Well toss mah salad!

I accidentally created a delicious salad:

Sweet onion
Chopped celery
tomato
lettuce (your choice)
fresh cilantro
fresh parsley
ground sumac

I tend to go heavy on the sumac, for I in in lurvs with it. (I should dedicate a post to sumac; maybe later.)

Mix well and pop in the fridge for 20 minutes or more.
Take out, give another toss and serve.

Another tasty and bold variation:

chop a whole onion
liberally coat with sumac
let sit for 15-20 minutes and eat.
The sumac cuts the harshness of the raw onion, and the two flavors merge so spectacularly that you may begin to rethink intelligent design. Or not, but it IS delicioso!

Meringue and baking fail

I was craving something sweet last night, took inventory of my fridge and pantry and went on a hunt for applicable recipes. I discovered meringue cookies. Egg whites, salt, sugar, lemon, cream of tartar. Excellent! I had everything but the cream of tartar, but I assumed that I could substitute lemon (which was confirmed by several websites).

The one thing that was called for that I did NOT have was a glass or metal bowl. For all of my mixing needs, I have a nice set of melamine bowls. It may be time to replace them. Apparently, plastic and melamine can retain oils even after cleaning, which will cause a meringue to fall or not even form (which makes sense: meringue becomes stiff due to the whipping action breaking the hydrogen bonds in the egg protein. Whipping also introduces air, so the whole thing becomes a volumized air suspension. Oil, even in miniscule amounts, will break the surface tension, reducing everything to a gooey mess).

Needless to say, I was left with that gooey mess. In an effort to not let the eggs go to waste, I dumped in some wheat gluten and some leftover white flour that I had sitting around, added some baking powder, pupped into muffin cups and baked. The result: Flat, rubber cupcakes. Considering the fact that I LIKE chewy things, the texture was perfect. That flavor? Not so perfect. I don't think I rinsed the soap from my baking cups welle nough. That, and the fact that the flour I had used was very, very old lent a lovely stale quality.

Next time, I'll use metal bowls and avoid this horror!

Spice grinding

Ive got a mortar and pestle (2 actually: one for dry solids, the other for things more wet).
Nowadays, I only use them for things that my my grinder doesn't do well with (namely, large, dry leaves like bay leaves).

I've got an old Cuisinart Grind Central Coffee Grinder that I was given several years ago which I've repurposed into a spice and grain grinder (after discovering the joys of a burr grinder, but more about that in another post).

Now, this may sound strange, but what I like most about using the coffee grinder is the lack of particle consistency. When grinding grains such as brown rice and barley for about 45 seconds, I'm left with particles ranging in size from a half a grain down to a very fine powder. I like this because I'm a huge fan of textural variation in my food. As I enjoy all of the dishes that combine into a single meal to have varying, but complementary flavors, I also love when a -single- dish has textural variance. The different sized in my pulverized grains lend different properties - chewiness, smoothness and liquid and flavor absorption.

I also make my own spice mixtures, and again, the varying textures make for lovely combinations (especially when I am grinding dried garlic. MMM!)

Creature-less *balls

Last night, I was too tired to head to the grocery store to pick up some ground meat, so I decided to make do with non-creature-originating items within my household.

Now, I'm not trying to go vegan, but I do like having the option; I'm a reluctant carnivore who frequently entertains the thought of ceasing creature consumption.

Creature-less *balls

Base:
1/4 cup pearl barley, ground
1/4 cup brown basmati rice, ground
1/4 cup wheat gluten
1/4 cup garbonzo flour
1 cup water

Spices:
1/4 cup Chopped shallots
1/4 cup minced garlic
Leek, Cilantro, Marjoram, Parsley, Taragon, Savory, Basil
1tbs ground sumac
Pepper to taste, salt if you wish

Mix the base ingredients together. You may need to adjust the amounts above. Initially, I started with just the barley, rice and gluten, but added the garbonzo flour because I had used too much water. You're aiming for a heavy paste that can be rolled into balls. Add spices and mix in well.

Let the mixture rest for about 10 minutes.

Roll into balls and place into boiling liquid and simmer for about 40 minutes. (I sauteed some veggies, added a cup of water and some tomato paste and popped the balls in).

I see no reason why these can't be fried, steamed or even baked. If frying, give a nice coating of some kind of flour.

Oh, my *balls!

I've been experimenting with East Mediterranean cuisine as of late (Turkish, Greek, Lebanese, Syrian) and came across a dish called Sabzi Kouftah. Essentially, they are heavily herbed balls of meat and rice stewed in tomato sauce and vegetables, almost like a tangine. It's basically a different take on my *balls. I've twisted it about to reduce the carb load and came up with this tasty dinner last night:

Balls
1/3lb ground *
Herbs (I've only used dry so far, but want to try fresh. I'm not entirely sure of quantity other than, equalize the amounts and make sure the mix is very green - I think I used 1tbs of each listed. I'm still tweaking these):
Leek, Parsley, Tarragon, Savory, Cilantro and Basil.
1/4 cup barley**
egg white
grated onion (about 2tbs)
spices to taste (I used only pepper)

** I've processed the barley in a grinder to obtain a nice powder. If you opt to use whole barley, cook beforehand

Stew
1 3/4 cups water
1/2 can tomato paste
1 medium tomato, chopped
1/4 cup red lentils
1/2 large onion, sliced
1/2 small eggplant, cubed
little bit of green pepper
spices to taste (I used pepper, garlic and aleppo pepper - I've intentionally made the sauce on the bland side to accentuate the garnish)

Garnish
Fresh cilantro, marjoram and mint, crushed

Mix ball ingredients well and set aside for 10 minutes or so

In a large pan, saute onion, tomato, green pepper and eggplant on medium until onions begin to carmelize and tomatoes start to stick.
Add water, tomato paste and lentils and bring to a boil.

Form meat mixture into balls and gently place into boiling sauce.
Reduce heat and simmer about 40 minutes (if you are using a large pan, you may want to turn your balls halfway through if they aren't fully immersed).

Remove from heat, stir and sprinkle garnish.

Eat!

As an extra tasty bit, I added diced green almonds to the garnish. I'll post about those a little later.

Me + Farinata = Delicious Farinfailure

In my search for low-glycemic treats, I discovered an Italian bread called Farinata. It's a flatbread made with chick pea flour and water. I have a batch in the oven now, but I think my pan is too thin. Oh well, at least I'll have some tasty superthin wafers.


Farinata:

2/3 cup chick pea flour
3/4 cup water
2tbs olive oil
salt, pepper and rosemary to taste
a flat pan (I used a large non-stick baking tray)

blend flour and water well and lest rest for 2-4 hours.
mixture will have foam on top - scrape off the foam.

Preheat oven to 400F
Mix in oil, salt, pepper, rosemary well

Note: the mix will be quite liquid. Don't worry, it's supposed to be.

Pour into baking tray - it should be fairly thin (mine was TOO thin - it should sit about 1/8" of an inch deep).

Bake @400F for 15 - 20 minutes (still tuning these values)

Your mouth will water from the scent wafting from your oven.