Falafel pre frying
We had a Middle Eastern dinner tonight, complete with falafel, homemade pita bread, homemade hummus and stuffed olives (accompanied with seltzer water + cranberry juice). It was my first time making falafel and it was a hit! I found a great recipe at Epicurious.com. I didn’t have any parsley or cilantro, so I used arugula and lettuce from our garden in the backyard. It was still just as tasty, but I bet with a slightly different and more subtle flavor (not as bold as cilantro + parsley).
Homemade hummus
I also learned something about pita breads. Pita dough is very sensitive to oven temperature. Too hot will make the dough cook too quickly, causing the dough to set before it has a chance to rise enough to get the pita to be an actual pocket. Too cool will make the dough not hot enough to rise, and therefore, stick to itself and either not rise at all or rise in random spots, not the whole pita. Here’s what pita baked at just the right temperature look like:
Pita bread in the baking...
So, we ate the pita pockets stuffed with falafel, diced tomatoes, green peppers, onions, ground beef (leftover taco beef), and diluted tahini. The falafel was a hit was all gone by the end of dinner. So much for leftovers for lunch!
I also had a chance to finish the “back” of big N’s sweater today. It is going to be a jungle green/grey striped turtleneck. I am excited to see the end product. The pattern I’m using is one for a crewneck sweater. I am going to make up my own pattern for the turtleneck part. We’ll see how it goes. I’m planning on starting the front this weekend. Here’s what it looks like so far:
