I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Falafel!

            There is a Turkish food truck at my school that has ignited in me a wild and raging love of falafel. It’s basically fried hummus that you can top with delicious sauces and then wrap in warm flatbread and eat on the go. Seriously, what’s not to love? It’s also a great vegetarian staple because it’s so protein filled. I knew that when I saw Moosewood’s “Felafel” recipe, I would have to try it ASAP. (P.S. I looked up the spelling “felafel” because I’d never seen it written that way. Google autocorrected me to “falafel”, so I guess Moosewood’s spelling is for artistic intrigue.)

            In addition to these adorable little chickpea patties, I made lemon-tahini sauce (tahini is a sesame seed paste that is often found in Mediterranean/Middle Eastern food, especially hummus) and pita bread. The overall meal took a long time to make mostly because you have to let the pita dough rise.

Now, when I first read that instruction it puzzled me because I thought pita was what you ate during Passover to symbolize what the Isrealites ate when they left Egypt in such a hurry and didn’t have time to let their dough rise. That bread is called matzah, which is really just flour and water. It’s crispier than regular bread (yeast is what makes bread fluffy! Who knew??) and is almost like a cracker or wafer rather than bread. So even though pita is a flatbread, since it has yeast in it, it is technically leavened bread and needs time to “rise”. And it’s not what you eat on Passover.

Pre-Risen Pita Dough

So I passed the time working on the falafel and sauce. Also eating the falafel and then restraining myself from eating the rest of it immediately. The patties were super simple to make. Basically just chickpeas with some lemon juice and spices all mashed together. I caved and used my blender this time—a fantastic decision, though really irritating to try to clean. I also added quite a lot of parsley so the final mixture came out looking kind of like guacamole. The patties take a long time to fry all the way through and my first few were still gooey in the middle. It tastes absolutely fine either way, but the less cooked ones are harder to eat. I was wary of cooking them too long though because I’ve had falafel that is totally dry and mealy, so I wanted mine to stay moist.

Falafel patties!

I also used the blender for the lemon tahini sauce, so it took about 2 minutes. The tahini I bought looked like natural peanut butter, and it actually has almost the same taste. Blended with a lot of lemon juice, the sauce has a nice little tang. Definitely make it with enough time to chill though. I tasted it when it first came out of the blender and it’s not very good warm. I kept it refrigerated right up until it was time to eat it and it was much better. I do wish it were creamier though. Moosewood mentions that earlier recipes included yogurt or milk, but this one was dairy free. It was kind of a weird consistency and not as light as I was expecting. You can also make it with more water, which might help make it less intense in flavor and more refreshing.

The pita, though delectable, is really just obnoxious to make. If I was smart, I would’ve made the dough much earlier and let it rise while I was doing work. But I was out of my apartment for most of the afternoon, so I didn’t really have an opportunity. The pita recipe is also full of weird instructions. After you bake them, you’re supposed to wrap them in a clean towel and then put them in a brown paper bag. Apparently this makes/keeps them soft until you’re ready to eat. It isn’t just a weird Moosewood trick either; several other Internet recipes I found had the same instruction. My first few did not quite puff up enough in the oven. The smaller ones did, but the larger ones weren’t popping. I think part of the problem was that the oven was not fully preheated when I put them in. Also, I might not have rolled them out thin enough, because Moosewood said to bake them for 6-8 minutes, but mine were in there for almost 10. But the important part is that they still tasted like heaven.

Before...

…After! 

I would call this a pretty winning dinner both in taste and ease to cook. Recipe counter: 5/241. Over 2% done!

Day 1

Well I’ve officially started! Dinner tonight is Brazilian Black Bean Soup and Mexican Corn Bread. I guess I should’ve put more thought into what I picked for my inaugural dinner, but really I just chose recipes for which I already had most of the ingredients. Also, the weather is starting to turn chilly, and so soup seemed like the perfect idea.

Artsy, slightly blurry, picture of the ingredients

            Both recipes were simple, even though I’ve never made soup from scratch before and only made bread once. They were easy to follow, but I’m learning a lot as well. Based on this recipe and how it’s turned out—as well as other recipes I’ve looked more in depth at now—I’m realizing that I probably should invest in an immersion blender/food processor. I have a normal upright blender, but I don’t think it would work effectively for these kinds of things. The soup is supposed to be a bit thicker than mine turned out, despite my attempts to mash everything together. I also need to buy a ladle, but that’s just for convenience purposes.

The recipe also calls for half a cup of orange juice, which you can’t really taste, but the smell is quite strong and not really that appetizing. There were also optional tomatoes, which I did not include, but I think it would be better with them.

The cornbread is amazing though! Moosewood has a couple variations on the cornbread recipe and I made the one with cheese and frozen corn. My whole apartment smells amazing. This is definitely on the make again (and again and again!) list.

So I’ve got some lovely soup and incredible bread to munch on for the rest of the week! 2 down, 239 to go!

Introduction

To answer your first question: yes. This blog is a complete rip off of the “Julie/Julia Project” blog. To answer your second question (if you know me in person): no, I don’t hate cooking. I just don’t really know what I’m doing. 

Now, I’ll be honest, I’ve only seen the Amy Adams/Meryl Streep movie adaptation of “The Julie/Julia Project”, so some of my conjectures below could be complete bull. But based on what I’ve seen, I think the connection between Julie Powell’s blog and my own goes beyond just the name and basic premise. Though Julie was an experienced cook and I have just barely broken in my wooden spoons, I am learning to enjoy cooking. I consider myself an artsy-craftsy person, so I guess it shouldn’t surprise anyone that making something with my own hands would excite me, including food.

            Julie Powell was at a place in her life where she was sort of trapped and a bit lost: about to turn 30, an aspiring writer, but stuck working a temp job in order to make money, and watching everyone around her take steps forward in their lives. Her blog was a way to ground herself and find comfort.

I am currently a college senior studying psychology and education. I am not actually graduating this upcoming May because I’m in a five-year Masters degree program. Instead I will make the switch from undergrad to graduate student, and then again to full time student teacher.  Despite being on the cusp of so many changes, I think this project could serve the same purpose for me as it did for Julie. Change is overwhelming and even though I know I’ll be in the same city next year, I still often feel lost about my life. Making a commitment like this, and eventually completing a project this big will definitely make me feel grounded and give me a break from my otherwise crazy complicated life.

So let’s get the details straight. I am giving myself 365 days to cook my way through the 241 recipes in Mollie Katzen’s The New Moosewood Cookbook. According to its back cover, it “was listed by the New York Times as one of the top ten best-selling cookbooks of all time”. It has only vegetarian recipes—no big deal for me as I made the switch to vegetarianism about 16 months ago—and even includes some photos and illustrations of the food.

I picked this book because my mom owns the original one and recommended it to me when I moved into my current apartment. She cooks from her copy quite a lot and one of my favorite dishes of hers is adapted from a Moosewood recipe. I’ve only barely glanced through my new copy purchased through the wonder of Amazon Prime, but it seems straightforward enough. I don’t anticipate too much trouble figuring out how to actually follow any of the recipes.

But why a cooking project? It’s not like “Julie & Julia” is my all time favorite movie or I’ve just suddenly been inspired by it. It came out like four years ago and I don’t even really like it that much. But I picked food because my cooking experience is pretty minimal. I'm working from a blank slate. I almost never cooked for myself growing up because my family lives on the campus of a boarding school and we would eat at the school’s dining hall. My mom is great cook, but really only cooks sparingly—read: whenever the dining hall was closed.

I don’t ever really remember being interested in learning how to cook as a younger kid, and as a high schooler I was adamantly against it. My mom did manage to teach me some basics though. I can make grilled cheese and pasta. I can make about anything from a box or can. I can make some really excellent chocolate chip cookies, though when my sister uses the same recipe they always taste about a thousand times better and I don’t understand why. And my dad even taught me how to make both scrambled and poached eggs in the microwave. Actually, until I watched “Julie & Julia”, I didn’t even know there was another way to make poached eggs because I’d only ever used our little microwave thingy.

            When I came to college, I moved into a dorm that was equidistant from two campus dining halls and in between a coffee shop and 2 snack bars, both open until 2am. Needless to say, I fully embraced my required meal plan. For the next two years, I continued to live in a dorm sans kitchen and also had (smaller) meal plans. This gave me the opportunity to perfect the art of dorm room cooking, using only a mini-fridge, microwave, and electric kettle. I can make a mean microwaved baked potato, but in all honesty, I pretty much survived on PB+J, pasta and pesto, hummus, and eating out at restaurants. But I would like to say, with pride, that I have never made Ramen Noodles!

This summer, I moved into my first apartment, with my very first kitchen. Really it’s more like something you’d find in a mid-level hotel suite, but it’s my kitchen and I love it all the same. I have a half size oven/stove combo, but I can still use my normal size pans if I turn them long-ways. I have a full size fridge and freezer, which is good because my dad instantly nabbed the mini-fridge as the new beer cooler at home. A combination of hand-me-downs, gifts, and Target shopping trips outfitted the kitchen with the tools needed for pretty much any culinary project you could think of.

The word "adorable" comes to mind 

So far, using only the Internet and hope as my guides, I wouldn’t say I’ve really had any cooking “disasters”, but I haven’t really been too adventurous. I cook 2-3 dinners a week for myself (beans and quinoa are my staple!) and eat leftovers or simple things like sandwiches or pasta for lunch. I try to limit how much I eat out, because money, but I know I still spend more than I should. 

            So, at the risk of becoming another one of those 20-somethings with a blog (barf), I will, for the next 365 days and 241 recipes, embark on a journey to both expand my horizons and develop some roots. As a cooking noob, I hope this blog will help me learn—and learn to appreciate—this valuable (and delicious) life skill. I’m nervous, and frankly, I don’t really know if I can do it. But I’m gonna give it a try! What have I got to lose, really?