pollution than animal agriculture , too, did you know that? So even the most diminutive leeks are doing us all a favor. This was my first experience using preserved lemons, from a jar, and while they sounded good, I found them disappointing - salty, and bitter. Simple lemon zest and a squeeze of juice would probably have tasted better to me. The dish was fine. I substituted vegetable stock for half the water, and used only about one third of the salt called for in the recipe. I put another of my super-sized leeks to use in a Vegan Vednesday dish: " Vegan Creamy Leek Pasta &quo

I have a lot of random ingredients in my cupboard that I bought for a particular dish but serve no further purpose, so sometimes I just google those ingredients with "vegetarian" or "vegan" and maybe "slow cooker," and see what comes up. This time, the ingredient was pearl couscous, and the recipe that Google gave me was " Moroccan Slow Cooker Tagine with Chickpeas and Pearl Couscous ," which can be made with our without meat. Needless to say, I went without, and the dish is vegan that way. My squash was large so it yielded more than four cups, and I threw in four chopped carrots, and 1.5 cups of pearl couscous. If you're cooking it on low, as I did, you might want to turn it up to high when you add the couscous, or throw in the couscous earlier. And I added the raisins with the couscous, because dried fruit stands up well to slow-cooker treatment. I think more raisins would have been even better. I used just a little sprinkle of red pep