Falafel with Tahini Sauce

This week, instead of heading out for some soggy camping over the May Day holiday weekend, I had the girls over for dinner. Estrogen was in the air: a bottle of champagne was popped, announcing the start the evening. There was the intention to watch Memoirs of a Geisha (my second viewing in a week), but instead we sat 'round the table having a 'chin wag' (Irish for 'social chat') until midnight. We calculated that by the end of the evening, the four of us had each spent over an hour talking - wow.

Some seriously good food makes its appearance when we get together, and it's almost always vegetarian and home made. We're all members of the amazing local CSA and each week are happily inundated with some the best organic produce around. Perhaps we'll make our own version of Sex and the City entitled 'Veg in the Country'. I'm sure it would be a sensation: 'organic chic!'

Dinner included a loaf of fresh bread baked with sultanas, walnuts and home-grown wheat; warm puy lentil, leek and dill salad; field greens with vinaigrette and toasted pumpkin seeds; falafel made from scratch with tahini sauce; and gluten-free rhubarb crumble for desert.



Middle eastern food is one of my absolute favorite cuisines. The smoky, deep flavors and colorful ingredients feed my love of exotic things: it's the kind of food you'd eat on a good adventure in a country where you really feel like a foreigner. It lends itself so well to finger food, as if you could lay it out on a big wooden platter in the middle of the table and pick it clean. Personally I quite like to stick my finger into the tahini sauce or hummus, or when I'm sharing, I'll use a falafel patty or dolmade for my flavor vessel. I like spices, herbs and a lot of variety in flavor and fresh produce, and middle eastern food delivers.

Exploring the culinary arts keeps me on my toes, learning new techniques and exploring endless flavor combinations. In this case, it was working with raw chickpeas (gasp! - are they digestible??) and deep frying. But it's not hard to make falafel from scratch. The trick is getting it to hold together while frying but I haven't had any problems so far, so hopefully you won't either. Basically, you soak your chickpeas overnight at least, dry them on a towel, then throw them in a food processor with everything else, blend until pasty (a couple minutes), form little patties and drop those into a heavy-bottomed pot with oil you've heated on medium/medium-high and fry until golden brown. You don't even need an official 'deep fryer'.

Falafel Patties with Tahini Sauce

Don't use canned chickpeas here, they're too wet and mushy.

Falafel
1 3/4 cups dry chickpeas
two big garlic cloves
small/medium red onion or two shallots
1 big handful flat parsley leaves
1 big handful cilantro (fresh coriander) leaves
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 teaspoon (or a bit more!) harissa paste
1 teaspoon paprika powder
4 tablespoons flour (I used white spelt)
1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt
black pepper, freshly ground, to taste
sunflower oil to a depth of 1 inch or a bit more in a medium, heavy-bottomed pot

Tahini Sauce
1/2 cup light tahini (sesame seed paste)
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup water
small garlic clove, finely minced
1/4 teaspoon cumin powder
1/4 teaspoon paprika powder
a few parsley leaves, chopped finely
1/4 teaspoon salt or more to taste
fresh ground pepper to taste

The night before making the falafel, soak the chickpeas in filtered water (cover by an inch or so: they will swell up) so that by the time you make them, they've soaked for a whole day.

Roughly chop the garlic and onion and rinse the fresh herbs to remove any dirt.

Drain and rinse the soaked chickpeas, lay down a towel and pour them out onto it. Roll them around and pat to dry. Then put them into the food processor along with everything except the oil. Process until you have a thick paste: at least one minute, probably a little more than two minutes, pausing to scrape down the sides. Taste for salt and seasoning: if you want it spicier, add more black pepper, cayenne pepper powder or harissa paste. It's nice to have several different kinds of 'spiciness' in a dish: it adds interest. Blend again to incorporate anything you've adjusted. Have a plate ready; take out small handfuls of falafel paste and form little patties: 1 1/2 - 2 inches across, patted down to a thickness of less than 1 inch.

Meanwhile, pour the oil into your pot and heat over medium, medium/high heat for about 5 minutes, until hot enough that a bread crumb fries to golden brown in 1 minute when tossed in.



When your falafel patties are ready, gently drop them in to your heated oil. The first one may bubble and splatter; use caution if your hands are wet, as water droplets landing on the hot oil (it causes quite a commotion). Fry as many at once as will comfortably fit on the bottom of the pan. Turn them over with a spoon after 30 seconds or so. Have a plate with a paper towel ready, and when the falafel are golden brown, take them out and drain on said towel. It only takes a little over a minute to fry them. Continue until all your paste is used up.

Now prepare the tahini paste: in a bowl, with a fork, whisk together the tahini, lemon juice and water. Add the rest of the ingredients and whisk again to mix well. Taste for seasoning and serve with the falafel.

Falafel are usually eaten in a Pitta bread pocket with salad and dressing, but I like them on their own, dipped in the sauce, or maybe served over spicy greens like rocket (called arugula in the USA) with tahini sauce as dressing.

Red Lentil Soup with Tomatoes and Cilantro

Tomorrow I'm headed to London for three days of training with an Ayurvedic gynecologist. And when I return, Colm will be home. I can't wait for that, too. Honestly, I think I've forgotten how to be a bachelorette. There's no one here to share the food, so the leftovers are piling up in the fridge. And parts of my routine have really gone out the window. I've lapsed into old habits like reading until 1am, letting the dishes pile up, and talking to the cat...a lot.

Not that I think any of this is bad: in fact, it's very good to shake up the routine and stay up late; you know, just to see what actually goes on at 1am, since I usually miss out on that. And Miso has been very dominant of my lap, claiming it as her territory, which she doesn't do as much when there's two of us here.

I'm not sure what I used to do when I lived alone in Brooklyn. Did I divide recipes by 1/4? I do remember eating 'tofurkey jerky' sticks and single serving yogurts - things that were handy for one person - especially since I wasn't cooking much at the time. If you ever eat a tofu dog, don't microwave it - it melts. Colm was delighted at how easy I'd be to impress with a home cooked meal. As they say, you've come a long way, baby.

Now when I cook for one, I make dishes that have it all in one pot and are tasty enough to eat for consecutive meals. Like this one.

I found this soup really easy once the onion was chopped and it was all simmering. I modified it a bit, and added chopped spring green leaves for extra nutrients. I love the colours of it: red tomatoes, orange from the lentils, a bit of yellow turmeric, bright green cilantro and dark spring green leaves.


Tomato Cilantro Soup
Adapted from the New York Times, who adapted it from Martha Rose Shulman. July 7, 2006.

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 minced garlic cloves
Salt to taste
1 teaspoon cumin seeds, lightly toasted and ground
1 teaspoon coriander seeds, lightly toasted and ground
2 teaspoons hot curry powder (or mild if you prefer)
1 pound chopped tomatoes with juice
1/2 pound red lentils (a heaping cup), preferably soaked for several hours beforehand
1 quart vegetable stock
1 bunch chopped greens: spinach, chard or watercress are all nice
black pepper to taste
cayenne to taste (optional, omit for Pitta and Vata)
juice of 1/2 small lime
For garnish: chopped fresh cilantro, thick greek yogurt if you like

Heat the oil in a soup pot, and add the onion. Cook until translucent and sweet but not brown, about 5 minutes over medium heat. Add the garlic, salt and spices; stir for about a minute, not too long; don't burn the spices. Add the tomatoes and put the heat just under medium. Cook for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes have reduced their juices. Add the lentils and the stock; stir well and taste for salt. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, cover and simmer for 30 minutes, until the lentils have broken up. Add the spring greens and cook for another 5-10 minutes, until they are bright green and tender.



When the lentils and greens are ready, taste the soup for spice and salt. Add black pepper and cayenne, if using. Add the lime juice and stir it in. Toss in a handful of chopped cilantro (coriander) leaves and take the soup off the heat. Stir the leaves around. Serve topped with a spoonful of thickened yogurt if you like. I didn't have any but it didn't matter; it was totally delicious anyway. I ate it with a fresh salad of leaves from our local farm with bits of fresh organic mozzarella. Perfect dinner for one.

Grilled Courgette, Aubergine & Other Summery Things

My favorite day of the year, now that I'm an ex-pat, might be the first day that it's actually warm enough to sleep with the window open. Where we need to sleep with the window open because it's that hot outside. There's something about the cold, damp weather in the UK that seems to get under my skin more expertly than the cold & damp in Oregon or New York.



I get so happy about the warm weather that I feel inspired to do whimsical things like photograph my sheets drying in the sun. But the hot, sunny weather never seems to last that long in these parts...


The meal that I was totally hooked on last week when it was summer was a simple feast of roasted Mediterranean vegetables: zucchini (courgette), eggplant (aubergine) and tomatoes (toe-MAH-toe) - piled onto a slice of wholemeal bread with a slab of grilled halloumi cheese. You can grill these in the oven, but doing it over an open flame is ten times better. We rarely get to cook with fire, the way we've done since the dawn of time, and I'm an old-fashioned kind of girl who loves her caveman-style meal prep.

Halloumi is a fresh cheese made from goat and sheep's milk, originally from Palestine. It has a high melting point, so you can grill it. Don't salt it, though, as it has plenty on its own. In fact, you might want to take some of the salt out: take the cheese out of its package, rinse, and set in a bowl of cool water to cover for 15 minutes; then discard the water, rinse and repeat; do this soak several times to help remove some of the salt. As someone who's into eastern medicine, and who's predominant element is fire, I shouldn't eat too much salt, so this trick helps (salt is heating).



Roasted Summer Vegetables and Halloumi

You'll need:
1 package of haloumi cheese, sliced into pieces 1 cm thick
1 or 2 eggplants/aubergines; 1 or 2 zucchini/courgettes; 2 tomatoes; other nice vegetables to use: large shiitake or portobello mushrooms, onions, corn on the cob, asparagus...
Herbal oil: 1/4 cup good olive oil, into which you can put: 1 minced or crushed garlic clove; salt and fresh ground pepper; and herbs of your choice. We had sage, thyme and oregano.

Make the herby oil ahead of time so the flavours infuse. Instead of slicing the tomatoes and having the juice go everywhere, I cut out the tops so as to make a little funnel into the centre of the tomatoes for the herbal oil. Slice the eggplant and courgette in long strips from end to end, about 1 cm thick, and lay them out on a baking tray or flat plates. Brush them on both sides with the oil (I don't soak the veg in the oil the way one might do with some meats; they'll soak it up and become little grease bags) and let them sit for a while, maybe 30 minutes while you get the grill going.

The next part, Colm did, so this is guesswork; but basically, once the fire has died down and the coals are nice and hot, put your veggies on the racks and grill them until they start to blacken a bit but not too much; you know, barbecue them.

Grill the haloumi until it gets the nice grill lines and starts to brown. Slice some bread, put a tomato on it (or half of one), smoosh it on the bread and put a piece of haloumi on top. As for the other veggies, I just eat them straight: this, to me, is perfect.

Note: the herbal marinade contributes essential flavour and moisture to the vegetables here, so don't skimp on the herbs, garlic, minced shallot or spring onion...whatever you like. Basil would be lovely in there too. If you don't eat cheese, or bread, then just take that part out and enjoy what you can eat here - all elements were amazing on their own, but some make great combinations.

Tomatoes, garlic, halloumi and eggplant are too heating and/or oily for Pitta, so Pitta-types shouldn't have this all the time. But the courgettes, asparagus, corn on the cob and shiitake mushrooms that we also brushed with oil and grilled were absolutely amazing, and those are fine for Pitta.

Beet Risotto with Beet Greens

My bloke left on a train, about 40 minutes ago, and won't be back for over a week. I found myself walking home, racing the rain to get inside before it soaked me, wondering what the next 10 days will be like. I've been feeling quite whimsical for the past two weeks and now I have lots of quiet time to get creative with.

I always have much more to do than time to do it. A few of my aspirations for the week: 1. read "The Mists of Avalon"; 2. start working through the list of movies for 'Deeply Feeling People' on the Anima Center website, and maybe invite the girls over for one or two of them; 3. bake a batch of these and find someone to share them with. On Sunday, there's a 10K race which, I found out yesterday, I'll be running in. No time for boredom.



It's all up to me to use the vegetables in the garden now. I run out of things to do with beets very quickly, but luckily I've stumbled upon a good one: beet risotto.

This is a recipe that I got from "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone" by Deborah Madison. I call this book 'The Bible', because it's huge, and because it has every ingredient in it that a vegetarian might ever want some inspiration for. There are over 1,400 recipes, and it taught me loads about cooking when I started in 2004. One night, coming home on the subway in NYC, I saw two girls holding a copy and discussing it. I decided it was just what I needed.

I jumped at this recipe because of the 'jewel-color' she promises in the final product. If we owned this house, I would paint a wall a similar shade. It also sounded unusual, which is a characteristic I find attractive in my meals. It didn't fail to please, and even my professional skeptic of a partner who is slightly more picky than I, likes it. Beets are wonderful for blood health, and in Ayurveda they're decently tolerated by all doshas (don't overdo it for Pitta). I love juicing them with ginger and apple, too.



Beet Risotto
Adapted from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison

1 bunch of beets and their greens
1 small/medium diced onion
1/2 cup dry white wine
3 TBS olive oil or butter or a mixture
1.5 cups arborio rice
6 cups vegetable stock
2 teaspoons dried basil
1 tablespoon dried parsley
fresh ground black pepper
zest and juice of one small lemon or part of a large one
a handful of pre-toasted pine nuts or chopped walnuts
1/2 cup crumbled goat's cheese (optional).
Note: the herbs can be fresh, of course; but our basil isn't grown up enough for me to start eating it, and I didn't want to go all the way to the top of town for fresh parsley, so I cheated.

Wash, peel and grate the beets until you have about 2 cups. Wash the greens and chop them into small squares or whatever bite-size you fancy. You may want to de-stem them, unless you're a fan of beet stems.

Melt the butter or heat the oil in a medium/large saucepan, and add the onion. Cook over medium heat until translucent and sweet but not caramelized. Add the rice and stir until well coated, about a minute; then add the white wine and simmer until it's absorbed. Now add in the grated beet root, along with the basil and parsley. Stir this all around, then add 2 cups of stock and bring to a simmer. Cover and simmer until the stock is absorbed, then keep adding stock in 1/2 cup increments and let each addition absorb before adding more. When you've added all 6 cups and the risotto is just about done, add in the beet greens. Adding them at this late stage will keep them fresh and not overcooked, but heated enough so that the texture is nice and they're easily digestible. Season with fresh pepper, taste for salt, and add the lemon zest and juice. Thoroughly mix, then serve. Sprinkle with goat's cheese and the toasted nuts.