Falafel Wraps

After a recent weekend of unhealthy eating, I was hoping to have a healthy vegetarian meal for dinner but also didn't want to go food shopping. Chickpeas are a staple in my pantry; I love them in hummus, salads, and even just roasted, but I've never tried to make falafel. The recipe I was interested in called to bake them, but a certain someone thought they would taste better fried (he was probably right). So, caution was thrown to the wind and the falafel was pan-fried in a teensy bit of oil then served with stir-fried peppers, tomatoes, feta and tzatziki sauce in flour tortillas (since I was out of pitas and not wanting to go to the store). If you aren't familiar with tzatziki sauce, I highly recommend giving it a try. I actually can't believe that I haven't yet blogged about it. It's a delicious cucumber/dill/yogurt sauce typically served on Greek gyros; however I've found that it adds a cool freshness to many dishes, including this one.

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Food Challenge Day 5 - Antipasti Sammiches

We've reached the end! The pinnacle of the Food Challenge! And we made it out unscathed!

This is actually the recipe that wasn't officially part of the "Grocery Bag" feature, but it was another recipe in the issue that I thought looked darn tasty, and boy was I right! It is a perfect make-the-night-before sandwich for a picnic or boatride, since the recipe actually requires you to let the flavors meld for a few hours. I made these on Tuesday night for a Wednesday Levon Helm show at Wolftrap (which was great, btw). I served them with a corn and tomato salad as well as several apps. I'm sure the recipe can be modified per your taste; next time I'd love to try pepperjack cheese instead of parmesan. It's one of the more complicated sandwiches I've made, requiring more than just slapping ingredients from the fridge directly onto toasted bread and inhaling, but it's well worth the effort.

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Food Challenge Day 4 - Tomato Panzanella

This 4th-day recipe was the one about which I was most nervous. I've never made a dish that consisted of just tomatoes and croutons, and I was skeptical. I made it as a side dish for a friend's backyard crab party and it ended up being a perfect light addition to the meal. I will no longer doubt such recipes! The simple ingredients combined perfectly in a manner that allowed the delicate flavors to stand out.

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Food Challenge Day 3 - Veggie Couscous Salad

In the past I have opined on my love for Israeli couscous, so you can imagine my excitement when day three of the Everyday Food challenge brought more of it into my life. Tonight's dinner was quick, healthy, nutty, and overall quite flavorful. While it's very hard to pick favorites, I would highly recommend this recipe over, say, the sesame chicken salad from yesterday. You can always substitute regular couscous or orzo for the Israeli couscous, but I would not appreciate it.

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Food Challenge Day 2 - Sesame Chicken Salad

Day two of the Everyday Food mag challenge brought us a delicious Asian flair with a simple sesame chicken salad. It should be noted that all of these recipes take 30 minutes or less to prepare and cook depending on how fast of a chopper you are, making them great for those weeknights when you don't want to wait for your dinner.

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Quake!!!

Unless you are living in another region or under a rock, you probably know that a 3.6 magnitude earthquake hit our area this morning at 5:04am. Crazy!

WaPo has an article about it and an interesting user-created Google Map where you can add a placemark if you felt the rumble.

This was my first experience with an earthquake and it turns out that I do not handle them very well.

The shudder woke me up out of a dead sleep and I must have been dreaming something scary because when I looked over at the hallway, the reddish glow of the bathroom nightlight made my brain go "FIRE!" I jumped out of bed yelling "Oh my god fire fire fire!" and running over to the stairs to investigate. Don jumped up, freaked out by my freak-out, but almost immediately realized that I had lost it and started trying to calm me down. My brain did click on after about 10 seconds but it took me quite some time to relax.

Amazingly, the cats didn't seem the least bit disturbed by the quake. I think I spooked them more with my yelling! However, they didn't hesitate to jump back into bed with me and cuddle me back to sanity.

Did you feel the quake?

Food Challenge Day 1 - Pasta Salad

Day One of the food challenge called for a summer pasta salad with shrimp. This is where I decided to cheat. Don is allergic to shrimp so I substituted it for prosciutto I had in the fridge and it worked out excellently. I also added artichokes, feta and omitted a some other ingredients. Regardless of variation, this recipe is incredibly fresh and summery; I encourage you to play around with it and add any veggies you want. The day I made it I had just purchased an official Microplane grater so I got to test it out with the lemon zest. That thing is AMAZING. If you don't have one, get one. Now.

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Everyday Food Challenge

I always look forward to my Martha Stewart Everyday Food magazine. It's nice and compact and has great recipe ideas, all of which are relatively quick and easy. It's not a recipe book for crazy exotic food, but it has lots of great spins on classics including many healthy ideas. If you don't get this magazine, I definitely recommend it especially since it's only $10 per year!

Each issue has a "Grocery Bag" feature, in which you'll find a convenient rip-out grocery list containing ingredients for 5 quick weeknight meals. I've always wanted to try it but never got around to it until this week.

So! This week I'll be cooking the recipes from the July/August issue, although I must confess that I'm omitting one and I've already modified another so I'm cheating a little bit. I did "replace" the omitted one with another recipe from the same issue; I think it counts.

I plan to post on each of these recipes in the next week. All of the recipes can be found on her website so I don't think I'm breaking the law by posting them.... I hope. Enjoy!

Chowdaaaaa

While chowder isn't necessarily the most summery dish, when you include seasonal crab and corn in the mix it counts as a hot-weather meal. Also, it's delicious.

I found this recipe for Crabby Corn Chowder from a blog called sticky gooey creamy chewy; I haven't tried any other recipes on the site but the name alone makes me think they'd all be great.

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Roasted Red Pepper Mussels with Linguine

Now that I'm back from an amazingly relaxing July 4th in the Catskills, I'll try to get up to speed with this whole blog thing.

Last week was attempt #2 with mussels. Attempt #1 was a complete failure after I was sold bad mussels at a local grocery store which will remain unnamed. They were all already opened and smelled like the Long Island Sound during those hot summer low tides. Not good.

This time, I didn't take any chances and stopped at Cameron's seafood on Rockville Pike near my office. I bought a pound of mussels for $4.99, not too shabby! Mussels should either be closed or if slightly opened, when tapped against something, they should close back up. In other words, they should still be alive when you buy them. They should smell like the ocean but in a good way, not in a dead-fish kind of way. I debearded them and soaked them in cold water while I prepared the rest of the meal. Mussels may have a hairy clump (beard) sticking out the side; all you do is grab hold of it and tear but be careful not to rip out the whole animal. It should come off relatively easily. They are very easy too cook: just throw in your broth of choice (so many recipes out there!) and steam until they open. Mussels that do not open should be tossed.

For this meal, I cooked them in a roasted red pepper tomato sauce and served with linguine.

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