Tahini haddock and mujadara
So I was interested in mujadara, an arabic dish that has lentils and rice with caramelized onions. Holy crap, I realized how much I hate caramelizing onions - takes forever and you have to babysit it. I'm not very happy with the recipe I chose because the dish turned out rather mushy. But even in its failed form, it's quite hearty! There's a cookbook I forgot I had called Arabiyya (highly recommend- really interesting recipes and some really cool history) that provides a much different recipe - going to try for round two.
Then go to along with it, I got haddock. I mixed tahini with some preserved lemon as well as honey then poured some olive oil to thin it out. Spread the sauce all over the fish, chop up some walnuts and put it on, cook in the oven for 350F- 15 minutes on the dot. I don't really care for tahini really, but my wife really likes it so she was happy! Garnish with parsley.
I think my big cooking goal this year is to get good at making arabic rice dishes. Hilariously, I don't know how to cook rice on the stove because I'm so used to cooking it in a rice cooker!