Garbanzo Days Volume III: The Quick, The Nutritious, The Mighty Delicious

I had promised that in the next volume I would tackle a dish of the Greek variety, but mid week tends to get a bit hectic and doesn't leave much time for experimenting. This is one of my go to meals when I'm in a rush and can't figure out exactly what I feel like eating. It is quick to prepare and makes fantastic leftovers.

This bowl of goodness was inspired by a delicious offering at The Organic Garden in Beverly called the Monk's Bowl which generally consists of layers of chopped greens, brown rice or quinoa, cubed avocado or falafel and drenched in their soup of the day. My version here is made up of quinoa, beans [in this case garbanzo], broccoli, and carrot ginger soup [only enough to be soaked up in the quinoa]

You can substitute the quinoa with brown rice but generally I don't have enough time or patience to cook brown rice especially when quinoa cooks up in only fifteen minutes. If you have never tried quinoa, you must! It is ridiculously high in protein and fiber and it's gluten free. Not only does it serve as a rice alternative but you can find it in pasta and baking flour form.

Each component of the bowl can be changed depending on your taste. In the past when I've wanted some spice I've done a combination of Inca red quinoa, pinto beans, tomatoes, avocado and some veggie chili to top it off. Another time I combined quinoa, cubed sweet potato, garbanzo beans and a coconut thai curry soup. It's the ideal dish to make when you have a lot of lonely leftover vegetables that need to be eaten. Just pair it with a soup that can pull it all together and you're in business. Or leave the soup out all together for a lighter version.

Garbanzo Days Volume II: Fajeeta Brrreetah

It's quite the sight watching me grocery shop. I am too stubborn to give into the cart so without fail, despite the size of my shopping list, I grab a basket. I am convinced that by choosing the basket over the cart I will spend less money since I can't carry as much. But the combination of my tetris skills and my never ending test of my muscle strength result in a basket overflowing with produce, cereal, almond milk and an array of yogurts and whatever my other arm can carry. At least this time I was savvy enough to pick out my fruits and veggies last so they weren't smooshed at the bottom. In a fit of feeling like collapsing under the weight of my groceries, I bailed halfway through my search for delicious stir fry components.

After two days of curried tuna and garbanzo beans I searched my fridge for something of the asian persuasion and was surprised to find little to work with. Once the fridge started cooling down the entire kitchen I decided it was time to make some moves on dinner.

It started out as stir fry inspired until I was reminded of the large quantity of garbanzo beans that were crucial as an ingredient. I combined orange pepper, red onion, tomato, and spinach in a pan with a splash of Spanish olive oil, cayenne pepper and chili powder. I spread a thin layer of left over refried pinto beans onto the chili tortillas, topped with a handful of garbanzo beans and the spicy vegetable concoction and the Fajeeta Brrreetah was born!

The results were quite colorful and the meal took 15 minutes overall to prepare. The chopping was the most time consuming part, but even that was manageable.

Later in the night I was feeling like something sweet. In my attempt to appease my lactose intolerance I've been steering clear of dairy which has forced me to get creative when it comes to dessert. This wound up being a fairly middle eastern/ northern African inspired treat. I chopped up a frozen banana, a couple medjool dates and a few squares of Taza's 80% dark chocolate, sprinkled it with dry coconut and drizzled some agave nectar to finish it off.

This dessert was a quick fix for my sweet tooth and ideal for a humid, rainy night.

The garbanzo days have just begun and I have the feeling that venturing into my homeland cuisine for the next challenge would be the most appropriate choice. Let's just say Dimitrios, Yorgo and George, I'll be seeing you fellows soon.

Garbanzo Days Volume I: A Humid Transition

Since the latest heat wave that has hit the Northeast, my little kitchen in Somerville has been mighty dormant. Meals have either been on the go or consisting of light fruits and vegetables that will suppress the heat induced light headedness... and bbq of course. My tummy has been seeing a lot of avocados and tomatoes generously sprinkled with salt and pepper night after night. After finishing off the last of my avos and toms, I started getting an itch for something new. Once I finished scouring my cupboard for any food that was on its last legs I had a brilliant idea.

Meet my curried tuna salad!

I had picked up yellow curry a while back when I was wandering around Haymarket. I stare at it almost every day, trying to figure out what tasty meals I could create from it but I am still quite the novice when it comes to curry. But with the combination of the tuna and no cooking required, I figured I could make something delicious. After consulting a few different recipes I wound up winging it. I added in red onion, a few tbs of nayonaise [to replace mayonnaise] a handful of raisins, cilantro and salt and pepper to taste and of course 3 hearty tsp of yellow curry powder. I let it refrigerate for a couple hours to let the flavors settle into the tuna. Results: delicious, although a little bit of cubed green apple wouldn't have hurt.

Why all the garbanzo beans, you ask? I had my first experience with buying bulk dry beans and got a bit overzealous during the soaking process. Turns out none of my roommates are too keen on the bean so I'll be enjoying them as a side [or main dish] for the next couple of weeks or so. I must say, soaking the beans myself [for 12 hours and then cooking for 1.5 hours] does make them taste better, but that might just be more of a matter of principle than taste.

Onto more summer cooking [or non cooking] Let the adventures begin!

A Farewell Feast

Feeling hungry is reason enough to cook, but having a farewell dinner for friends before they leave for tour where home cooking will be a distant memory is an even better reason. I'd been sitting on this recipe for months, drooling at the photographs. Stuffed peppers were a staple in my house growing up, but the ground beef really turned me away from them as I got older. Replace that with quinoa and you've got yourself one mighty delicious pepper.

I'm not a believer in following recipes. In my opinion it's overall stressful and really takes away from the whole process of creating something that's your own. I'm not knocking recipes and don't get me wrong, using a fantastic recipe as a base is key but it's far more satisfying to play around with dosing and ingredients. Plus, it's the ideal way to play into my unattainable dream of becoming a mad scientist.

This recipe in particular had all of my favorite vegetables included but I decided to throw in some extra ingredients I had hiding in the depths of my fridge. The innards alone could have been a meal [I'm surprised they even made it into the peppers considering the lengthy cook time] but cooking them in the peppers for an hour really let the flavors soak in. The peppers wound up being incredibly tender. Yellow and orange peppers brought a different taste rather than just sticking with the standard red and green [boring!]

After a huge meal of grains and vegetables, Cardamom Baked Pears were the perfect dessert. The key to all cooking is timing [and making sure not to dig too far into the wine before the prep is done] Tossed these puppies in once we started eating and they were done just in time for our stomachs to have digested the main course and move onto something spicier and sweeter.

And the only thing greater than a farewell dinner is the feast you get to create for the homecoming.

Sclemeel, Schlemazel, Hasenfeffer Incorporated

This past weekend two Greeks and an Italian set out to cook a traditional Hanukkah meal. Considering our prior knowledge [which was little to none] of how to prepare such a meal and the fact that Hanukkah isn't anywhere close to soon, we tweaked it and made it our own.

Our main dish was sweet potato latkes. This recipe is super easy and a great spin off of the classic latke. It has ginger and scallions in it which really give it a distinct taste. The key is making sure you dry the excess water off the sweet potatoes once you've grated them. Cooking in someone else's kitchen can be a real treat, especially when they have two huge sinks, a garbage disposal and the most incredible peeler. Frying these suckers up was a cinch once Jeremy endlessly grated sweet potatoes and nearly lost a finger.

The delicious side dish that kept our orange theme going was carrot tzimmes. This was a brand new recipe to me that wound up being my favorite part of the meal. All it took was a little honey, raisins, onions, vegetable broth and carrots simmered for 45 minutes and some Barbra Streisand on the record player. We didn't realize until halfway through marathon chopping that the recipe was meant to serve 24 people. You can bet we had leftovers for days.

For dessert we kept the sweet potato goodness coming and made a sweet potato chocolate torte. We substituted coconut flour for almond flour which brought the richness of the torte to new levels. The sweet potato mixed with the dark cocoa and coconut flour made for a dense dessert. Once it cooled, we melted down some bitter sweet chocolate with cream and made a rich ganache to top it off. Vegetables in dessert, yes please!

The night was spent in a sweet potato stupor that we enjoyed well into the evening while watching the 1990s classic, Serial Mom. If you haven't revisited that film since the last time you felt envious of Kevin McCallister, then it's a must!

Baleboosteh!

And I would wok 500 miles

A few years back, before I conquered my kitchen, I thought wok cooking would be a good way to ease into hearty homemade meals. So my sister, who happens to be a domestic goddess [and makes the world's best brownies, hands down] bought me one for Christmas. It was an entire set- cold rolled carbon steel wok, wooden steam rack, turner, ladle... it was gorgeous. And I let it sit in the box for an entire year before I was brave enough to make my first stir fry. I only filled the house up with smoke once in my trial runs, but I still blame the garlic.

The goodness of wok cooking is that you can add all of your favorite leafy greens and vegetables and produce a fast, tasty, super nutritious meal. The presentation isn't so bad either.

My favorite dressing to use is a soy ginger with soba noodles. Water chestnuts are also a necessity. Baby bok choy is the way to go when it comes to bok choy options, least amount of waste. And don't forget broccoli and handfuls upon handfuls of spinach. When you run out of soy sauce, the best default is to dig out one of those dry instant miso soup packets that's probably buried in the back of your pantry. Let the flavors settle in with the noodles and stir fry and you've got yourself one mighty fine soup.

The best part about cooking with a wok is the amount of puns that you can make while cooking. I currently have a good deal going with my roommate- I cook her delicious meals and she cleans the dishes and supplies the puns.

We have a running list:

Wok in the park

Wok this way

Wok the line

Wok on.

A Brief History of Needlework

Here's a look back on my more notable knitting and embroidery projects.

My grandmother used to knit up a storm. When I was younger she made teenage mutant ninja turtle sweaters, matching sweaters for me and my sister, gloves, hats, doll clothes... She was a knitting machine. When I was twenty I begged her to show me how to knit despite her arthritis. She was patient with my failed attempts at purling and eventually it clicked. I moved onto bigger projects with Debbie Stoller's Stitch N' Bitch and now I can make more than scarves and potholders.

Every winter I have a solid month of knitting as many things as my hands can handle. Knit on the train, knit at work, knit on the couch with Basil preying on my ball of yarn. These are from two winters back.

This year I consumed myself with embroidery. My mother [the most crafty lady I've ever known] let me ransack the attic for hoops and floss and gave me some tips and showed me her methods, first and most importantly- patience. I found my favorite patterns in Jenny Hart's Embroidered Effects. This type of needlework came more naturally to me but boy is it time consuming yet insanely relaxing.

Debbie Stoller on needlecrafts with NPR:

But at a certain point I sort of realized that these needlecrafts were in general sort of stigmatized in our culture, looked down on a little bit. And as far as I could tell, the only reason they really had this bad image was because it was something that had traditionally been done by women. And as a feminist I wanted to try to change that. Because I thought all of these needlecrafts really deserved to get some credit and some value.

full interview.

Crushing Domesticity.

The time has finally come. I faced my fear of domestication and said I'm gonna make you my bitch.

The resurgence of crafting and culinary arts has been on the rise. Sure, there are the Rachel Ray's and Martha Stewart's who have been marketing their classic, easy to cook and better homes living for the suburban women of America; but the real bad ass ladies of the DIY third wave feminist inspired movement are women like Debbie Stoller [founder of Bust magazine and author of Stitch n' Bitch] and Isa Chandra Moskowitz [vegan baker extraordinaire and creator of The Post Punk Kitchen]

Cooking and crafting have gone back to their roots of being a fine art, even an empowering thing. I mean, home EC came to be in the 1890s by a group of women who were attempting to professionalize domestic work in hope to offer more careers for women that were scientifically based. Bust wrote a solid feature of the history of Home EC in their August/ September issue that is worth checking out.

I was afraid of cooking for years. The vastness of kitchen appliances and the preparation, organization and accuracy that comes with cooking was far too intimidating. As was the idea of things like crocheting, knitting and any other needlework. I found that it's all about making it your own. Forget the traditional recipe and how the end result should look. Once I focused on the process, the results were magical and mighty delicious.

All of my attempts at cooking and crafting are best shared with friends. And now I will share my process and maybe drop some empowering lady knowledge on you from time to time too.

Oh and of course sweet Basil will also be a regular aid to the process.