When I find that I have a handsome eggplant and attractive zucchini, I am moved to make Ikarian Springtime Soufiko, a marvelous (as well as quick and easy) vegan dish for dinner. Technically, it might be Spring here, but we just had 6 inches of fresh snow today, and this dish never disappoints.

Here is the basic recipe:

As with most recipes, I considered this to be a guideline, not prescription. We had no butternut squash, but I added leeks, grape tomatoes, and yellow summer squash instead. I also had 5 large scallops available, so I pan-seared them in a very hot skillet with coarse Sicilian sea salt, as a side dish. One of the intriguing aspects of this dish is the way the vegetables stew in their own juices at the start of the process, before any olive oil is added to sautée. The vegetables cut up were large enough to require my 7.5-qt. Le Creuset Bouillabaisse pot, which performed the job beautifully.

Another fortuitous aspect of the dinner was that I had a bottle of a Greek Xinomavro wine, ideal for cooking and drinking with our Soufiko.