Life has been quite hectic around here lately. I’m sure you know what I mean, we get caught up in the whirlwind of time and soon enough it’s been entirely too long since our last post. I often find myself missing this little nook in the world-wide web and sharing all that’s delicious and healthy with you, Golubka’s lovely readers.
This time it’s a simple savoury meal, one that we find ourselves coming back to this winter due to its satisfying, earthy flavours. Falafel and tabouleh. My love affair with falafel started years ago, when my Middle Eastern cuisine loving husband took me out for a falafel pocket with tabouleh, hot peppers and yogurt sauce. I was, of course, hooked. Since then I’ve made my own falafel the traditional way and, more recently, this much healthier and very delicious version.
As for Paloma, she is often the first one to wipe her plate clean, busily switching between eating with a fork, spoon, and her hands. We often have to remind her to chew her food. She takes after her parents. We’ll be back with more elaborate meals soon, as well as a few stories. But for now, I hope you enjoy this flavourful meal and have a tranquil weekend.
I wanted to make a whole grain pizza, which by the way, I never have done successfully before. So, I decided to go straight to the source. The man! One of the most popular Italian chefs in the world… Mr. Mario Batali. And of course viola, he hooked me up and oh yeah, it turned out oh so yummy.
I’m giving full props to the man because I just substituted spelt flour for the all purpose he uses. The consistency of your crust will depend on how thick or thin you wanna shape it. The thicker you go the more bread like it will actually be.
I am in Cali, where the farmers market is booming with an abundant variety of amazing tomatoes. And, because of that, I always always seem to buy more than I can eat cause they all look so beautiful!!! So, if I don’t eat my luscious ripe tomatoes right away, I put them in the fridge to stay fresh but…ummmm…note to self: don’t forget about them!!! Huh. I know. My beautiful boxes of ripe golden red cherry tomatoes got pushed to the back of the fridge where I couldn’t see them clearly. Oh and I also found a bag of hot red chili’s from the farmer market too…hmmm….what to make…what to make…ohhhh, I know… a spicy Arrabiata Pasta sauce!!!!
Since coming back to the states from my Italian food adventures, I have been completely inspired to cook many incredible Italian dishes I experienced. Ahem…let me be specific…my newfound love for PASTA!!! Whole grain pasta, that is. I made the homemade pasta we learned at The Awaiting Table cooking school but it didn’t come out as perfectly as it did when we made it there, in Italy. Maybe it has something to do the all those wonderful minerals in the water…who knows…hopefully one of these days I will perfect it. It’s not that mine tasted bad, it’s just that it came out a bit thicker and chewier…in the meantime I am joyfully exploring the world of organic dry Italian pasta. Right now, I’m diggin’ Rustichella d’Abruzzo rigate di farro. It’s made from 100% farro flour, which is an unhybridized form of wheat that closely resembles spelt so any of you wheat sensitive peeps should find this ancient grain A-OK.
It’s a glorious end of summer kind of day with that wee bit of crispness of Fall in the gentle breeze, perfecto for an outdoor Italian pasta lunch! Yes, I was thinking the same thing; a special “friend” and some Italian wine is a must too! Either way, enjoy yaself!!! Ciao ciao….
About the photos, I know… I should have taken photos before we started eating. Next time I promise.
The early autumn continues to bring us gorgeous watermelons and heirloom tomatoes in southern California. The perfect ingredients to create a soup that is as tasty as it is healing. Perfect if you’re on a raw food cleanse. It’s very high in cancer preventing lycopene and the flavor is simply fantastic. I taught this at my Brooklyn Kitchen classes and everyone raved about how much they loved it. If you’re cleansing you can skip the sea salt and if you want a richer soup add a tablespoon or two of good quality extra virgin olive oil to the base.
Serves about 6 to 8
For the Base
4 cups watermelon, chopped
1 small red heirloom or Roma tomato, seeded, chopped
When I was in Italy over the summer I had lemon pasta for the first time and was in heaven. You see, lemons are one of my most favorite fruits. I use them probably everyday, but I never had it in a pasta before! YUM! A lovely brightness to add to your winter meal…
The other day, we were taking a walk on the beach and recollecting our many summers spent on the Black Sea shore. Sochi (where the 2014 winter Olympics will be held) was where we usually stayed with family, in a charming old house. Whole days were spent on the beach, bathing in the gentle water and soaking up the sun, completely content. Summer in Sochi is truly magical, with warm windless days, chilly evenings, fireflies, and water temperatures that are refreshing yet welcoming. And that is where we got our yearly dose of figs. In our hometown, figs were a rarity – expensive and shipped from afar. But Sochi was a different story. Come the “velvet season”, at the end of August, and the many fig trees in the streets and backyards exhibited the plump fruit. For some unknown reason, the locals did not care for them. So we became fruit thieves in neighbor’s yards, justified by the fact that the figs would go to waste without our rescue. It’s a known fact that the less the time between harvesting and eating, the better the flavour. And freshly picked, those figs tasted like honey, and their sweetness lingered on our lips all season long.
The other true jewel of those times in Sochi was hazelnut. Hazelnut trees were abundant and beautiful with their trios of ready to pick nuts hidden in green cocoons. We would take bags of freshly harvested hazelnuts to the beach and crack the nuts with smooth sea rocks. They made for an unforgettably tasty snack. Folk medicine is rich with tales of the nut’s healing powers. In fact, one such remedy calls for the mixture of figs and hazelnuts to be taken at the end of the meal to aid digestion.
Now that figs have come into season, we decided to build this pizza around them with the addition of hazelnuts, caramelized onion, and basil sauce.
I’d be totally lying if I said I weren’t a sucker for anything colored pink or purple. Which is why, when I came across these purple hull peas at the market, I couldn’t resist the splurge! The price was high, and I had no clue what I was going to do with them, but that only intrigued me more.
When I got home, I anxiously cracked open a pod, and to my surprise found a bean similar to that of the black eyed pea. ‘Crap’ I thought, I have to cook these! Not because I don’t sometimes eat cooked food, but because my dehydrator’s home is on top of my stove – Basically, cooking (with heat) to me, is so much more work than it’s counterpart. Funny what we get used to…
Any who, I sat in front of my computer, watched two hours of hulu, and shelled all of the beans. Whew, what a job! I knew after all that work, that this would definitely be a one time only purchase!
It was black friday and I hadn’t even left the house, and yet, I still managed to do my fare share of post Thanksgiving shopping. Isn’t the internet fabulous!? All those ya-hoo’s waiting in line at 4am, and yet, I’ve scored my fare share of deals without even having to leave the house… Or my pajama’s, for that matter :)
Any who, shopping aside, for Thanksgiving I drove home to have dinner with the fam (all 7 of us – yes, that includes extended fam, ha), so I thought I’d share with you the dishes I made.
Keeping things nut-free, most dishes were super simple, partially cooked and traveled well. Since the following dishes are rather (or extremely) easy, the recipes aren’t exact, but rather, just general guidelines.
The title should give you a clue to what I am about to rant about and if it doesn’t maybe the I HATE TEMPEH Tattoo on my arm will. I really do hate Tempeh. I mean, I don’t have a hate thing going just because it is Tempeh, I am not like that. I hate it because every time I order Tempeh at a restaurant (like Real Food Daily in Santa Monica) it just taste like cardboard. I am not joking, a fedex box would be better. The waiter serving it even says to me, and who ordered the cardboard. Okay he didn’t say that, but he really should have. People ordering this stuff must really be into the possible health benefits, because come on, really who could like the taste of this stuff. Reminds me of those diet dried rice cakes, I remember people sucking down in the 80′s to lose weight. Dull boring cardboard cakes, MMMMM not!
So, the other day, I am hanging out with Aria and I think she asked me if I liked Tempeh (I guess she didn’t see my tat) and of course that set me off on a rant like the one above. No, I do not like Tempeh, I do not like Tempeh in a salad, I do not like Tempeh on a sandwich, I do not like Tempeh Loafs, I do not like Tempeh while sitting with a goat, or while wearing a coat, I just do not like Tempeh. Well, Aria didn’t like that at all. She gave me a look that could kill a child. Her face turned red and she said, you just don’t know what your talking about. Tempeh is a wonderful food. It’s a whole food don’t you know. It has amazing health benefits (oh here we go) for sickly looking Vegans (hint hint), such as natural cultures to help digestion, protein to pump up those muscles and vitamins like B, calcium, and even essential fatty acids. Yeah yeah yeah, as I roll my eyes, but it taste like cardboard, I said. And I am sure Cardboard has great fiber, but I am not about to sit down and suck down an amazon.com box anytime soon. This just got her fuming… (i am joking, she is actually very calm and when she hit me with the Tempeh package, it didn’t really hurt). Then she said, okay we are going to have a challenge, which I can’t remember exactly what it was, but basically she would make Tempeh I would actually find it impossible to not say, WOW, this is good. Hmmm not likely was my response. She wasn’t phased, she just started cooking and I eased my way out of the kitchen to eat some of my cashew spicy cheesy kale chips.. mmmm. Now those are good… just saying!
What did she make? Hmmm I will give you a hint, I named the recipe in the title. She made a Sweet and yet Spicy Baked Tempeh which was not only good, it was really really good and yes I couldn’t resist… I said Wow, but not in front of her of course. There wasn’t a single hint of the dreaded cardboardishness of all the other Tempeh’s on the planet. What made this tempeh different, then lets say Real Food Daily’s tempeh, it was all in the sauce. When those words came out of my mouth, Aria just rolled her eyes and said, of course it’s the sauce, you thick Monkie. Tempeh doesn’t have a flavor of it’s own. You have to marinate it, to allow it to soak up all the yummy spices. But my point was that it’s the sauce oozing over the tempeh, giving it a nice moist feeling, like a nice BBQ rib or something, which made it so…yummy. No, I don’t eat ribs or any animal anything, but I have in my lifetime so I know what I am talking about. She did the impossible, she made cardboard taste good, hmmmm, maybe she can tackle the rest of Real Food Daily’s menu next. I will keep you posted.
Yes, Aria won again and so can you. Just say no to Cardboard and try this recipe!
I rushed home tonight to whip up this raw version of the Macro bowl I had from Aux Vivres last week, so I could share the yummy goodness with all ya’ll before the weekend. You can skip the bowl, but I wouldn’t skip the sauce. I said it before and I’ll say it again – it’s ridic.
Some foods have a distinct seasonal disposition. Ice cream for summertime, apple pie in the autumn, hot soup during winter, and roasted artichoke in the spring. Well, I have a feeling that this soup surpasses seasons. It’s both light and hearty and is just as delicious chilled as it is warm.
I often daydream about food and make up different recipes while doing things unrelated to cooking. Well recently, in the middle of a daydream, I got an idea for making a soup that would have nut milk for its base. I imagined a bowl full of soup that is “blond” and creamy, and became excited about the possibilities of the milk’s earthy flavour.
It took quite a bit of experimentation until I was able to minimize the ingredients to two simple companions to almond milk – apple and fennel. Combined with the milk’s nutty taste, the two bring a sweet and fresh presence to the bowl. The spice of chili and coriander deepens the flavour and ties the whole thing together with a slight kick. The use of nut milk instead of whole nuts makes for a much lighter soup.
Well recently, in the middle of a daydream, I got an idea for making a soup that would have nut milk for its base.
Pumpkinseed cheese is a fairly recent discovery. The first time I made it, I could not believe what a wonderful result I got with so few ingredients. It’s a bit like a cracker. A cheesy, healthy, and delicious one. I’ve made it very frequently over the past couple of months. It’s simple, and works as a wonderful snack or part of a meal. I like to serve the soup with this “cheese,” but it’s very possible to pair it with any crackers of your choice.
Photography Golubka
