Since my father in law liked the NYT quick bread so much, I was set on making another batch before he left. The Shrimp Charmoula looked good, as did fennel and carrot salad. So the menu:
- Plate of cheeses and cured meats: manchego, sage derby, tuscan sausage
- Shrimp Charmoula - Gourmet 2/2008
- Fennel and Carrot Salad - Gourmet 2/2008
- NYT Quick Bread
Very positive results, and this recipe can probably withstand a fair amount of fiddling with ingredient proportions and choices based on what you have on hand.
The Fennel and Carrot salad was labor intensive, in order to cut the fennel pieces in to very thin slivers. The mixture of balsamic vinegar and lemon juice should have created a nice playful viniagrette, but it was dominated by an overly generous portion of chopped olive. In the end, the olives dominated all the other flavors. Not a great payoff for having done so much fine prep work on the vegetables. However, I hold out hope for the use of these two ingredients, with adjustments to the seasonings.