Falafel Burgers with Tahini Dressing

Whoever came up with the idea of falafel should be give a Nobel prize. Do they do that? Give out Nobel prizes to people who discover the most amazing combination of ingredients?

Well, they should.

These here are lightly pan fried falafel patties sandwiched in between home made pitta breads with a wonderfully nutty tahini dressing.

Of course, our veg. I used tomatoes, Japanese cucumbers, arugula and onions inside my burgers. Can you still call them that? Pitta-gers? Falafatties?

Falafatties, hmmm....

Homemade pitta bread

1 tablespoon active dry yeast
1 tablespoon of sugar
1/2 cup of warm water
4 cups of bread flour
2 teaspoons of salt
1 cup of warm water
1 tablespoon of olive oil

Dissolve in the yeast and sugar in 1/2 cup of warm water and set aside, covered, for 15 minutes. Dissolve salt in the remaining 1 cup of warm water.

In a large mixing bowl, add flour and make a well in the center. Add yeast mixture and salt water. Knead with hands for 10 minutes in the bowl. Add olive oil and continue to knead until all oil is absorbed. Shape into a ball in the bowl, cover, and place in a warm area to rise until doubled in volume (2 hours). Punch down the dough and knead for 5 minutes more.

Preheat oven to 175°C, and lightly oil baking trays.

Take pieces of dough slightly larger than an egg and roll out on a floured surface to a thickness of 3/8 to 1/4 inch. (For larger or smaller pita bread pieces, take more or less dough). Prick the bread with a fork in several places.

Place on baking sheets and bake at 175°C on the lowest oven rack for 2-3 minutes, then turn the pitas over and bake for another 2-3 minutes. Remove from oven and place on a tray and cover with a clean dishtowel. When thoroughly cooled, pitas can be stored in plastic bags in the refrigerator, or frozen.

Falafel patties

1 1/2 cups cooked garbanzo beans (chickpeas), coarsely pureed
1/4 cup loosely packed parsley leaves, finely chopped
2 tablespoons chopped green onions and tops
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/4 cup plain flour
1 1/4 tsp ground cumin
salt and pepper, to taste
olive oil cooking spray

Mix garbanzo beans, parsley, chopped green onions, garlic, lemon juice, flour and cumin in bowl, season to taste with salt and pepper. Shape mixture into 4 'burgers'

spray a large skillet with cooking spray; cook over medium heat until hot. cook 'burgers' until browned on the bottoms, 3 to 4 minutes. Spray tops of 'burgers' with cooking spray; turn and cook until browned on other side, 3 to 4 minutes.

Arrange 'burgers' in pita breads; drizzle scant 2 tablespoons Tahini dressing over each 'burger'. Garnish with chopped cucumbers, tomatoes, arugula and onions, if desired

Tahini Dressing

1/3 cup yogurt
2-3 tablespoons tahini (sesame seed paste)
1 small garlic clove, minced
1/2-1 tsp lemon juice

combine all ingredients; refrigerate until ready to use

Have two, have three.
hell, have four.

i did.

Mini Pizzas

Too cute.

Basic Pizza Dough


21g dry yeast
30g honey
625ml water
1kg bread flour
30g salt
Extra flour, for dusting

Combine Yeast, honey and milk in a glass bowl. Stir and leave for 15 minutes. In a mixing bowl, combine flour and salt. Make a well in the centre and pour in the yeast mixture and water. Knead dough until smooth and elastic. Cover and leave to rise in a warm place until double in volume (about 1 hour)

Grease 2large baking sheets. Punch down dough, divide into 4 equal parts and roll each piece into a circular disk, stretching and pulling the dough until it is very thin, about 3mm.

Brush each pizza dough with olive oil and sprinkle with topping of your choice.

Variation:

-olive oil, tomato puree, bacon bits, chopped pineapple, baby spinach
-olive oil, sliced tomatoes, rosemary and pittes kalamata olives, fresh arugula
-Olive oil, can anchovies, red peppers, fresh basil

Bake in a 200 degrees C oven for 15-20 minutes, until dough is golden brown and crispy

Note: This is a thin crust pizza, for a thicker crust, roll the pastry to 5-6mm

I usually put the cheese on after this baby is out of the oven because melted cheese is a big no-no.
To make them mini, just use a small circular dough cutter to make little circles. The smaller pizzas take about 15 minutes in the oven.

Orange and Carrot Couscous

The original recipe called for pumpkins instead of carrots. But since the fate of my pumpkin was already decided, i had to make do with carrots.

I made half of the recipe and it was already a lot, so be warned if you are intending to make the entire thing!

Couscous with orange and carrot

1 1/2 cups (250g) Couscous
3 cups (750ml) water
750g pumpkin (or carrots), chopped coarsely
1 tbsp olive oil
2 medium brown onions (300g), chopped finely
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tsp grated orange rind
1/2 cup (125 ml) orange juice
1/3 cup (50g) coarsely chopped dried apricots
1/2 cup (80g) dry roasted almonds, chopped coarsely
1/4 cup (15g) thinly sliced fresh mint

1. combine couscous and the water in a medium bowl; stand about 15 minutes or until the water is absorbed

2. Meanwhile, boil, steam or microwave pumpkin (or carrots) until tender; drain.

3. Heat oil in large frying pan; cook onions and garlic, stirring over medium heat about 3 minutes or until tender and browned lightly.

4. Add rind, apricot, Couscous and pumpkin (or carrots); stir until heated through.Add salt to taste. Serve sprinkled with nuts and mint.

Vegetable Rice

Do not be fooled by it's name!
Vegetable Rice? Bleah!

This moist rice is so irrisistable you forget about the peppers and carrots and celery inside it. And this is coming from an extremely ANTI-VEG fifteen year-old.

So it tastes great PLUS it's nutritious?
Now i want to eat it everyday.

Vegetable Rice
1 tbsp Oil
1 cup chopped onions
1/2 cup chopped carrots
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup chopped red peppers
14.5 oz chicken broth
1 1/2 cup white rice, uncooked
1 cup frozen peas (i took a stand here and excluded the peas. Absolutely hate 'em)
Salt and Pepper to taste

Heat oil in a skillet and saute onions, celery, carrots and peppers for about 7 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Add broth and bring to a boil. Stir in rice and peas. Cover and let simmer for 5 min then remove from heat and let sit for 5 min so that liquid is absorbed.

Alternatively, if you posses a rice cooker (i do!), just pour the broth into the cooker along with the rice and peas after boiling and hit 'Cook'.

This is the life.

Mushroomy Wild Rice

Recently i have discovered my mushroom passion.
Let me say that one more time.

Mushroom passion, mushroom passion, mushroom passion.

And the only thing better than my mushroom passion is my mushroom with garlic passion.

On spaghetti, or pasta, or pizza or rice.
I'll have it anywhere, now.

I adapted this recipe from here.
It's a great site.

Mushroomy Wild Rice
1 tsp oil

1 cup sliced button mushrooms

1/2 cup diced tomatoes
1 garlic clove, minced

1 cup uncooked wild rice
1/4 t salt
1/8 t pepper

Heat oil in a large skillet on medium high and add mushrooms. Cook for 2 minutes and add tomatoes and garlic and cook another 2 minutes.
Cook rice in rice cooker. Add to mushroom mix along with salt and pepper. Serve immediately.

Doesn't that look great?
I love the colour of wild rice.
All rice should be coloured like wild rice.

Red Rice

I'm a tomato-holic.

And what really gets me hungry is sun-dried tomatoes.
man, i can already taste them in my mouth.

So when i came upon a recipe for Red Rice from 400 Calories Or Less, I knew I had to try it.

Such flavour.
Such smokiness.
Such...

Just make it already, will you?

I'm loving the little oregano leaves you can see there.
Hmmmm, another thing i love: Oregano.

Oh, and the best part?
Only 209 calories per serve.

Red Rice
(adapted from 400 calories or less)

1 tablespoon oil

1 large shallot, finely chopped

1 garlic clove, minced

2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 cup white rice
1 ¾ cups chicken or beef broth

½ teaspoon oregano flakes

Coarse salt to taste

Pepper

Heat oil and cook garlic and shallot until shallot begins to brown, about 7 minutes.
Then add tomato paste and stir well.
Add rice, broth, oregano, salt and pepper and bring to a boil them reduce heat to low, cover and cook until liquid is absorbed, about 15 minutes.
Let sit covered 5 minutes. Serve warm
(serves 4)

i took the easy way out and popped the rice along with the stock into the rice cooker after it boiled. Turned out might fine, so if you have a rice cooker, it would be much easier to use.