Baked Falafel: A Culinary Victory!

I had forgotten how much I like falafel until I had it at the Pita Pit in Bloomington, IN in May.  Since then I've been looking for Pita Pits everywhere I go.  It wasn't until a couple of months ago that I realized that if I learned to make falafel myself I could have it whenever I wanted!  I recently discovered that Costco carries some pretty fantastic tzatziki (second only to that at It's Greek To Me in Hoboken, NJ) and that was all the motivation I needed to try my hand at making falafel.  Now I've seen boxes of falafel mix at the grocery store, but where's the fun in that?  I much preferred the idea of using fresh chickpeas (Okay, so they're canned, but when compared to a powdered mix in a box they're fresh!) and having a little adventure in the kitchen.  I went in search of recipes and found plenty, but quickly discovered that falafel is traditionally fried.  (No wonder it's so good!)  I'm not about to start frying foods at home--that's a slippery slope and best left as a treat when eating out!  So, I went in search of a baked falafel recipe.  And guess what?  I found one!  I discovered that it had to bake about twice as long as the recipe indicated, but it turned out great--this falafel is delicious!  Here's the recipe (I hope this isn't plagiarism!  I don't know who this recipe actually belongs to, but all the credit goes to them!):


Ingredients:

1 15-19 oz can chickpeas, drained
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 tablespoons of fresh parsley, chopped
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 teaspoon coriander
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
salt and pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil


Preparation:

Drizzle olive oil evenly in shallow baking dish. Preheat oven to 350.  While oven is preheating, mash chickpeas with mortar and pestle or in food processor. Add onions and garlic and blend.  Add remaining ingredients to make a thick paste-like consistency.  Shape into ping pong size balls and place in preheated baking dish. Bake for about 45 minutes, turning halfway through cooking.  (45 minutes is the adjusted time!)

I mashed everything together with my mortar and pestle, then baked it in a glass dish.  It almost made 16 falafel, but I was too lazy to take a little bit off each one to make a 16th.  When it was done baking I put four falafel in a whole wheat pita with 2 tablespoons of tzatziki and sliced cucumber, tomatoes, and a little red onion.  If I hadn't discovered that my fat-free feta had gone bad while I was away I might have added an ounce of that as well.


I can't say enough good things about this recipe.  It's quick, it's healthy, and it's delicious!  I'll definitely be adding this to my regular meal rotation!  Yum!

Soup's On!

So I decided that one thing I want to do more of in my unemployment is cook.  I discovered a couple of years ago that I really enjoy cooking, but since I moved to Minnesota I've been working such long hours and traveling so much that I haven't spent much time in the kitchen.  While I do believe frozen meals have a purpose, I had gotten to the point that dinner was whatever was on the top of the stack in the freezer.  Now that I have some time on my hands I want to try some new recipes and get a little more creative in the dinner department.


Last winter my friend Julia made Armenian Wonton Soup and brought it over to my place.  It was amazing.  She explained that she makes a bunch of wontons and freezes them so they're ready whenever she wants to have the soup.  I understood that a little labor now means ready-to-eat soup all winter long, so I decided I was up for the challenge and asked for the recipe.

I've been thinking about the soup a lot lately, so when I went to the grocery store on Friday I decided to pick up some wonton wrappers and try my hand at this new recipe that night.  I was feeling domestic so I thought I'd spend my evening making Armenian Wonton Soup, banana muffins, and maybe a loaf of bread for sandwiches.  After more than three hours (and some serious back pain) I had made less than 1/3 of a recipe of wontons.  Fortunately I was only planning to make 1/3 of the recipe, but when the second pan full of wontons went into the oven I made five small meatballs out of the remaining meat mixture, threw them in a pan, and into the oven they went!

I found out yesterday that I was wrapping them all wrong, which is probably why it took me so long.  Apparently it usually takes Julia about 3 hours to do a full recipe's worth.  I think it's going to be awhile before I tackle making them again (My back needs to recover, after all.), but the soup turned out SO good that I'm pretty sure they're worth the pain.  Hopefully it will just go a little faster next time since Julia showed me the correct way to wrap the wontons.  For now I should have enough wontons to last me a couple of months, but I'm going to be stingy with them to make them last as long as possible!


Thanks Julia, for sharing your recipe!  And the secret of proper wonton wrapping!

Home again, home again, jiggety jig!

That's code in my family for "I made it home safely."  Whenever we're traveling we let each other know and it's sort of an unwritten rule that if you don't call you send a "jiggety jig" email or text when you're home.  So now you all know that I'm home safe and sound after what Jaime has dubbed Trishapalooza.  Here's how the rest of the trip went:


I had only planned to stay with Jan and Ron for five days, but I was still pretty sick on day five so I ended up staying a couple of extra days.  It was great to spend a little extra time with them, but as a result I had to cancel my trip to Grand Rapids to see my cousin Megan.  Instead I got myself back on schedule and bypassed Grand Rapids, heading straight to Mt. Pleasant to spend a couple of days with my brother and his family.  I was feeling much better but still didn't have a lot of energy, so we sort of laid low while I was there.  I coordinated my trip so that I'd be there on my brother's day off (a rare thing!) and it was great just hanging out with him, even though we didn't do too much.  I got to see his basement renovation project, we shared our latest photos, and he cooked a couple of really awesome dinners.  I also made a new best friend while I was there:

Seriously.  Why ya so obsessed wit' me?

This is my brother's in-laws' dog, Monroe.  He's a Daisy Dog, and yeah...I pretty much adore him!

My brother and me

And since I didn't like the first one we took another.  This one is obviously much better.

From Mt. Pleasant I headed to Fort Wayne to spend some time with Beth (AKA Quinn).  Our friend Kathryn just moved to Angola (north of Fort Wayne) for a new job and bought a beautiful new house so we met up with her for a tour and lunch at a local Mexican restaurant on my way into town:

Mmm mmm my sisters!

(Beth, Kathryn, Trish)

The weekend went so fast that I couldn't really tell you what all we did.  I know there was a Halloween party, time with the Quinn Clan, margaritas and Mexican food with Sara, some Super Mario Brothers 3 (I dominated the free lives!), wine, a lesson for Quinn in the wonders of iGoogle, cards with Sara, and a trip to DeBrand's, just to name a few highlights.  It was great just to spend some quality time with Quinn, though.  (Love you, Quinn!  Thanks for the late night chat, especially!)

This is what happens when three girls split two pitchers of margaritas.  We call Ben (Beth's hubby) to pick us up.  And he finds us crashed in The World's Comfiest Bed (Sara's).

(Trish, Ben, Quinn/Beth, Sara)

My caramel truffle.  To die for.

My last stop was just a quick overnight in Woodridge, IL (outside of Chicago) to visit my friend Jaime and meet my new neice-puppy, Bella:

Please note the underbite.  This little grin just cracks me up!

Unfortunately I failed to take any photos of or with Jaime (I know, I know...), but her boyfriend was wonderful and made us dinner, and later she made us popcorn on the stove so we'd have a snack while we watched the most terrifying television show I've ever seen.  (It was a total bonding experience.)  As always, J-Halt was a wonderful hostess and I'm excited to spend more time with her in a couple of weeks!

So, after my quick overnight at Jaime's I headed home.  It was great to see everyone, but I have to admit that I'm pretty happy to be home.  I'm ready to get back into a routine, and I'm excited to start preparing for the holidays.  I've done the grocery shopping and I've got the pumpkin spice and creamy caramel fragrance oils (mixed together) burning in the jack-o-lantern oil warmer so I'm settling back in for a couple of weeks.

Until Thanksgiving I'm home again, home again, jiggety jig!

To Make A House A Home

My mom has always said that when she moves to a new house it doesn't feel like a home until she's baked chocolate chip cookies there.  I adopted this theory when I moved to St. Louis in February of 2006.  However, I didn't realize that I didn't have a spatula to take the cookies off the baking sheet until the first batch came out of the oven.  *Ring, ring*  "Mom?  How would you get cookies off a baking sheet if you didn't have a spatula?"  I got by that night, but I sure did head straight to Target the next day to buy a spatula.  When I moved to Minneapolis in 2007 and bought my condo I was especially excited to make the first batch of chocolate chip cookies.  After all, I'd bought this place.  It was really and truly Home for me--the first place I could truly call Home since I was a senior in high school, back in 1999.  So, you can imagine my disappointment when I discovered that along with dropping my (almost brand new) TV and scratching up my coffee table the movers had broken my only spatula.  After another run to Target, I was finally able to make the cookies, and my condo became my Home!


Now I tell you all of this because my mom and Ron just moved into a new house, and I came down to Chicago to help them unpack and settle in.  Naturally, the chocolate chip cookies came up, and we started talking about when we'd get to make them.  But after only two days in the new house I started getting a little chest congestion, followed quickly by plugged up ears and finally full-blown sinus congestion and an inner ear infection.  Every day for the next three days when I woke up I felt worse than the day before, until I finally started feeling a little bit better today.  Every few hours I have a couple of minutes that I can actually breathe through my nose, and I can now go a couple of hours at a time without a major coughing fit.  But what I've realized through all of this is that maybe the chocolate chip cookies aren't the only thing that can make a house a home.  Jan and Ron have made me feel so welcome in their new home and have taken wonderful care of me, providing cough syrup, box after box of tissues, hot tea, a cozy bed with no wake-up calls, and even directions to the walk-in clinic so I could get some antibiotics.  I hope that Jan and Ron will still make that first batch of cookies together, but  as far as I'm concerned their love and care have already made this house a home.