I have a little problem. I'm addicted to cookbooks, food writing, recipe collecting, and cooking. I have a lot of recipes waiting for me to try them, and ideas from articles, tv, and restaurants often lead to new dishes. I started losing track of what I've done. So now I'm taking photos and writing about what I've prepared—unless it's terrible in which case I forget it ever happened.
When I receive acorn squash from my CSA, it takes me a few days to decide how to use them. My first inclination is always to roast and stuff the halves. But, a recipe in the September issue of Food and Wine gave me a delicious new idea that will work great for all types of winter squash. Baked squash falafel uses mashed, roasted squash in place of chickpeas, but chickpea flour is used to bind the mixture. The star ingredient here was the winter squash, and I get excited to use what’s fresh and in season from our local farms. But, for a recipe like this, it couldn’t have come together without a trip to the grocery store as well. Do you have strong feelings about grocery stores? I’m lucky to have great options for grocery shopping in Austin, and I’ve seen lots of changes to the grocery shopping scene here over the last couple of decades. What got me thinking about that is the new book Grocery: The Buying and Selling of Food in America by Michael Ruhlman of which I received a review copy. The book is a broad reflection on grocery shopping and how it has evolved from its beginning, but it’s also a look at what customers expect from grocery stores and how that changes with trends that come and go. I admit to feeling a little hometown pride in reading about the history of Whole Foods Market and how they were able to change the landscape of organic foods and what was available. They were able to buy enough from farmers for them to feel comfortable making the switch to organic, and they were able to convince beef suppliers to raise cows with no hormones or antibiotics. Because of asking for these kinds of products and having enough stores to sell high enough quantities, the market changed. Now, all grocery stores can carry organic versions of every type of food because more is being produced all across the country. My current wish is that this interest in organic supply would reach further into wine production. Another interesting, but unsettling to me, change in grocery shopping noted in the book is the rising demand for prepared foods. I find it sad to see this happen as more and more people place less priority on cooking for themselves. Ruhlman explains the details of how stores make these changes to what they offer and the challenges they face. As usual, his writing is full of insight and wit, and his personal experiences add to story being told. I might be one of the pickiest or most demanding grocery shoppers out there, but I do appreciate being able to find black and white sesame seeds along with chickpea flour, coconut oil, and almond milk yogurt, all preferably organic, all in one place. I definitely couldn’t have found all those things in one store if at all back when I first moved to Austin.
To make these squash falafel, first the acorn squash was halved, cleaned of seeds, and roasted until tender. The flesh was scraped from the skins and mashed in a mixing bowl. Chickpea flour, chopped parsley and cilantro, minced garlic, ground cumin and cayenne, and lemon juice were added. The mixture was shaped into little balls that were rolled in the black and white sesame seeds before being placed on a baking sheet with melted coconut oil. The balls were rolled in the oil on the sheet pan and were baked for 20 minutes. They were turned halfway through baking, and the turning flattened the shape a bit. Almond milk yogurt was mixed with chopped mint and a little more lemon juice.
I liked that with almond milk yogurt, this was a vegan meal. The herbs and spices flavored the mashed squash well, and the sesame seeds gave the falafel nice crunch. I garnished them with some pomegranate seeds that came from my own dwarf shrub. I love walking outside and harvesting edible things in my own yard and bringing home all the seasonal goodies from our area farms. But, I do hope our grocery stores continue to offer all the other stuff demanding shoppers like me want to cook with too.
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Whether they’re regional specialties or family favorites, sandwiches are well-loved in many sizes, flavors, and forms, and there’s a new book completely devoted to them. The Encyclopedia of Sandwiches is by Susan Russo from Food Blogga, and the photography is by Matt Armendariz from Matt Bites. I’ve known about this book for a while since I had the pleasure of testing a recipe for it, and I recently received a review copy. The sandwiches appear in the book in alphabetical order, and there are options made with waffles, bagels, doughnuts, English muffins, cookies, pound cake, rolls, buns, and many, many different types of bread. There’s also background information on where types of sandwiches originated and suggested alternative fillings in some cases. I was unfamiliar with a few of them like the chow mein sandwich and the chip butty, but there are also well-known favorites like the dagwood, the po’boy, and sliders. There are breakfast sandwiches like the Denver sandwich and the classic breakfast sandwich on an English muffin, there’s dessert with the pound cake sandwich and the ice cream sandwich, and there are classics like the Elvis and the lobster roll. It’s a fun book to peruse for sandwich ideas, and everything is so beautifully presented, I was instantly hungry when I started turning pages. The falafel pitas was my first stop since I can’t resist the mix of crunchy fried patties and cool, crisp toppings.
The sandwich recipe itself is followed by one for quick and easy falafel which involves using canned chickpeas rather than soaked, dried beans. To make the falafel, minced onion and garlic were briefly sauteed before being added to a food processor with rinsed and drained canned chickpeas, chopped parsley and cilantro, cumin, cayenne, and salt. Flour and baking powder were added, and the mixture was pulsed until it formed a paste. Then, balls were shaped from the mixture, they were rolled in sesame seeds, and they were flattened before being fried for a few minutes. I also followed the recipe in the book for tzatziki, and that was a quick mix of diced cucumber, Greek yogurt, lemon juice, salt, cayenne pepper, and fresh mint. The sandwiches were built in halved pita with falafel patties, some tahini, chopped lettuce, cherry tomatoes, and tzatziki.
Pita is such a perfect container for a sandwich. In the book, it’s also used for kofta pockets and spiedini pockets. Here, the falafel fit nicely with the toppings and tzatziki, and it’s just enough bread without being too much. The flavors and textures and the hot and the cold made this great. Now, I’m eyeing the toasted chocolate sandwich, or maybe next I should try the torta or the pepper and egg sandwich. With so many good options, I'll being trying lots of different sandwiches soon.
In the May issue of Saveur, Anya von Bremzen wrote about living and eating in Istanbul. The pastries, like baked rice pudding, looked wonderful, and the mezes including salt pickled vegetables and a baba-gannouj-like dip looked great too. The stuffed eggplant caught my eye, and then I noticed this tomato salad with herbs and pomegranate. I guessed that this would be brightly flavored and fresh and have a nice, tanginess. It was suggested as a garnish for falafel, and that sounded perfect. I don’t know terribly much about Turkish food, but I’ve been learning from Give Recipe and Turkish Food Passion. Every time I visit those sites, I see dishes I want to try.
This salad is a combination of several chopped, fresh tomatoes, a lot of flat-leaf parsley, mint, some onion, fresh thyme, paprika, lemon juice, scallions, banana peppers, a little garlic, and pomegranate molasses. It’s garnished with ground sumac. When I read that ingredient list, I imagined all those flavors mingled together and couldn’t wait to try it. I used a falafel recipe from Epicurious, but I’m not sure if proper Turkish falafel is prepared in a different way. At any rate, the salad and falafel made a very nice pair. I whipped up a tahini, yogurt, lemon sauce and served a mound of salad with falafel sitting on top and plopped a little sauce in the center.
Both the falafel and salad recipes make enough to serve six, so after having this for dinner, there was plenty remaining for a few lunches. To describe the salad, I keep coming back to the freshness of it. The herbs and lemon and scallions did that for it, and the pomegranate molasses, although subtle, added a nice tangy sweetness. The flavors were so right with the chickpeas, onion, cumin, and coriander in the falafel. This is a definite keeper, and some day when I’ve practiced more with Turkish cuisine, I hope to be able to prepare an entire feast.
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by Michael Ruhlman of which I received a review copy. The book is a broad reflection on grocery shopping and how it has evolved from its beginning, but it’s also a look at what customers expect from grocery stores and how that changes with trends that come and go. I admit to feeling a little hometown pride in reading about the history of Whole Foods Market and how they were able to change the landscape of organic foods and what was available. They were able to buy enough from farmers for them to feel comfortable making the switch to organic, and they were able to convince beef suppliers to raise cows with no hormones or antibiotics. Because of asking for these kinds of products and having enough stores to sell high enough quantities, the market changed. Now, all grocery stores can carry organic versions of every type of food because more is being produced all across the country. My current wish is that this interest in organic supply would reach further into wine production. Another interesting, but unsettling to me, change in grocery shopping noted in the book is the rising demand for prepared foods. I find it sad to see this happen as more and more people place less priority on cooking for themselves. Ruhlman explains the details of how stores make these changes to what they offer and the challenges they face. As usual, his writing is full of insight and wit, and his personal experiences add to story being told. I might be one of the pickiest or most demanding grocery shoppers out there, but I do appreciate being able to find black and white sesame seeds along with chickpea flour, coconut oil, and almond milk yogurt, all preferably organic, all in one place. I definitely couldn’t have found all those things in one store if at all back when I first moved to Austin. 
is by Susan Russo from 
Both the falafel and salad recipes make enough to serve six, so after having this for dinner, there was plenty remaining for a few lunches. To describe the salad, I keep coming back to the freshness of it. The herbs and lemon and scallions did that for it, and the pomegranate molasses, although subtle, added a nice tangy sweetness. The flavors were so right with the chickpeas, onion, cumin, and coriander in the falafel. This is a definite keeper, and some day when I’ve practiced more with Turkish cuisine, I hope to be able to prepare an entire feast.